Thursday, December 25, 2008

What Women Want; by Patricia Ireland.

Dignity, Justice, Security, Humanity, and a civilised society. Being able to live without fear of the fellow men or afraid of being perceived as objects, and finding love without fear of being treated as those that are rightfully duped or fearlessly attacked - that would be roughly the agenda.

Equal pay for equal work and rewards for ability would be the goal every human aspires to and women are denied generally without men and frequently women seeing any injustice in this unequal view, since most peoples' perception is blinded by the overwhelming attention they pay to gender.

Think how famous a Bobbit or a Kiranjit Ahluwalia is, and then think of how many men you personally know to have brutalised their wives and children, and justified it.

Think of your own response to the sexual harrassment of an employee by an employer - when the former is a female you think, why does she not leave such a job, she deserves it or maybe she wants it, after all she is putting herself out there for money and risking her goodness as a woman by going amongst men. But when the latter is a woman, and the former is a male, he gets to throw the whole shebang at her of course, no one would say he ought to leave and find another job.

Or think Fatal Attraction - what if the tables were turned, what if the erring partner in the marriage was a woman and the lover came after her because they were expecting a baby together? Would he die, murdered by her, encouraged by her husband?

Most cases it is not that drastic, it is about seeing things for what they are, without prior prejudice along what institutions insist on gender roles. Fairness is what women want, and love - or the possibility of growing it; a life for all of humanity without fear of half the humanity.