Gratitude for Women
Happy International Women’s Day to everyone who celebrates women.
I encourage everyone to celebrate the women in your life every day, do not just wait for March 8th to do it. Chances are good that the women in your life do a lot to make life turn out in just the way we like it to. Even if you are woman, other women do things that make your life better. Maybe it’s the woman in the office that organizes the potlucks. Maybe it’s your office mate that drops little gifts on your keyboard once in a while. Maybe she’s your boss and she runs a great company. However, women affect your life, notice it, recognize it, and pass your gratitude along.
But what we should not do, is pay International Women’s Day the very public sharing of all the great memes thanking the women in our lives and then signing their pay cheques that are 80% less than their male counterparts. We should not go home to a warm home filled with a woman’s invisible effort and not do our part of the housework. We should not let our partner take the night shift with the baby for the 50th night in a row because ‘she does so much better on less sleep than you do.’
We should stand up to our bothers and fathers who do not display the gratitude that should be displayed to the women in their lives. You can model better behaviour and never say a word. As a guest in their home, clear the plates after supper and when the snide comments come, counter them with, “She cooked, it is the least I can do.” Shine a spotlight on bad behaviour.
And as we raise our children, please try to focus on how each decision we make can affect the outcome of their lives. The words you say have meaning. Lots of meanings. When a child is wearing a stethoscope and playing, ask if they want to be a doctor or a nurse, instead of the assumption that that if they are male, they want to be a doctor and if they are female, if they want to be a nurse. You may not even think that this matters, but I can assure you it does. Girls and young women are barraged by tiny, small comments that alone, may not matter much but added up over 18 years, shapes what they “think” they are capable of.
Small things like asking only your daughters to load the dishwasher or do the laundry, chips away at their well being. As a parent, you are teaching your daughters how they should be treated and your sons how they should treat their partners. The exact same thing can be said about only getting your son to shovel snow or cut the grass. Children are equally capable. It is our own bias that makes the difference. We have to check our own bias at the parenting door.
Nothing will change if we do not change it. It is up to us, every day, to make the changes, consciously and with insistence, to formally equalize the playing field. Hopefully before the predicted 200 years.
