gender (in)equality ! .. unprovoked ramblings

The inequality of the sexes in the economic and social life of any society is something that our rationalists have tried to destroy,but to little avail.And inspite of various movements and also the education of the masses, why is it that this disease still prevails?
Well I guess,any question that affects the society or any larger social institution can be answered best with faith in time, and in the belief that social systems are systems that EMERGE from the interactions of independent agents(humans).The wider an idea is propagated and more efficiently particular actions are infused in individuals, the more effectively shall the society be trained to work in a particular manner.A framework cannot easily be imposed on the masses, you need to insinuate it the porosity of human social weave and slowly but steadily see the contamination on the macro scale.
This is the very reason that social scientists look upon the institution of the Family to be the agent of change. The elemental unit of any society is the family, for its here that individuals (adult-n-young) live in communion, sharing resources and services,taking decisions of actions in accordance with accepted codes of conduct.
Well after all that serious crap lets just get cozy with something shall we :P
See the fact that a monologue in this direction has been initiated is that I had this wonderful oppurtunity yesterday,to talk to a Professor(female), with an expertise in Ethnic Literature. Now,its a rare oppurtunity to actually be in a situation where you can question a woman who has the capacity to give insight into questions about women,girls and motherhood, not just from her own experience, but also from the commentaries on the same by noted social scientists, authors and other women colleagues. And its her wealth of experience that actually led us to discuss something that men can't just think about on their own.
Women have been a marginalised section in our society.Though constituting about 49% of our demography, its a general opinion that they do not enjoy a status equal to men in a majority of fields.If we were to classify womankind it'd be into the following forms: a diety/goddess, a bitch, and/or a witch/seductress.Glorifying the feminine form , doesn't ,generally, seem to get much room for expression, since apart from the prayer room, and the courtroom of love, its seen nowhere else. K, the bitchiness might be a remark we make off-handedly either for a man or woman, but then the fault lies in the language - coz "dog" seldom sounds as appealing as "bitch". At the pinnacle of defamation, comes the part where we call a woman - the seductress or the witch, where she plays Eve who brings about the fall of Adam.This might be the worst we could do to defame and deprive a woman of dignity and respect in society.
Now, it'd be false to presume that its only men who resort to such a disgraceful act of verbal abuse. Coz, even at home you have mothers warning their sons of girls around them.
If we saw only the surface of such a warning, it would obviously lead us to believe that women are cunning and foxy.They are not to be trusted,as they may easily mislead men, who are but burdened by innocence and naivety(lol!). However, what this Lady made me see, was something far deeper, something in our collective conscious that was the cause for such beliefs.

Every society that we know of ,from the centres of modernity to the remotest lands on earth, has developed a Patriarchal orientation with women being dependents on the men. It'd seem likely that this bias would have emerged in the early days of social evolution merely based on the fact that life depended on food, the stronger the body the greater the ability to collect more. It made sense for the woman to seek dependence on a man, to feed her and her baby.Statistics show that when theres an abundance of food, and security, mammals tend to give birth to male progeny. The female is the more resilient one and has a lesser mortality ratio than a male with the same amount of resources. And as the population of men grow, so does the urge to have one's own progeny survive and support the next generation.
Now I guess LIFE as such infuses in us the urge to Live either in our bodies, or atleast ensure that our constituents propagate into the next generation.Between men and women, the woman is always sure who the Mother of her child is. The Men never know who the father of a child is(:O). And it is for this very reason that men tend to get jealous of their women, as they are their only means to propagate their genes ahead.
And at times of pregnancy, when women are fragile and vulnerable, men tend to assert their dominance.It is this physical vulnerability that enabled men to construct patriarchal societies. Build religions that considered required women to be restricted to the indoors.Force the woman to cover herself, and keep her away from the sight of male wolves prowling the vicinity.Sex became something more sacred than ones emotions and true feelings for one. Fornication thus became a crime, as one was permitted to belong to only one under the social framework of marriage. Not that the practice is somethign that has to be disregarded, but it just made sense to let there be just one man for one woman, and once married let them not be married again.Marriage became a sacred institution between two people, who once united were incapable of independent of existence.The rules of who has to be loved, and how much were set down.
And now, at a time when its not just brawns but brains, that determines who gets the means to a livelihood, we realise that the partiarchal system isn't the ideal state for a society that respects humanity and not a Gender in particular.
In Humanistic society, the individual is revered as a marvel of evolution, a marvel of celestial creation, a marvel blessed with brains and brawns to support oneself in anyway one can contemplate, provided she respects similar rights of another human being. Though the realization has been attained ,the absence of an alternative Matriarchal system of reference, makes it more difficult to envision what it shall be like to have an Egalitarian system of existence.
What shall be the rules of conduct, what shall be the institutions and the roles of each within these institutions.This is something that we shall have to ponder upon deeply and attempt to construct, to fructify the evolutionary effort to realize an ideal human society.

Any effort to promote gender equality may be addressed by a two-pronged approach.

Approach 1: Focus on education of girls, provision of same oppurtunities(not just similar!) for growth intellectually ,and professionally.Essentially focusing on inclusion of women in all fronts that we perceive as important.

Approach 2: Identify activities and tasks that have been considered as a woman's domain of functioning, like home-making, cooking, styling, etc, and evaluate its importance in the economy. Emphasising the economic importance of tasks that have so long been looked down upon as something meek and insignificant,and identifying the value of these activities in determining our standard of living and the growth of the economy, shall indirectly be a step to emancipation of women. This may not be a direct inference, but there's no harm in believing that the praise of an action, is also praise to the doer of the action. Further,men too begin to compete with women to excel in these functions, thus creating a situation wherein not only women have to compete for thier stand in a workplace with male dominance, but also, men seek to excel in an industry where women seem to have an innate ability and thus,dominate by their skill.

What this teaches us is that, in our attempt to establish an egalitarian society we shouldn't throw the onus of effort only on the shoulders of the women.Men should have an equal stake in this effort.Women should be encouraged to educate themselves and to fight for their position amongst the males, while the men should made to realise the oppurtunities available in the tasks/functions that women have so far been focussed. This mutual competition shall foster a sense of respect.equality and dignity for each other's being and functionality.