Women breaking barriers
Women talking about equality is not new. The insidious appearance of sexism – like a tobacco stain leeching again and again through layers and layers of new paint, is not new. Attempts to address it in surprising ways are not new. When a little girl wrote to Lego complaining that the girl minifigs only got to do boring things whereas the boys got to have adventures, they listened. Somebody even came up with the amusing fundraiser of the @legoacademics Twitter account. Two years ago I reported on a particularly inept attempt to address gender imbalance in science. It was not the first and will probably not be the last.
A bright, articulate, passionate young film-star talking about sexism is not new either. What might be new, or at least unexpected, was her call for men to be part of the conversation. In her speech at the United Nations Headquarters last week Emma Watson she asked ‘how can we effect change in the world when only half of it is invited or feel welcome to participate in the conversation’ . She went on to point out out some of the shocking imbalance in the availability of education for girls which means that at current rates ‘it won’t be until 2086 before all rural African girls will be able to receive a secondary education‘. I applaud her words, and her gracious invitation – though struggle a little with the title of the campaign #heforshe – which may in itself appeal to a kind of chivalry which teeters, unknowing, on the brink of sexism.
Just four days after Emma Watson’s speech, Indian photographer Manjunath Kiran published the photograph below of celebrations at the headquarters of the Indian Space Research Organisation when they successfully put a satellite into orbit around Mars. The front and center of the image features women who were front and center of the programme to put the satellite in place. They are not there because they prove a point or redress an imbalance but because they are brilliant at what they do. Not only that, but there is something about the expressions on the faces of their male colleagues which echoes much of the aspiration in Watson’s speech. The recognition of the skills and talents offered by women worldwide gives the whole human race, rather than half of it, cause to celebrate. You can read more on the story behind the photo here.
I have not read Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, largely because I have been so irritated by the quotations from it in other sources. When men use it to justify a kind of polite repression masquerading as liberty, I have little inclination to read it. It seems now that women might be going to Mars, rather than coming from Venus. If so, then Earth can only gain from it.
Image: BBC
