Experiments in gender equality

My current underlying philosophy of life is around the equality of sexes. It’s opened me up to a different dimension – one where I am suddenly seeing in everyday life the subtle nuances of stereotyping. The more I see of this, the more I come back to the belief that its individualism over generalization that is the truth.

There was a moment last week where I had a person whom I held in really high esteem attribute something I did to “a pretty face and a smile”. Not only was I upset at the references that made to my competence, but also to the competence, ethics and personality of my work colleague, who had helped me on that task – whom I know without a doubt, would do the same for anyone, because he is a good person and willing to help. Not because of a pretty face and a smile.

I've decided to call references to sexism when I get them, because sometimes people just don’t realize how ingrained they are, or have not had reason to challenge their beliefs. At the end, I agreed that a smile did help, but offered a gender neutral alternate – yes, you do get further with a “pretty face and a smile” but I’d like to change that to a sincere heart and a smile, and not limit it to women – anyone gets further with a smile and an effort to connect with someone else.

Calling someone on a discriminatory remark, I've realized, should not seem like an accusation. I've found that people need reason and opportunity to question their assumptions. A non threatening “Why do you think that?”, is more effective in leading to a conversation around the roots of assumption, than a strong, passionate, “What exactly do you mean by that?”. A conversation with a single person who has an influence on you is all that is needed to start the train of thought and give it a different track from its usual route.

I had a similar experience at an interview for a gender diversity role in a large IT company. I knew nothing about the job, but was keen to explore the potential that it offered. The company was not known for its flexible policies, so we got around to talking about this, as one of the key criterion to retaining women later in their careers. He remarked that it was something that was necessary for women. My own son was not past a year then, and my husband plays a very active role in care-giving. I replied that it was necessary for any primary caregiver to have flexibility in order to do justice to being a parent and performing well at a job. To encourage more women to stay at work, it was equally important for working dads to have flexibility. It’s ironic that I turned down the job with some regret because my kid was too young and the travel time was too much.

But hey, I’m no saint. I’m a perpetrator too. My husband called me on a stereotype recently. We were buying a gift for my nephew, and he suggested a car. Without thinking, I said “No, he’s not really a ‘boy’ boy”. Being called on my statement, I realized that all I actually meant that he just wasn't very interested in cars. That’s what I should have said; and I then decided then to make a more conscious effort to focus on the person and who they are as an individual over their gender.  

The neutralization of popular gender stereotype references helps. Choose ‘parent’ over ‘mother’ or ‘father’. A pretty face and a smile to a pleasant personality and a smile. Working parent over working mom. Partner over husband or wife.

My two year old son has very few girls his age in his life. One day at a friend’s house, he referred to her daughter’s toy as ‘his toy’. And when he’s angry with me, he sometimes calls me “you bad boy”. So I began the first step in teaching a child that there are two sexes – girls and boys. I wonder - how far can we take neutralization? As far as not needing a separate pronoun? How do I balance the need to acknowledge the differences with the need to stress that they’re not important? I've got no solution here. Thoughts, anyone?