WOMEN ARE NOT EQUAL TO MEN "You should never ask a woman her age and a man his salary", said Mourya Sir as we waited silently for the last period to be over, with our schoolbags packed and ready. I listened to it and just like many other things that our elders told us to do or not to do, I enumerated it on that ever lengthening list. Bewildered however much I was, like most of the students at that time, we dared not ask a simple 'Why?' I would despise at the idea of preferential treatment to a specific gender, the universal quote of "Respect Women" and the ever increasing reservations in different field on the basis of gender. But it wasn’t until few years later that I started to grasp the gravity of the notion why women ought to be respected just because of their biological sex. It has taken us millenniums to reach at the point where women in many parts of the world enjoy partial to equal rights as of men, and it wasn’t until 20thth century that women were granted right to vote under universal suffrage in most parts of the world, and it’s a long way to go; for laws surely ensure one capacitance to carry out certain actions, they hardly safeguard an individual from the scrutiny of a prejudiced society we dwell in. Thus, legitimacy and acceptance both are unarguably equally imperative when it comes to challenge a societal norm and transform it for the greater good still. For instance, the LGBTQIA+ community in India has fought hard and fought incessantly for recognition, legality and acceptance, out of which they were granted only the legality because in all honesty that’s the only thing which could be 'granted'. Acceptance comes from the society within, which otherwise could never be made obligatory by adjudication. But, an inevitable question arises! Is legality a prerequisite for social acceptance or is it vice versa? The answer may not be simple but it's certainly one worth looking for. For society intellectually evolves when people question their own beliefs and challenge the norms which are widely accepted yet absurd. One might wonder how it took centuries of civilizations till people could realize the disparities between the laws governing the opposite sexes, but things weren’t always this bleak for women. Surprisingly enough women in ancient societies enjoyed much more rights and positions unrivalled by the state of women in medieval era; the prime reason being
the emergence of Abrahamic religions which blatantly blame Eve for "The Original Sin". Clergymen didn’t leave a chance to channel this narrative to denounce women as swell headed, eavesdropper, gossip, prone to jealousy and gadabout. In turn of events that followed they were robbed off their personhood, demonized and reduced to mere subordinate of men. But are they? Subordinate? To be taken care of by a guardian figure which ought to be a male? Although majority of the world cultures still revolve around the aforementioned notion in question, there is no doubt that women have time and again proved relentlessly throughout the ages that there is no dearth of capabilities when it comes to women. So, does that make women equal to men? Unfortunately no. The first step in resolving a difference is to acknowledge that there is one in the first place. Women were not created equal; neither theologically nor biologically. Terming both of them as equal is turning a blind eye to the obvious differences. Gender binarism can be best explained with the Ying Yang philosophy of Ancient China according to which both the genders could be demonstrated as complementing each other rather than as separate entities striving for equality. From foot binding practice in Old kingdom China to metal corsets in Europe, women had been subjected to horrors of beauty in the name of marrying well. When one gender is psychologically manipulated over the eras to conduct themselves in order to please the other gender, that’s where the problem lies. And in order to unshackle themselves women need equal opportunities and rights which have been denied on the pretext of 'women aren’t able to do certain things'. And the laws changed those stereotypes to 'Women aren’t allowed to do certain things'. But it doesn’t matter what a woman wants to do because a dialogue in "On the basis of Sex" correctly puts forth the idea of whether a woman would like to work as a mining worker (which was prohibited by law in the US) to which the protagonist replies that whether a woman wants to or not shouldn’t matter but the principle of equal opportunity that they are at least 'allowed' to do so, that matters. Laws shouldn’t be made to prohibit a section of society to do something just because they are deemed as incapable or ill suited. Quite evidently there are dozens of differences when it comes to both the genders that can't be overlooked. For instance, a study in the Journal of Applied Physiology found that men had an average 12 kilograms more skeletal muscle mass than women. Women also exhibited about 40 percent less upper-body strength and
33 percent lower-body strength, on average, the study found. But every cloud has a silver lining, women might have an upper hand when it comes to other differences like better at multitasking, having better cognitive abilities, or maybe even better leadership qualities because who knows? Let's face it, the constraints of a patriarchal society have always kept women from assuming authoritative and leadership roles and what did we get in return? Years of conflicts, proxy wars, manmade famines, bloody territorial disputes and millions of lives wasted away. What if this is what we have been doing wrong all this time? What if there is a deliberate need to alter the gender roles for world leaders? To explore new perspective to look at global issues in a manner unexplored; with compassion, with endurance and a whole lot of mutual understanding. For women weren’t created equal to men rather they were created better, a higher being.