WHY WE ARE NOT EQUAL: Gender Role Reversal

So many U.S. Americans are under the impression that women and men are equal. ‘Sure, we had that women’s lib thing, right?’ Yet women are still used to sell everything from cars to beer to music to you name it. I am not the first to be disgusted by the Stella Artois ad, but just in case you haven’t seen it, here it is.

Every ad for cleaning supplies shows happy mom looking thrilled to give the kitchen counters or bathroom a good twice over, as in these ads here and here.

Go into any sex shop and you will be bombarded by clothing that makes women look “sexy” and a plethora of porn that degrades women. The only clothing in sex shops for men is usually of the ridiculous variety. Yeah, I laughed when I first saw the elephant nose man-thong. Now don’t get me wrong, I am all in favor of exploring and having a healthy sex life, I just fundamentally disagree with the gender inequities that exist in the sex market.

Women still get in free or cheaper than men at most nightclubs. Sure, there are a fair amount of strip clubs that showcase male dancers, but hands down, the supply is for female-dancer nightclubs. The majority of pornographic magazines feature and objectify women and are geared towards men.

Girls and young women still wear tiny skirts and tank tops to school or out on the town and get plenty of attention for it.

Just imagine a world where everything is reversed... I mean everything. Can you? Men wear low cut tops so they can snag a raise or grab the attention of potential employers. Women are the vast majority of business and land owners worldwide. 1 out of every 4 men you know has been sexually assaulted. You read in the paper about a young man in the military getting gang raped, left tied up in a dormitory and then refused medical treatment, only to be shamed and blamed by his peers when stepping forward. Men in refugee camps are afraid to go to the bathrooms at night because they are in serious danger of getting raped or attacked.

Families across the world must sell their young sons into slavery in order to survive. The bulk of the world’s multi-billion dollar cosmetics industry is geared towards men. Men are slowly but surely becoming the prominent group of university students in the U.S. for the first time in our nation’s history. Women can, for the most part, walk freely anywhere at any time without ever worrying that they might be attacked or raped. There are men in every country in the world that must sell their sex to survive or ensure the survival of their family.

Women can have as many sexual partners as they choose whereas men get labeled slut or prostitute if they have more than a few or sometimes even just one partner. Men get pregnant and have to deal with EVERYTHING that that implies. They must put chemicals in their bodies if they want to prevent pregnancy. They are often forced get illegal abortions and end up ill, hospitalized or worse. Young men get disowned from their family and are forced into poverty after they get pregnant out of wedlock.

Women are the primary group that commits rape, murder and incest. They are also the ones that make and enforce the majority of laws worldwide.

It seems ridiculous, right? It is atrocious to think of a world that is like that. Yet, when you switch the roles to how they actually ARE, it seems commonplace. That is just how the world is. Well that is not good enough. We are still not equal, and if you think we are, or that it doesn’t matter, you are playing with fire and just plain delusional.

Does it have to take a tragedy for us to change?

My partner told me that his stocks for a solar power development company just rose 4% in the past 10 minutes on top of a 10% rise in the past few hours. He told me this at the exact moment I was reading an article about the sharply falling odds of a nuclear revival in the U.S.

According to another article on MSNBC, as of 2002, 47,000 metric tons of spent fuel (which is now radioactive waste) has accumulated in the U.S. and is still waiting to be properly stored. Whatever ''properly stored'' means...

So what do I take from this? Something catastrophically horrible has happened and NOW we are starting to care. Never mind that we have long since known the potential dangers of nuclear energy and the ridiculousness of the 'out of sight out of mind' theory when applied to the pileup of radioactive material.

I want my parents to eat healthy and exercise so they live a long time. I have always bugged them about it. Yes, I am sure it has been annoying at times, but I bug them because I love them. I do not want them to be one of those people who have a heart attack and THEN realize they need to start being healthy.

Why does it so often take something tragic happening for people to start to change their ways for the better?

Let's start thinking about the future today. Hopefully the world will be here (and in tact) for our children and their children. We need to stop being so short sided when it comes to taking care of the earth and each other.

I hope all of my (and your) friends and loved ones in Japan are going to be okay.