by Thato Masalesa
We have addressed equality, men treat women as their equal, mind you I excused the word “will” because that would mean we are working towards that…no that type of thinking ultimately means it can be unlearned, I believe women have always been equal to men but are women equal to other women? Ladies treat each other really badly in most circumstances, if a lady comes across another lady that has perhaps badly drawn eyebrows, she will opt to take a picture of her and make her trend as a “meme” on social media platforms rather than offer to fix them for her. Woman on woman bashing has seen such an increase in society that we are starting to treat it as a norm.
It is rare coming across a woman that calls out other women on their behaviour or conduct in a well-mannered way. Imagine if we continue the way we are going about, the next generation of women will not be at war with the world but at war with their own gender. Women are powerful, now imagine that combined with their force in numbers. We as humans need to be aware of how we treat our moms, our women, our sisters.
The unfair pay gap is another issue to understand, how is it that a lady will earn less than a man for doing the same job? That ultimately degrades their work effort because they deserve equal pay too. The whole notion that men are superior seems to be changing but in other aspects, it isn’t. Women still have to do a lot in order to get a job, to be recognised or even be seen as people in corporate life. Men in higher positions expect certain favours when considering a lady for a job which is downright nonsense and disgusting.
I heard multiple cases both of women close to me and on the news of how women were expected to sleep with the man in charge just to fill a vacancy they had applied for. It gets more messed up considering that these men completely disregard the fact that those are married women, someone’s mom, someone’s sister.
As the human race, we have a long way to go in order to undo all the different degrees of messed up but it all starts with taking a stand, becoming voices for the voiceless and protecting those that cannot protect themselves.
