Lately, as a woman there seems to be very little to celebrate what with the reveals about the pay gap (200 years to bridge it some predict), the abuse scandals from the most glamourous of industries to the most philanthropic, gender identification/transformation and its ramifications, and the ongoing persistent pressures of poverty, patriarchy and politics.
I’m not thinking that the place would be miraculously better if more women were in charge, to paraphrase Madeline Albright, ‘I went to a convent school’; however as co-creators of human kind, we have to be co-creators of the change. As the mother of two boys, this resonates poignantly. Sometimes it is blatant as challenging my younger son when he says ‘Mummy, you’re a girl, so you like pink, right?’. Other times it is more complex, for example, I want to teach my older son that it is polite to open a door for a girl to precede him. When he tires this one girl snaps that she can do it herself. When he fails to do it for a second girl, she eye rolls him and mumbles under her breath to her friends. His verdict is girls can’t seem to make up their minds.
But if it were easy, we’d have had it all sorted by now, right? I am aware of my position of privilege and prosperity relative to millions of other women in the world but it does not immunise me against attacks on my femaleness.
Yesterday, it was suggested I move from my bigger-door-facing-corner-desk to a much smaller-back-to-door-desk to accommodate a relatively new male colleague. He did it through a female colleague who has wasta. I just about stopped myself approaching him to ask ‘Are you being a dick because you have one?’
But one of my favourite sayings from my place of birth and personal modus operandus is ‘playing dead to catch cobo (corbeau-vulture in French) alive’. So, I agreed to move because now he thinks he can manipulate me into doing some of his work for him (I’ve researched him and his ways) because I’m easygoing and flexible.
And it is these mind games and the quantum of personal energy required that has my gender-kind calling foul. But as those philosophers of the street have repeatedly exhorted us ‘don’t hate the player, change the game.’ And yes we can change the game, by choosing which games we are willing to engage in. My older son would love to play rugby, but he doesn’t because I don’t understand the rules and don’t have time to learn them. He plays football because I can explain the offside rule.
So here are the games I’m choosing to play, this is the press I am making for progress:
- Contributing to improvements in the services received by the population I serve
- Modelling appropriate behaviour for my sons
- Helping other women directly and indirectly with my time and my money
- Not judging other women on how they parent, dress, look
It’s a work in progress (especially the last one) as is gender equity but its work well worth doing. And I’m celebrating my personal contribution and that of others to the changes that have occurred and continue to happen.
How are you celebrating International Women’s Day?
