To be honest, we all say we treat each other equally, male or female, and that others should too. But do we actually do it?
A quintessential example is one time during a class debate on the topic ‘Who’s greater – Man or Woman?’ I found myself in a conflict. As the girls barked out their point of views for Woman and the boys on the other side for Man, albeit I sat in the girls row (obviously) I couldn’t help but think I’d fit anywhere but either side. To be frank, I kinda deserved to be in the midst of the two groups, for I had both pros and cons for either side in my mind. Nevertheless, I kept my mouth shut.
Why?
I think I knew the answer to it.
“A woman is more important because she’s the reason there’s more life on earth,” the thought echoed in my head.
“But she couldn’t have given birth if not for Man,” a contrasting thought settled above the former thought.
Jeez. Was I the only one who sat bewildered by my brain which was able to consider both sides of the same paper?
I guess I didn’t really get my answer for that. But I did realise another thing about my brain. It was telling me something that was so simple, a bit too simple perhaps, that most just tend to overlook it like a speck of dirt left on the plate, or a few seconds left for a minute, and round it all off to make it more convenient.
“Look at the big picture,” they tell us, but we’re so focused on making our minds comfortable that we tend to perceive things as not as they actually are, but shape our perspective for our own comfort. Just like how it’s much easier to just consider the differences between a man and a woman rather than treat them as the same.
Because we’d rather have a mind to place a woman as frail and a man as strong than to actually consider the fact that every trait, be it courage or tenderness, open or narrow, is placed in everyperson with only the differences in their percentages of expression.
My dad had told me, if you have your mind at conflict between two equal objects, that’s not a fault in you. It’s a fault in the environment. Because clearly your mind is showing you that they’re both the same things, and that you’re just coating each side of the same paper with different colours. These colours don’t make it any different than what it actually is.
Man, woman. Woman, man.
Same paper. Different sides.
Equality holds justice. And justice means equality.
– Sugithaa Paraman
ANXIOUS SERENDIPITY 