I was just watching the BBC news channel and was amazed that this information was branded as surprising new research. This has been on the feminist agenda for years.
Just a quick note on the subject: It’s the intention, not the action that matters. If someone assumed i needed helped because i’m a woman, i would be offended. If someone offered to help me because it was clear i needed help, then that’s just being nice.
I expect people to help me/hold doors open etc because IT’S THE NICE THING TO DO. I don’t want this feminist research to make men think twice about opening a door for a woman, as long as he’s doing it because it’s the polite thing to do, and something he’d do for anyone, regardless of gender.
Lets just be nice for the sake of being nice.
It occurred to me recently that by being the open-minded (and massively indecisive) person that I am, it makes it difficult to win arguments. Admittedly i’m very stubborn and so, when it comes to questions of equality and morality, I tend to have a strong sense of what is right and wrong. Most topics, however, do not simply involve a politic of morality. Each opinion is framed in a political, social, cultural, and even intellectual, context which has a host of further consequences.
I am therefore aware of having to strike a balance between these various forces at work and so do not profess that my ideas are 100% ‘right’ (for want of a better word) according to each, but rather, I believe them to be an adequate compromise based on personal values. However, by acknowledging that any one idea is not perfect, and my willingness to take into consideration other points of view, this is all too often seen as a confession of being wrong!
I both pity and envy the people who are so confident and naive to believe that their beliefs do not have the same consequences and ramifications. Those who are so blind to other points of view will ultimately always win in an argument because they ignore any fact that does not fit their thesis.
I wish i were one of them, yet i’m so glad i’m not….
(I just really want to win an argument).
