I think that for Family Relations, it's really important for us to not fall into the trap of political correctness all the time. In today's society we are so concerned with pleasing everyone and making everything equal. One way we try to do this is with gender. Movements such as feminism are so strongly bent on making it seem like men and women are completely equal but this movement in itself is skewed and flawed in a number of ways. For example, they want women to have the same job opportunity and salary but when it comes to the army or something that requires equal physical exertion, the testing requirements are lowered by them because they are not capable. So how is that equal?
Moving away from the political side of things I want to place emphasis on the biological and innate side of what makes men and women different. And they are different, it's a fact. This difference is not just in what identifiers we have on the outside. A documentary hosted by John Stossel discusses just these differences and I want to point out some of the things that he uncovered.
-Stossel in this video had a discussion with parents who actively tried to rear their children in equal, unisex ways. They would allow their children to play with whatever they want for example. If their son wanted to play with Barbie, they'd let them. In cases, they did in fact play with Barbies, but how Barbie was played with by each gender was different without the parent's influence. The boys would play with Barbie, but she'd be treated like a sword while the girls would dress her, give her words of affirmation, nurture her. The girls would marry Barbie to Ken while the boys would kill Barbie and try to save her life.
-They also attempted to teach their boys non-violence but no matter what they did, their sons still managed to turn their food into guns and start a shoot out while girls wouldn't.
- Marketing teams and product designers for major companies have also invested millions into producing toys that would appeal to the opposite sex but somehow, these toys just wouldn't sell. Even without any persuasion from these parents, the children seemed to gravitate toward toys that would typically fit their gender roles.
Even without the parents teaching them to be a certain way, these children were naturally falling in to the gender roles typically assigned to boys and girls. Societal veiws on what these roles are will always be there and will always influence how our children and ourselves behave, but it is only part of why we take on these roles. Their is an innate sense there of what our roles are and we naturally differentiate our behaviors as we grow up as well as receive influence. So how can we honestly try to insist that men and women are equal? They are not and I don't think that this should be an offensive fact, I am perfectly happy with the fact that men and women are different. I think it's important for men and women to have different roles, especially when it comes to starting a family because it diversifies what each person can bring to the relationship.
If you wish to view the video that I referenced here, search around for "Men, Women, and the Sex Difference."
Unfortunately I cannot provide the link for this one because it is embedded into my school website which is private... :(
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