Category: Negatives

How to Create Gender Equality

How to Create Gender Equality


I think this desperate need within society is not easy at all to bring into being – to put it mildly. However, as it’s been in the news again just lately, I would like to have a go at how I believe it can be done.  We have particularly noted the wages problem in the BBC. And, make no mistake, we are told it’s much worse throughout the rest of the country.  If one happens to have been born female, then those persons will receive around 17% less than their male counterpart, even though they may be doing exactly the same job in the same office.


Why is it not so easy to change this and bring in a satisfactory sense of equality? Because we have to change a deep set culture, or even lots of different sub-cultures, and much of the thinking that has formed that culture goes back a long way, ingraining itself into people’s thinking over many generations?


What is that ingrained thinking? At a basic level it really is a fact that Males are in charge. Because they are more intelligent? Stronger? Could it be that they are better?  Females are, of course, lesser because they are not so clever or as strong, and therefore men need to be in charge. (That is a comment of sarcasm – please don’t write in to complain.)


What we tend to do is address symptoms of this disease. This means that we are wanting to increase women’s wages and make it, “equal jobs for equal pay” right across the board.  The trouble is that such an action, once taken, still will not have addressed the thinking, just the symptoms that came into being because of that thinking.


Legislation would change things, though that would be somewhat of a blunt instrument. We know that laws can change wrong to right (and sometimes even change right to wrong), so we must not underestimate the power of a passed law by government.


However, I do think we need to address the issue of equality at its base. The foundational  base is how people think. The way that people think has been formed by their family, the government, the educational system, the community that they mix with, the business pressures that they have been exposed to, the history that brought the issue into being, and even the language. 


So it’s about changing people’s thinking. Changing the thinking that says men are superior, woman are inferior.   That means influencing, educating, legislating and seeking to change the cultural mind-set that makes the acceptance of the statement above acceptable.


I listened recently to young lads, of non UK origin being interviewed on TV about what they thought about the so called “honour killings”. Their answers were horrific. They said things like, “If my sister had dishonoured my family, then, yes, I think she should be killed”.   The whole idea that women are lesser, builds the strong presupposition that their freedoms of expression, their friends, their choice of dress, and all of their relationships must of necessity be controlled by men.


Sumptuary legislation, where ever it comes from, is always about power and domination.  I hear comments like, “… but that woman chose to dress like this!”  My question is one step further back. “Who pressurises them to choose, or to exercise their supposed freedom in that way?”  The probable answer is their religion, the law, their culture, and all those facets of life that are their personally accepted conventions.  Then we need to ask, “Why is it so?” The answer will be, “Because men dictate it”. (https://adrianhawkes.co.uk/sumptuary-legislation-2/)


We can achieve equality, but we need to deal with the symptoms, i.e. equal pay and opportunities and the like, but we also need to address the underlying cultural perception. We will need to do that by education, legislation and a strong argument against our historical position. In other words; a full scale attack on the current cultural position and underlying thinking.










Adrian Hawkes

Adrianhawkes.blogspot.co.uk

Edited KL

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The Negatives seem too often to be in the Majority

The Negatives seem too often to be in the Majority


Many of the best “How to be Successful” books will tell you that in order to move forward and be a success one needs to surround one’s self with either successful people, or, most certainly, positive people. Yet so often the majority seem to fit the “negative” criteria.
I note from the story of Israel in the Bible, that when they arrived at the land that God had promised them, they sent in twelve spies and – true to form – the majority, ten, to be exact, said we can never do that! We cannot win there! We look like grasshoppers, and they look like Giants!  Only two of the spies said “It’s great. God is with us. We can take the land.”
The thing is that my experience of life shows me that for most people it seems that it is easier to be negative rather than positive.  So many times in my experience I have been told, “You cannot do that.” “You won’t get there.” “You are finished.”  One has to learn to stop one’s ears sometimes, before they get the chance to say, “You cannot…”, or move out of the immediate zone before the cold water carriers pour it on your internal fire.
The truth is that sometimes one cannot do it simply because the majority are so negative. So, Moses never did get to the land – because he needed the others to come with him, and they were too negative to do so.
I have been in situations where I know it was achievable, workable and doable and would have been great to be done and help others. But, the “ten” outweighed the “two,” so I lost out also.
It’s sad also when people do it to others.  They are no good, they cannot do it, and they poor scorn on other human beings. Often they pull down others who are actually doing what they are not and doing it well.
I still remember a deputy head teacher calling me to his office one day. It was the days when people in that position sat in high and lofty desks and looked down on the students as if they were minnows. He looked at me and said, “Hawkes! You are so stupid, you will never be able to do anything in life.  I can’t even think you could be good enough to sweep the streets.”  Maybe that is why, when people ask me, “How do you get to be a leader?” my answer is always, “How well can you sweep up?
If you can do that job well, there is every hope in your other abilities, and the character to lead!”
I was very bad to that teacher. After I had left school, I took my new car – part of my successful job – and drove past the school as he peddled out on his rusty old bike. I pulled over and asked him with a smile, “Are you really still riding that old bike sir?”  I guess that was not a good example to others, but I would be lying if I didn’t admit it was fun.
The other side to this “negative” discussion is often the mountain or the journey of achievement itself. “It’s just too big!” I get lots of knocks on my FB page and other writings as people tell me we should not be taking in Refugees.  Many look at the problem, and, “Yes! There are around 60 Million displaced people in the world at the moment.” And: “No!” I did not make a mistake on the number. Many sarcastically say to me, “Where are you going to put all those millions of people in the UK?”
My oft reply is to refer them to the story made plain in the following web site: https://eventsforchange.wordpress.com/2011/06/05/the-starfish-story-one-step-towards-changing-the-world/  Have a look at it. 
Even so, I do have answers for the bigger group, that is, the majority that are the “neggo’s”. But then I need more than the two out of the ten to see it also and come with me to take the positive action.  I could climb the mountain, or enter the land, but others need to see it too.  That is the problem with vision. What is obvious to the positive mind, is just negative fun to those who are of the negative mind.
As the Chinese proverb goes, “The longest journey has to start with the first step.”  If we are not willing to get out of our easy chair. If we are just happy seeing only the negative. If we are always of the “half empty” rather than “half full” people. If we are always only able to see the problems and never see the problem as a “stepping stone” to success, then we will never see the view from the top of the Mountain.
I am a follower of Jesus, and he said to his followers, that if they believed, they would be able not only to see the view from the top of the mountain, but they would be actually empowered to say to the mountain, “Be removed and be cast into the sea.”
Personally, I would rather believe and see the success, than listen to the negativity of others. Or rather, I would prefer to have you join me in being positive, seeing what could be, taking steps, believing in a vision, and climbing mountains, or moving them out of the way, whichever is most appropriate.
Adrian Hawkes
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Edited by K Lannon