Don't make it a competition

For the past two weeks, I’ve been discussing about the differences we all have with each other. We were made this way for a reason, but that does not mean we cannot work together and give others from our talents and strengths and learn from others.

There is a video shared by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints that I would like to share. It really depicts how our differences are a good thing. We need to embrace them!

As of this week in class, we discussed a little about gender differences and Men and Women have been working in different roles since the beginnings time. However, a shift of thinking occurred around the 1970’s when women started to promote women’s equality. Equality in the sense that women have the same opportunity to work in the same jobs, opportunity to seek higher education and not be judged by not wanting to raise a family, opportunity to be their own selves.

Likewise, Gloria Steinham, a women’s activist, stated that “We should be raising our boys to be like girls” What does she mean by this?

When I heard this statement, we were watching the different ways little boys and girls play with their friends and how they interact with each other. At a very young age, we see that the different genders already have differences in interacting with different people. Boys tend to play more rough, a little bit more violent, but more physically active play. Girls, on the other hand, talk to each other about the different roles they want to play, they are a bit more gentle and interactive with each other. In general, boys and girls play separately because they play differently. Of course, there are some exceptions and some boys prefer to play with the girls gentle, and some girls prefer to play with the boys’ rough play. But in general, this separation is how it goes. Therefore, showing that each gender has innate differences since birth. So why would we want to raise them all the same? Is that not hindering on their nature?  Science has shown that men and women’s brains are different. Even if both are viewing the same thing or doing the same task, different parts of the brain are active for women vs the men. 

Each gender view things differently and have something to contribute so why are we trying to compete with each other? What are women activist trying to prove?

Women Activist want to prove that women can do everything that a man can do, but that sometimes means that we need help getting there. One of the examples we saw in our class was in the Firefighting program. Both male and female who want to be a firefighter must pass a certain amount of training and tests in order to prepare them for real life duty out in the real world. Unfortunately, the women in the program couldn’t keep up with the training and hard labor so the women fought against this “oppression” and sought to fight for easier training or wanted equipment that would easily access them to do the Men’s job.

I saw this example in a funny way because, women are stating that we need to be the same as men, but we need help getting there? I think that we need to understand that there are some things that men are better at doing and some things women are better at doing. I’m not saying that women should not try to work in a man’s job, but I am saying that we are focusing on something that we shouldn’t. We, as a society are focusing more on competing against each other and want to get to a certain level in order to be recognized as successful. It shouldn’t be this way.  

We are too focused on gaining individual power instead of helping each other with our different strengths that we have to offer. Men and Women have different traits and strengths that can complement each other,  so that we can help society as a whole. 

"Comparison is the thief of joy"