The entire subject of gender feels incredibly worn out to me. Perhaps that’s only because I’ve spent years of my life sorting out my own sexuality and riding along with someone rather close to me who’s some sort of pseudo-androgynous gender dysphoric. This along with a trimester-long course on feminism and some dense reading on the psychology of gender. I worry that I can’t say anything new, especially to the audience I’m writing for. I’ll attempt to dredge up some topics that are often glossed over.
The status quo for females has changed incredibly over the last century. All major legislative changes have been made, equal opportunity should be here already. There’s only so much that can be done about individual cases of discrimination, however. Further, very little can be done at once about the norms our culture unthinkingly abides by. No matter how many articles we write, tweets we post, and videos we tape, there will be someone else producing content saying the opposite. We consume what we already believe. We enjoy reinforcing our ideas, not challenging them.
Consider a seemingly self-inconsistent statement: males are more vital to feminism than females. If a female speaks up about being mistreated in the workplace, how often will the (in this case male) manager at fault stop to consider his actions? He may write her off as just complaining like those women are prone to doing, or as a man-hating feminist. He may be more likely to respond to another male who steps in. Essentially, any male who recognises discrimination needs to take some position other than indifference if we want to keep our cultural gender evolution going in a good direction.
How are we to reach those who do not wish to be reached? It is so incredibly easy to filter out everything we don’t want to hear. Our choice of media sources filters out most unwelcome content before we view it. I believe that rather than taking a stance as some sort of social crusader, it is most important to practice self-consistency.
Take the Putney School as an example. We love to flaunt a sort of liberal enlightenment, free from the impossible expectations of society. Before we get comfortable sitting up on our both proverbial and literal hill, looking out upon the injustices of society and making neat presentations about it, I think we should be sure we’ve questioned ourselves enough. A few weeks ago, I was told that the school exercises gender-based pay inequality, at least within a particular job title. Why have I not attempted to determine the validity of the claim and bring attention to the issue if it exists? I don’t want to stir the pot and create trouble for the employee who told me about it or myself. The employee hasn’t said anything because they still get relatively good pay and know a replacement could easily be found should they decide to make a big deal about it.
Here lies our largest issue. We are ready to join a parade when we have a chance. We are ready to vote for women’s rights. We are ready to write articles and speak loudly. We are very ready to decry all that is large, all that is somewhat removed from ourselves, so long as the worst that comes of it is some angry comments on YouTube or an argument with someone we don’t know that well. We are not ready to lose our jobs in the name of calling out institutionalized financial discrimination, however. Our largest issue is that, no matter how much we insist that we care, we are incredibly lazy.
Information is abundant and we have poor mechanisms for sorting out reliability from white noise if we have any mechanisms at all. To what extent does institutionalized financial discrimination still exist? Very few of us will take the time to compile data and determine where, how much, against whom it exists. Some of us will take the time to look up what other people have said about it. Most of those who look it up will accept whichever answer they are predisposed to believe. Very few will check the processes of the “experts” answering the questions for us.
I believe the most important and most ignored step towards further progress is to ensure consistency within our individual selves. Only then can we turn our attention to those immediately around us. When we have a clear objective, such as suffrage or making the financial rights that come with marriage available to homosexuals, by all means, it’s time to make some noise and put in the votes. The questions which I believe we need to ask ourselves and answer with honesty are simple. Am I thrashing against an imaginary wall? Am I helping move towards a concrete avenue of change, or am I only speaking because it feels good?
Putney Mediates the Media 