Charity they say begins at home, and the same can be said about character. They say the upbringing of a child is crucial to the role such a child would play in society. Because of this, parents are advised to be very cautious of how they behave around their children and the ideologies they pass down to them so as to avoid giving them the wrong notion of what is acceptable and what isn’t in the society.
And as it is in this case of gender equality, the only way I believe we can achieve our goal of attaining a gender balanced society is by tackling the issue starting with the four corner walls of our homes because how a man treats the mother of his children is a reflection of how his father or father figure must have treated either his mother or women around him.
Several years back, gender balance and equity weren’t topics deemed debatable in our society let alone discussed, since we were sold the assumption that a female mind is too fragile to comprehend the important things of life and should be left out of decision making.
These were the ideas passed down to us from generations before us, and are being practiced in our various homes for us to see. It starts from the time of birth; when a woman gives birth to male child her husband is considered strong by family and friends, his joy will know no bounds and that translates to lots of love and affection towards the woman who gave him a male child. Her in-law sees her as a jewel for giving them an heir, and she also considers herself lucky and fortunate to have given birth to a superior gender.
Let’s flip the table for a minute; in the scenario where a female child is born, the woman feels depressed while the husband feels the need to try harder to get a boy next time in order to prove himself as a man. These reasons are why some women push themselves so hard even against medical advice. Without thinking twice, they damn all consequences while they risk their life to give their husband a male child.
When the children starts to grow, the favoritism cards are no longer hidden, they are laid out straight for all to see. The male child mostly gets the best things irrespective of the position he is in line of birth whether the first or the last, he gets all the available attention. Eventually, this male child grows into a man, and as a result of his experience growing up, he becomes the type of man who sees women as a second class creation who doesn’t deserve his respect, the type who can’t stand successful women because he feels they don’t have the right to acquire wealth nor hold respectable position.
We as parent’s have to take up this responsibility because we won’t want to be held responsible for raising a chauvinistic mind, nor the reason our girls grow up with a low self-esteem.
Here is our wake up call. We have the power to shape the society and change these archaic ideologies. As mothers, let’s raise our kids in the right way and help both gender understand they both have a place and are partners. Our children look up to us to lead them right, so lets duty to dump the favoritism and gender duty cards. We can start with things as little as domestic chores. When the girls are cleaning up the house on sanitation days, don’t leave the boys watching television, or playing games while their sisters work, let them join in too. This helps curb the preferential treatment. Let’s also avoid using words that assume specific chores or duties are meant for girls while some are meant for boys. Let’s teach the coming generation about equality, helping them understand that both genders deserve to be given equal chances and should be respected as equals.
We’ve fought so hard to get where we are today and we can’t afford to let our guards down due to negligence. Now is the time for us to balance the gender scale. Using our home as an orientation site, we need to set these examples because the home is a miniature of what the society looks like. If we as individuals can change the idea of gender preferences in our homes, then we have succeeded in changing the society at large.
Happy International Women’s day
