Girl Power

 

Subject: Girl Power.

 

Are women beset with problems of their own making, a put upon gender who seem to fill the media and especially programs like 'Women's Hour', with boundless opportunity to air their grievance. 

Listening to these programs they have a litany of issues which are all gender specific and which sound like it's a living hell to be a woman. There's a sense of being misunderstood, misused, of not having been able to reach their true potential, of being bullied and abused, of being under represented of being seen as sex objects instead of the vibrant intellect members of society they clearly are.

It's not an occasional gripe, it's a storm always brewing in their heads, choreographed  by a host of people who make it their life's work to speak out on the rotten state of being a woman. 

Yes there are issues like rape and female prostitution, although the prostitution industry has many female representatives who speak, not of the demeaning aspect of sex for sale but rather the wish to have bargaining rights and better working conditions. 

Female genital mutilation is totally abhorrent but it's a girls female relative who is usually responsible for arranging the mutilation and the act of mutilation is performed usually by a woman. Laws in certain societies are skewed against the woman. Her rights, vis a vis a man's are severely curtailed, particularly under certain religious versions  of what a woman can do and what she can't. We seem sadly unable to find common grievance in our own country for fear of disturbing the fragile balance we so desire between the cultures which have made their home here now.

But no I am not speaking of the obvious trials and tribulations of being a woman in the Middle East, Africa or the Sub Continent, rather I am speaking of the on going complaint of women who perceive they get a poor deal when compared to a man here in the West. The glass ceiling where women complain of not being able to rise high enough in their work place. The disparity in pay. The lack of childcare facilities for them to be a mother and a worker. 

Woman's World a program which has been on the air ever since I can remember has proclaimed the rights of women for a special compensation in life. Not only to make them equal, but more equal. 

The fact that many of the largest companies now have a female chief executive, that from the police to the fire brigade, both until 20 years ago were the province of physically strong men, are now headed by women. And Politics where the top job of PM or Party leader is becoming dominated by women. 

There has been in the West a sea change in the power of women. The laws make it a minefield for a young man to navigate the whims of a young woman who's word is final.

The procedure of gender correction where men are deliberately passed over for promotion is as common today as women being passed over for promotion due to their biological need to have children and with it the dilemma a woman faces when she puts the child before work. 

There will never be equality because we are not the same. It's only a social construct that demands we are the same. The same but different. 

Our physiology is different and so in all but exceptional cases there is a subtle deferential applied to a woman doing a job. There's a differential when sport separates the male from the female and gets its head in a noose when someone like Caster Semenya comes along with internal genitalia and the testosterone levels of a man but who claims she is a woman. Women competing against her complain that it's not a level playing field and of course there heaps of money tied up these days in winning. 

The whinging is not only on the part of women. Men complain about their rights to see their biological kids which seems at the whim of the mother, irrespective of what the court says. 

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Men complain at the right of women to claim so much of the family estate including the business estate, instance Jeff Bezos's wife who the courts decided was entitled to 50% of his Amazon based fortune getting as much as $66 billion for her matrimonial gamble.

Where is it to end. Germaine  Greer a life long feminist says enough is enough. Woman are damaging their brand by claiming equality. It was always the difference which made the ultimate impression and by claiming inequality, when so often they not only have equality but fail to recognise their ultimate power relies on keeping the guys guessing.

 Lose that and they lose every thing, unless of course it's open season and neither needs the other.