What does Gender Equality truly mean?
A few days ago we stumbled upon a map featuring the attitudes of certain countries in regards to gender equality. It was part of the research: “ Worldwide Optimism About Future of Gender Equality, Even as Many See Advantages for Men”.
Many things are problematic within this map: neither does it capture how truthful the respondents might be nor does it feature the true definition of gender equality (let alone the biased choice of the countries chosen to participate in the research). For the purpose of this article, we will focus mainly on the second point which is about the meaning of gender equality.
The research mainly focused on the opinion of a group of people divided between men and women who were asked questions regarding access to high-paid jobs? the possibility of becoming a ‘leader’? who they think has more opportunities to express their political and religious views? What is problematic here is that the questions asked by the researchers dive again into a biased system of measuring what equality truly is. Although certain questions might be relevant, it only captures a certain aspect of gender equality. It is always important to question what does gender equality truly mean, is it only about making sure women can hold high-paid jobs and leadership positions?
What about reproductive and bodily rights? What about tackling the omnipresent rape culture? What about the oppression faced by gender non conforming people? Is this not a ‘gender’ issue?
To achieve gender equality, many factors should be taken into consideration and not only the values of “power”. Before talking about access to high paid jobs, we should consider whether women, men with a transgender experience, and gender non-conforming individuals have access to jobs at all. More importantly, what is considered to be a ‘valuable’ job and what is devalued and exploited. For example, it is already known that women often endorse the role of carers, a role which is often underpaid and considered to be socially demeaning [1]. This type of work could include nursing, child care, domestic work, etc. Some people also choose to go into sex work, a job which is banned in many countries and is highly controversial and shamed. People have a very biased vision of what a job actually is, particularly when talking about sex work. It is important to stress on this point as it is an important part of the fight for bodily rights, hence gender equality. Many people claim that it is an industry that exploits women. However, sex work can be chosen and can be safe when the law actually protects and gives the right to individuals to exercise their profession. As Ella Smith mentions:
“If I told you I’m a sex worker, you might think this abuse was caused by my clients, but it wasn’t; it was caused by feminist groups who said I needed saving. They wanted to support women — yet all they did was manage to bully, belittle and stigmatise exotic dancers like me.” [2]
It is important to remember that sex work does not only concern women but also concerns gender non-conforming individuals and cisgender men. As opposed to many jobs and companies, it is actually quite an inclusive industry in which people who tend to be rejected because of their ‘identity/body’ are actually being paid for their identity/body (particularly women with a transgender experience). Adding to that, many of the people including politicians who would criticise sex work would not take any step to facilitate the inclusion of women with a refugee status, single moms, gender non-conforming individuals, or people who do not have access to higher education [3]. People who tend to be on the margins of society will most probably not have access in the first place to a job that will actually sustain their living expenses while respecting reasonable working hours and working conditions. It is true certain countries might have a good welfare system that provides people with a minimum income, however, this minimum might still not be enough and might be subjected to many conditions. For example, a person without legal ID might not be able to obtain those rights.
Another argument that we often hear about sex work is that “we shouldn’t sell our body to gain money”. In our typical office jobs, we might not ‘sell’ our ‘body’ per se but we certainly do sell parts of ourselves which are our ideas and ‘mental’ performance. Also, this claim is quite interesting considering the number of jobs that solely relies on the body and physical capabilities. We could take for example: working as an actor, being a professional athlete, modelling, etc. Are they not selling services using their bodies? Or is it more acceptable because ‘sex’ is not involved? In fact, religion and patriarchy taught us that sex is supposed to be ‘intimate and sacred’. However, sex does not need to be sacred but it certainly needs to be consensual. Consent is what’s important and unfortunately, it tends to be completely disregarded in a patriarchal system.
The problem is that our societies tend to put different values on people and actions depending on the symbols and beliefs they hold. In a patriarchal system, a woman or a gender nonconforming individual who has control over her/his/their body and action (specifically their sexuality) is rarely rewarded, on the contrary, she/he/they will be shamed and condemned. This is what sex workers experiment on a daily basis, especially women and gender non-conforming individuals. In fact, we rarely hear debates about cisgender men doing sex work.
This is not say that violence does not occur in this field; violence can happen in every work field, this is why they created work contracts and worker unions, but rather it is a critic of the perception that society holds against this job and how this perception deprives sex workers of accessing their rights and protection.
“The most damaging part of being a sex worker is not the work itself but the stigma around it. It is stigma that damages sex workers’ mental health, prevents us from speaking out, and that enables abuse against us.” [2]
Bodily rights; having the right to dispose of one’s body without fear (which ultimately includes talking about sex work) is essential when talking about gender equality.
“We want to work in safety and for our choices to be respected… Surely women’s groups should be fighting to ensure a safe working environment for us, not to take away our livelihoods.” [2]
Accessing ‘high-paid’ jobs and leadership positions means nothing if some women and gender non-conforming people still cannot walk on the streets free from fear and the burden of shame.
The notion of leadership itself is somehow questionable, why does solely a leadership position need to be a marque of equality? How about we start thinking also about giving value to jobs such as child care, nursing, cleaning, doing social work? It is of utmost importance for essential workers to be paid fairly, which is certainly higher than what is being currently paid. Often it is the minimum salary approved upon by the government, which is very often not enough and people tend to accumulate 2 or 3 jobs in order to survive [1].
Furthermore, we still live in a culture in which rape is implicitly authorised; the “Me too” movement showed an outrageous number of people who were victims of sexual aggression while their perpetrators didn’t face any consequences. This lack of accountability is certainly due to a patriarchal system that always puts the blame on marginalised bodies and tends to reinforce myths around rape through popular culture (including movies and songs). Popular culture highly participates in the portrayal of women as indecisive and provocative. An example of what rape culture looks like would be the song “Blurred Lines” by Robin Thicke.
As Nickie D. Phillips describes in her book:
“The song and accompanying video seem to embody all of the problematic popular-culture representations of women that feminists scholars have long railed against.” [4]
The song and its famous lyric: “I know you want it ” completely dismisses the concept of consent by assuming that a woman would automatically want to have sex with him, it also indicates that as a ‘man’ of course he knows better. The video clip (like many others) tends to portray women and gender non-conforming individuals as less than human. As the song mentions: “he was close tried to domesticate you, but you’re an animal”. The video clip also portrays him blowing his cigarette on the woman beside him while she clearly seemed to be disgusted by it. Adding to that, he clearly mentions that she doesn’t really have the choice and will have sex with him. We could go on and on with this song… Despite all of that, it still earned numerous nominations. Sadly, the music industry is not the only one perpetrating violence and misogyny: TV shows, brands, certain awareness campaigns also play a huge role in perpetuating rape culture [5]. On their Pinterest page, The Sociological images featured a couple of examples of what rape culture looks like; here’s some of them:
Indeed, not only does rape culture implicitly tolerate and sometimes encourage rape but it also generates stereotypes and prejudice against people who were victims of sexual assault and impedes them from accessing justice. As a matter of fact,
“Many survivors don’t report because they fear being disbelieved or blamed for their own assaults.” [6]
To come back to the “gender equality” research; before talking about high-paid positions let’s also make sure people are treated with respect and are freed from a constant dehumanisation and threat on their bodies.
This is not to say that women and gender-nonconforming individuals shouldn’t aim for a well-paid job, it means that the culture itself should be reshaped by tackling prejudices, tackling rape culture, and tackling preconceived ideas about which kind of job is considered ‘valuable’ (and often comes with high pay) and which one does not.
On an endnote, let’s not forget that when talking about gender equality it is vital to include every person who suffers from the oppression of a patriarchal system. Certain researchers and organisations tend to forget that gender is not binary and the fight for gender equality is not only about making sure cisgender women get the same rights as cisgender men. It is important to expand the discussion of ‘gender equality’ to all genders (which will include gender non conforming individuals, people with a transgender experience, queer people, etc) while also making sure to include every woman (no matter her job, education, background, race, etc.) Gender equality is a broad topic and can certainly not be captured by this type of survey and data. Instead, we should be mindful of all sorts of oppressions around us and make sure the fight for equality doesn’t fall in the trap of our patriarchal, capitalist view of the world.
References and interesting resources:
[1] Charlotte Bienaime, “Prendre soin, penser en féministes le monde d’après”, Un Podcast a Soi (2020), Arte Radio
[2] Ella Smith, “Sex work and critical campaigners”, Welcome Collection (2020), <https://wellcomecollection.org/articles/XrVLVhAAACEAbPOw?fbclid=IwAR3l_ym8D493yLZvrwKWaCv4bLgecu0jWdCTx3mPF-RGfAQWmGGwz37-Js8> [accessed on Monday 6th of July, 2020]
[3] Charlotte Bienaime, “Le prix du sexe”, Un Podcast a Soi (2019), Arte Radio
[4] Nickie D. Phillips, “The mainstreaming of rape culture”, Beyond Blurred Lines: Rape Culture in Popular Media, (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017)
[5] Lisa Wade, “Rape Culture Round up”, Sociological Images (2013), <https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2013/06/09/rape-culture-round-up/> [Accessed on Monday 6th of July, 2020]
[6] Anna North, “Study: more people reported sex crimes around the world in the wake of Me Too”, Vox (2019), <https://www.vox.com/2019/12/11/21003592/me-too-movement-sexual-assault-crimes-reporting>[Accessed on Monday 6th of July, 2020]
