Gender Equality....Is it a possibility?

                                                  GENDER EQUALITY....WHAT IT IS.

 It was break time that day, I had decided not to go out on break since I wanted to copy some notes which I had missed from yesterday’s lessons. William who sat beside me in class was found half-sitting on Debbie’s desk surrounded by a small crowd of people. Esther, the talkative, and Patrick the class gossip, among the others stood attentively listening as William spoke. William was the class reporter; he knew in details all the news that leaked around both in school and outside school. From the look of things, I could tell William was talking about the recent sex scandal that has leaked in Krobo Girls Senior High School. A quick noise caught my attention just before the siren blared for break-over. The class clock that hanged on a nail above the white board had fallen and slightly broken. Without thinking or watching, I went straight to take the clock to re-fix it. To my surprise I was stopped by Jack.”Why waste your time, you cannot re-fix this! Things like these are only for men to do and not you women. You women can never be equal to us “Jack said. I tried my best to let him understand that I could re-fix it, even though a girl and that is not about being equal to men that mattered but about there being equal treatment for both men and women .Jack had already re-fixed the clock even before I kept mute. The class found nothing wrong with the unfair treatment that just went on between Jack and I. Gender equality: that was the belief that most people misunderstood. The incidence with Jack never drove me to challenge the idea behind Gender Equality until my friend, Patience asked me to comment on her blog post about Gender Equality. To Patience, Gender Equality was never a possibility since Women can never be equal to men. She was also caught in the trap to believing that Gender Equality is the state whereby men and women were equal, other than the state or situation in which both men and women received equal treatment in all areas of life. She wrote in her blog” Is gender equality ever a possibility? Days ago, my answer to this question would have been ‘Of Course!’ but now I am not so sure. Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to be pessimistic but that is just what it is. I am currently working for my mother in a shop where really heavy objects are sold. And every time that a man comes to buy, he has no trouble handling these objects but the women always need a man to help. I also once witnessed a scenario where a couple came across a snake while strolling. The woman just clinched unto the man and refused to let go even after the snake left. You will be surprised by the size of the snake; it was as big as my finger. I am sure you can come up with other scenarios where women depend on men but someone might still be thinking that these examples aren't convincing enough and that they do not even count but what really is the meaning of Equality? Equality is the state of being the same. Not similar but SAME. So even if there is a slight difference between the two genders, then I guess gender equality cannot be a reality.”How possible can men be equal to women or the latter to the former, I had written in my comment. There is no need for women trying to behave like men in order to be equal to them. Besides, women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition (Maya Angelou). All gender equality is about and all it seeks to implement is an environment where both men and women will be given equal treatments. A time when men will find nothing wrong with cooking or baby-sitting. A time when women will not be stopped from engaging in engineering, software development or masonry work. A time when women will not be denied the opportunity to be CEO of an oil-producing company just because they are “women” and not “Men”. 

The idea behind Gender Equality is gradually wiping out of the system. Thanks to Education!We have now realized that we can do what men can do and even do it better.We have realized that there are no boundaries as to who should do this and who that.Now, the biggest Software Developers,Engineers, Astronauts Architects and Conductors are Women.
Gender Equality is really a possibility. What do you think?