Matriarchy or Gender Equality
Finding solutions to our social problems
On Saturday a stunning photo of Helen Mirren in short platinum blond hair and tight black leather appeared in my feed. The caption read One Day An Army of Furious Older Woman Will Take Over The World.
I have hundreds of strong women on my friends list, so that post screamed to be shared. I didn’t think twice before my finger made it to that share button and tapped. Then I crawled into bed.
If you are a social media junkie, you’ll understand the weakness. In fact, we may even share the same weakness. It’s that I can’t stop sharing memes that resonate with me. And there are so many of them. I’ve tried to rein in the automatic reflex. The pointer finger reflex…you know the one. It serves as a reminder of something I learned years ago as a student of dance. Muscles have memory.
Sunday morning I woke up to an emotional online response from a male friend. He was understandably annoyed with that post. Now, I am the type of person who never wants to offend people, especially someone I have a connection to — whether they be friends or family.
David voiced his opinion that women are not the only gender that gets a bad deal. He said men face the same struggles as women do.
I would never deny that males struggle over similar issues. But when it comes to body image, I would bet my right arm that females are at the top of the anxiety scale. Sure, some males may feel a bit anxious that their physique does not meet the standard level of acceptability. But in terms of scale and degree of anxiety, I’d say females are at the top, wouldn’t you?
But back to David’s response to that meme about women ruling the world. He also recalled being in female CEO-led workplaces that were no better than those led by male CEOs. Undeniably, females in top positions can make life as miserable for the workers as males can.
For these and more reasons, David believes that if women were to take over the world things would remain the same.
With respect to women in top corporate positions, David’s experience aligns with what I’ve read about the phenomenon of certain females in executive positions. They tend to demonstrate character traits typically seen in males. It’s logical to think that those are the very traits that qualify them as competitors for those positions in the first place.
Of course not all women fall into this category, and neither do all men fall into the “sexist boar” category. In other words, power hungry, self-serving, uncaring individuals exist in both genders.
Later Sunday morning I got another Facebook ping on that post. It was soon clear that she had read the commanding headline, but not the short article that accompanied it. She at once agreed with David, stating there are many examples of female favoritism in society.
That meme grabbed my new reader by the throat and shook her silly. It triggered thoughts that were not directly related to the idea that One Day An Army of Furious Older Woman Will Take Over The World.
“But…why not entertain it,” I thought, “this is kind of fun. Besides, I started this landslide of emotion. Let’s see where it all goes”.
Her comments were still relevant. They just didn’t relate directly to my post. But they did relate to a blatant imbalance in the way gender is perceived in our society. The idea in the headline (women ruling the world) is a gender issue too…so in a way this all connects.
The reader cited some sobering facts like that many more males go missing, get murdered, and get raped annually than females. She was clearly referring to a high-profile investigation currently underway in our province of British Columbia.
Police are investigating multiple cases of missing or murdered female aboriginals. There is no equivalent investigation into missing boys and men. All of those facts she cited broke my heart.
That investigation of missing and murdered indigenous girls and women, by the way, is a result of long years of lobbying. Families of many of those missing demanded investigations, and the government finally responded.
Let’s loop back to the idea of women ruling the world. In the blueprint of a true matriarchal society, many traits seen in this people wouldn’t be appropriate or valued. It’s undeniable that not all individuals are cut out to be leaders. That fact crosses ALL gender lines, which means not only female and male, but also our LGBTQ brothers and sisters.
Character traits typically demonstrated by females like caring and compassion are generally associated with “maternal instinct”. That’s not to say some males don’t have those traits. But these qualities aren’t dominant among males like they are among females.
So do I think having a matriarchy…a kind of shangri-la where women rule the world would put a stop to our social problems? Not for a second.
I agree with David that we need to instead “push for sexual blindness” in our society, and stop gender wars in the process. I think we are witnessing this in small droplets now. It’s going to take a lot of time and patience. But my hope is that the droplets will not stop until all society is drenched in “sexual blindness”.
The way I see it, David’s view represents a significant percentage of our population. On Monday, when he was feeling less emotional about the idea of matriarchy, David eloquently commented “I’ve had enough war. I need peace — the kind we get when we are empathetic to each other based on the fact that we’re alive. And that is enough for entrance into the club”.
