In a post for Special Broadcasting Service, comedian Alice Fraser offers a solution to the age-old complaint made by women in the workplace. Unfortunately, her opening line (Men and women are different, by biology and socialization) gets lost in a torrent of bad stereotypes.
It’s hard to take her serious when she suggests that it’s not fair that masculine qualities “like being ruthless, aggressive and cutthroat” are generally seen as strong while “things like compassion or ‘having had a baby’ make you weak or a bad leader.”
I did pay attention to her suggested steps society needs to take to reach true equality:
1. Women should get as good at doing men things and succeed in doing those things as well as (or better than) men.
2. Redefine and examine what things are actually men things, and what things are women things. (eg. the color pink and being more sexually lustful are things that have changed gender-designation over time). Many things that we assume are genetically determined are not.
3. Stop making men things the signifiers and necessary qualifications of success.
Whether or not these “women’s complaints” (as she refers to them) are in process or have already come to pass is irrelevant, because there’s something much more important at stake. Fraser claims the “capacity to be good at math, rich or a CEO shouldn’t be dictated by our chosen set of genitals.”
I agree. The issue is not about women becoming stronger and more accomplished; it’s about men buying into a belief system that asks them to step aside and abandon their masculine roles.
In my estimation, today’s stronger women require even stronger — not weaker — men.
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Dr. John Alexander is relationship expert and the author of The Sigma Male: What Women Really Want. To learn more about Sigma Coaching, visit his website, subscribe to his blog, “like” his page on Facebook, and follow him on Twitter.
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