A Riddle –
A man and his child are driving on I-95, and they’re in a terrible accident. The father is killed. The seriously injured child is unconscious and airlifted to the nearest Level I Trauma Center. As they’re bringing the child off the helicopter to the arriving trauma team, the Trauma Surgeon-in-Chief runs up and says, “I can’t treat this kid, that’s my child.”
How is this possible?
A conversation between two women.
WHITE WOMAN (WW): All women face the same oppression as women. All women are similarly situated in patriarchy, and therefore all women have a kind of intuitive solidarity or sisterhood.BLACK WOMAN (BW): I’m not so sure. Let me ask you a question. So, when you get up in the morning and you look in the mirror, what do you see?
WW: I see a woman.
BW: You see, that’s the problem for me. Because when I wake up in the morning and I look in the mirror, I see a black woman. To me, race is visible. But to you, race is invisible. You don’t see it.
And that’s how privilege works. You see, privilege is invisible to those who have it. It is a luxury. Privilege is invisible to those who have it!
As I have quoted before;
“Never trust anyone who says they do not see color.
This means to them, you are invisible.”
― Nayyirah Waheed
Men are invisible. “What?”
When people hear the word “gender,” they think it means women, gay, lesbian, bisexual. Until women can confront a men’s sense of entitlement, I don’t believe that we will understand why a great number of men resist gender equality. Men don’t have a gender. This is one of the ways that dominant systems maintain and reproduce themselves. Rarely is a dominating system challenged to think about its dominance; that’s one of the keys to power and privilege, the ability to go unexamined, lacking introspection, in fact, being rendered invisible. White men in the United States and Europe are the beneficiaries of the single greatest affirmative action program in the history of the world; they are invisible.
The lack of speaking out is silence, and isn’t silence a form of consent and complicity? We have heard that before in male rhetoric around female violence. “She didn’t say no”. That leads to the next question, why are men left out of the term, “female violence”?
“In the end, what will hurt the most is not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.”
― Martin Luther King
Humanity needs more adult men with power to start prioritizing these issues because gender equality is good for men. Young men want lives where they have a marvelous relationship with their child; where their children are safe from predators. They expect their partners to work outside the home and be just as committed to their careers as they are. When men participate in housework and childcare, their kids are happier and healthier. When men share housework and childcare, their wives are happier. When men share, they live longer, are happier, have daughters with high esteem, sons believing in gender equality, and they themselves are more successful and more profitable in business.
The World Economics Forum was reporting that it wouldn’t be until 2133 until Equal Pay would be a reality, but with recent global changes, it has been pushed back to 2186. Sadly, it will take 7 generations until that female Trauma Surgeon-in-Chief, the child’s mother, will be paid equally.
PS: Alternatively, it could have been one of the child’s two dads. Upholding equal humanity.
#womeninspirechange #HeforShe
