Will Gender Equality Help us?

 

In 1915, on the eve of one of the great suffrage demonstrations down the fifth avenue in NYC, a writer in New York, wrote an article in a magazine, and the title of the article was; “Feminism for Men”. The first line of the article was: “feminism for the first time will make it possible for men to be free”. Now when we talk about gender equality, there is a common misconception that it means voicing females, helping females, and giving them equality. Well, on the periphery, they got it half right. Gender equality is giving voice for men too, helping them too, and giving them equality too.

Gender equality is good for countries as well. It turns out, most of the studies indicated that the countries that are the most gender-equal contains more happier population. Ok, philosophical reason aside. There is an indication by the catalyst and other research organization that gender equality results in better work performances in companies, which in turn increases the revenue of these company, and hence increase the GDP of the country on the whole. According to the 2018 June 30 census there are a total of 11,89,826 active companies in India. Let's say all of them are gender-equal, due to which the income is increased by a meager of 20%. Now the total hike adding all companies will be 23,796,520% of the current income!

On the other hand, looking at the smaller fish; Familial relations, which in fact is the bigger fish, but for number's sake lets consider it a small fish. It turns out, the more egalitarian our relationships are, the more the happier the partners are. there are enough data from sociologist and psychologist to point that gender equality is not a zero-sum game but a win-win game. Now here, men instead of “pitching in” or “helping out”, another radicle one-word practice can be used which is “share”. Because here is what the data shows when men “share” household works and child care, the children do better in school, there is less absenteeism, higher rates of achievement, less likely to be diagnosed with ADHD. Not only that, their wives are happier and healthier, they are less likely to be diagnosed with depression, less likely to see a therapist, and more likely to go to the gym, mainly reporting higher levels of marital satisfaction. Let’s keep wife and children aside, by “sharing” household and childcare, men are less likely to consume alcohol, less likely to consume recreational drugs, less likely to end up in the ER and more likely to be fit and attend the monthly check-ups.

When we consider all the arguments and statements given above, we can conclude that by practicing gender equality, the country benefits, companies benefit, men benefit, their partners, and children benefit. So, gender equality is not a zero-sum game, it is not a win-lose, it a win-win for everyone. And what we also know is that we cannot fully empower women and girls, unless we engage boys and men.

I would like to conclude this by quoting the lyrics of an award-winning song by Ava Max here:

“If all of the kings had their queens on the throne
We would pop champagne and raise a toast
To all of the queens who are fighting alone
Baby, you're not dancing' on your own”