On Equality
After just finishing Gombrich’s A Little History and just beginning Caro’s The Power Broker, after recalling name after name and era after era of people who created history, and wondering again and again what all the women were up to… Is this the crux of it: That men view survival of the race as their own survival, and women view it as protecting the survival of others? That women, as the bearers of humans, were genetically, hormonally, physically, neurologically designed to prioritize others over herself? And because that order, that “you then me” is not how power and influence in our society is built, then women are lower. Is this the definition of patriarchy we should actually be focusing on? The innate maleness of “me, then oh ya, you I guess”? I have for myself and at my choosing, I bestow to you? Is it why we should hate the phrase “empowering women?” Is that why I instinctually would rather meet other people’s needs first, before even defining what mine are? And is that why, then, I have made less progress in my own development and career than men and the women who think like men in this way?
