Tag Archives: gender

Act of “kindness” or simple misogyny?

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I recently heard of a female professional, who had been removed from the decision making process on a project without her knowledge. She was removed, without being consulted, because her older, male colleague “knew she was busy with her baby”.

Excuse me, but what could he possibly know about her needs, unless he spoke with her first? I know that for some women, becoming a mum takes up all their time, and all they want to do is taking care of their baby. For others, going back to work is a free choice, something they really want and need, not just for the money, but for their own sake. They want, and need, to continue a life where they are not “mum” all the time. And unless they are asking for a reduced workload, who is to decide what is best for them?

Maybe this male professor thought he was being nice, but the truth is, he wasn’t. He was infantilizing his younger, female colleague, deciding in his own mind what was best for her. This is a very old fashioned way of thinking about professional life and motherhood at best, misogynistic at worst.

I have met men who thinks that women should be the primary caretaker of the children, and of the home. Well, I still haven’t seen any scientific proof that says that women are, by nature, better caretakers than men. It’s all about how we are raised, and the so-called values that society pass on from one generation to the next.

When I ask these men why women should be the primary caretaker regarding children, they don’t manage to present me with a good answer. It’s more like “it’s the way it is”, or “it’s the way it’s always been”.

Well, they might be right in the way that it’s been like this for a long time, but who decided in the first place that this should be the norm? Women have been working since the beginning, in the fields, in the mills, in the guest houses, later in the factories, the schools, the hospitals, and in the offices. In addition, most of them are also the main responsible for the childcare and housework. Yes, it’s a big burden to carry.

But instead of a man making decisions, once again, about what women need or want, they should ask themselves how both parties can have a career and a family life, without one getting burned out, or one having to cut down on work to manage family logistics.

It might come as a surprise to some men, but many women would also like to advance in their career, without sacrificing having a family, or without having to employ someone else to take care of their children and house.

There’s a lot of talk about the importance of the mother’s presence in the early years of a child’s life, but equally important is the presence of the father. Children need several role figures in their lives, they need to see that gender is not what defines a persons ability to take care of them. When we keep reproducing the old fashioned stereotype that women should be home with the children, while the father is working, things will never change.

As different families have different needs at different times in life, I do favour free choice. But what concerns me, is that most of the time, this “free choice” results in women reducing their work time, or quitting all together, while the man continues like nothing has changed. (Having children is a true gamechanger!) Or he might even have to work more to compensate for the increased expenses coming with having children.

Which brings me to another point, the fact that men are systematically better paid than women. If you can’t afford childcare, and one parent has to stay home with the kids, who’s it gonna be? The one that earns less is the obvious choice. You don’t need to go to Harvard or Oxford to get that.

But why is it that women is systematically less paid? Is it another old fashioned thought behind? Stemming from the days pay was related to physical strength? And then continued when women started to work in offices, but only unmarried women were employable? Because they were forced to quit when they married, as from then on their responsibilities would be to care for their husband, their children and their home. Unmarried women back then usually lived with their parents, and like that less expenses, justifying less pay.

Also of importance is the way work-life is organised. You don’t get kids to put them in other peoples care from 7 in the morning till 7-8 in the evening. That means you never really see your kids awake. The less flexible working hours, the less people can make free choices when organising their private life. The Nordic countries have done a lot to accommodate work-life to family life, while most other countries still require that family life is adapted to work-life. Which in reality gives a lot of people little choice on how to manage their family life.

Still, when both parents manage to hold a job, and juggle as best they can, how arrogant is it for a male colleague to decide that his female colleague should be excluded from important aspects of their common project? She didn’t make any mistakes, didn’t complain about her work-load, she didn’t miss any deadlines. In my opinion his decision can’t be explained rationally, or justified. I worry for every woman returning to work after having a baby, because they risk being cut loose simply because “they are busy with a baby”. I have read stories about women coming back to work after giving birth, to find that their job is not really existing any more. Which is a cruel way to exclude them from the work-place.

This “a woman’s true place is in the home”-mentality has to change. Not just for the sake of women, but also for the sake of men. All the things they miss out on, because they have to work, work and work. And so much talent is wasted because women are pushed out of work-life.

We need both women and men in the work-place, as well as at home. Male executives, STOP making decisions over our heads, we are totally capable of taking care of ourselves, and we are damned good at logistics. Instead, work with us to change old fashioned mindsets and outdated structures in public policies and work-place policies. Men will benefit from it as much as women. Trust me.

Equality has yet to arrive…

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Despite what many people think, we are far from gender equality. Neither in the professional domain, or in the domestic. Women are still paid less than men. Sectors predominantly female, are less valued, and thus less paid, than male dominated sectors. Even after the Covid-pandemic, when the whole world was cheering for the nurses, little has happened to their working conditions and their pay check. Likewise when we speak about school/education. All politicians are very concerned about the level of their country’s students in international tests like the PISA, wanting to be the best, but when discussing the pay and working conditions of the teachers, it’s hard to find the money.

Our children’s education is what is going to get them jobs and income in the future, so why is it so hard to give a decent pay to the people whose responsibility it is to provide this education? Is it because it is predominantly women working in the (public) schools up to a certain level?

But it’s not just in public sector that there’s a gap between the genders in pay. It happens all over, also in the private sector and in the movie business to add a couple of examples. So no, equality at the workplace has not arrived.

The same is true when it comes to domestic life. Women still take on much more of the domestic chores and logistics, than the men, even when both parties are working full time.

As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, girls are still raised different than boys, in the respect of taking care of a household. And the women are punished much harder than men if things are not “up to standard” at home, being it cleanliness, homemade food, following up on birthdays and other anniversaries (both family and friends, and children’s friends).

Women are expected to drop whatever they are doing for the needs of anyone else. Children need attention? Mum is coming. Children need help with homework? One moment, darling, I’ll come help you. Child sick and home from school? Mum is usually the ones who stays home from work. Elderly family members need assistance? Be there as fast as I can.

This constant disruption of own activities, and work, is something women just accept. Like there is no alternative. And this constant rupture also influences women’s careers and pay check in the long run. Or, if they are really focused on juggling both family and career, they are often sacrificing almost everything else, like taking care of their own health, going out with friends, or just read a book on the sofa (a book that has nothing to do with work or childcare, but simply for entertainment).

Most mums I know are up and about, taking care of their family’s needs no matter their own condition. We pop an Advil, and get on with business as usual, because we are expected to do so.

Alright, the occasional Scandinavian reader might protest a bit. But don’t you forget that you’re in the lead. Here in France, things are rather different. Even if we have free childcare from 3 years (pre-school, not kindergarten), the children don’t go to school on Wednesdays. Or they finish at 12am that day. Meaning that parents have to organise one way or another; leisure clubs, grandparents or one parent stay at home every Wednesday. And guess who that usually is? It’s mum, of course.

Who is usually running to pick up their kids from after-school activities before it closes at 6.30 pm? Mum. Meaning that she has to adjust her work to fit the logistics of the family. Usually under the pretext that the husband is earning more, so again, no equality.

In other words: Women work for less pay in the workplace, they take more of the burden at home, and they run like Forrest Gump every day to be in the right place at the right time, and at the end of the day, they are punished economically for doing less professional work than the men, and so they have less pension. If all the “invisible” chores done by women every day were to count as workhours during a week, our pension would look very different.

If parents start to educate their children at home in the same manner, regardless of gender, I hope for a better future for both women and men. Because men are absolutely capable of doing the same tasks at home as the women they live with. Just like a woman can be an astronaut, a man can be a caretaker. A woman can use a screwdriver and an electric drill, just as a man can mop a floor and change diapers. If we raise our children to be independent in more ways than the economic sense, and encourage them to use a wider range of their capabilities, including their caretaking cababilities, equality between genders will arrive at a much faster pace.

Let us get rid of the stereotypes that says that a man should be the main breadwinner of the household, and the woman the primary caretaker, and instead create a better symbiosis between the genders.

I will write about that symbiosis in the near future. In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed reading, whether you agree or not. It’s possible to leave a comment on the subject J

Where are the women?

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So I had it confirmed finally, that feeling that things were not quite right in flim and tv-series. Today, I came across a column addressing the topic, and it referred to a study made by Dr. Martha M. Lauzen; It’s a Man’s (Celluloid) World, Even in a Pandemic Year: Portrayals of Female Characters in the Top U.S. Films of 2021.

I mean, you have probably noted it yourself, without giving it too much thought (at least it you are a woman yourself), that most films and tv-series you watch, are dominated by male characters. As a mother of two boys, I have seen my share of Marvel films the past few years. Loads of mostly white, strong guys, fighting some villain or several. The character “Black Widow” being a rare, female character. As a matter of fact, I got so fed up with this male, macho universe, that I told my boys and my husband that they can watch these films without me. I can’t stand it anymore.

We have also been through the whole bunch of Star Wars movies, several times, and not surprisingly perhaps, my favourite is “Rouge One” where we are introduced to the female character Ray. Equally not surprising perhaps, is the fact that this is not the favourite film of the rest of the family…

It’s a fact that I have a weakness for a variety of police/agent series, like NCIS, Hawaii Five-0, and New York Major Squad, to mention some. In all of them men are overrepresented compared to women. They do have female detectives and agents, playing central parts, but still, it’s rarely more than one female per team of 4-6 agents.

And it’s this that has been bugging me for some time. Why is it like this? Why this gross imbalance on average?

The column I read today also pointed to another interesting fact. The author had noted that the films Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and Turning Red, reviewed by males, were viewed as “overwhelmingly” female (Wakanda Forever), and “for relatively small audience” (Turning Red).

Wow! Just because they can’t, for once, identify with the leading character? I don’t know if I find it tragic or comic, that these men whine over these facts. I mean, I don’t expect a man in his 40’s to really identify with a girl growing into puberty, getting her period and experiencing all the hormones raging her body. But I do expect that he can appreciate a film that focus on something else than girls going teenage, wanting to be a perfect little woman pleasing everybody. Because that is how I often see girls portrayed in movies, glossy creatures with long, shiny hair and perfect skin. Well, mister, welcome to the real world! We are quite a few out here who appreciates new ways of presenting our gender!

Being underrepresented everywhere, I think we women are used to stretch our imagination to fit into a universe that often seems to ignore us. But it shouldn’t have to be that way. Girls growing up deserves heroes of their own, whom they can identify with, that look like them. We need more females of all ages on the screen, of all colours and all sizes. (I think our boys could need a bigger variety of shapes and colours to identify with as well). We need more multi-dimensional female characters, in all kinds of films and tv-series. We need more Dana Scullys and Rebeccas (from the 2013 movie “1000 times good night”). Rebecca is a photo journalist, travelling to war zones, while her husband is the one with local based work, taking care of their kids. I found that movie so inspiring! The roles were completely turned around, and I adored it. Because that it also how it can be. We are way too much told the story of the man with a career, and the woman sacrificing herself for the wellbeing of the rest of the family. I welcome every challenge to that image.

I do have to point out at the end, that there have been some rather fun movies presenting girls in a more interesting manner. When I grew up, it was with Pippi Longstockings, a rare female superhero at the time. Pippi really challenged the ideals of how girls should behave at the time (and still do). Recently, I watched Enola Holmes on Netflix, the two films, and I find them amusing and inspiring. And I like to present my boys with something other than the stereotype heroes they are used to from the Marvel universe. Boys, like girls, need the current stereotypes to be challenged. They need to see that there are many ways to live their lives, that humans are complex beings, not divided into “soft creatures” (women) and “tough heroes/villains” (men). Women can be tough, men are allowed to show feelings and cry. I wish we could see more of that, too. Not just in sentimental dramas, but in action movies as well. Why is it always the female characters that grab the box of Kleenex, while the men punch the wall?

Most of all, I would like to see more female, complex characters. The fact is that women makes up about half the population of this planet, but when watching movies we are reduced to a small minority. It’s time to do something about that.

Happy new year!