Until women are treated like people, itâs evident that women are not seen as people
By Rebecca Peterson, Staff Writer
It should be obvious. Women are people. This is hardly a controversial school of thought; at least, it hasnât been since 1929 in Canada, legally.
The letter of the law, however, does nothing to combat social consciousness, and in that respect, women are still widely not thought of as people.
This might seem like an extreme statement. However, the widespread treatment of women is telling. Let me provide some examples:
Last week while at work, a man on the street took issue with the fact that I didnât want to talk to him. He followed me for a block to my workplace, where I managed to slip inside a building to get away from him. Looking back over my shoulder, I saw that two of my coworkers had to physically bar the man from coming in after me, and still he pushed to get past them, reaching for me over their shoulders.
Creepy. And one incident certainly doesnât prove a societal phenomenon.
The problem is, however, it isnât a case of âone incident.â In telling this story to other women in my life, the responses Iâve received have widely been along the lines of âyeah, something like that happened to me, once.â Itâs not even a shocking story anymoreâitâs practically expected that other women have similar experiences.
Itâs not the first time Iâve had my work disrupted because a man has felt entitled to my time and attention. Much of my work requires me to be standing in the public eye, either guarding things or keeping people from wandering into places where they shouldnât go. Just as you wouldnât go up to a security guard, block their view, and start asking them personal questions, you would think someone in my position would receive the same courtesy.
Iâm not. Iâve been trapped in my position, forced to find a polite way to tell someone that I donât appreciate their attention or comments about my body, which sometimes inspires more wrath and ire than itâs worth. And again, when sharing these stories with other women, the response I seem to get most often is âyeah, thatâs happened to me.â
Itâs been proven to me time and time again that even while wearing a safety vest and work clothes, there are men who look at me and donât see a person at work, but a target to be pursued. You donât follow a person for two blocks when theyâve expressed disinterestâyou might do that to a cat, but not a human being. Itâs normalized for women to be harassed and have their space invaded at every given opportunity; it is not normalized for men to undergo the same treatment.
Itâs frustrating, disheartening, and infuriating, and even in writing this I know that there are some who wonât take my words seriously because Iâm a woman. This, too, has been proven to me before. I was once at an event where a man was asking a group of young female feminists questions. The feminists tried to patiently explain their answers, only to get cut off before they could finish a sentence. Eventually, a young man wandered over and made the same points, which the first man listened to avidly.
In an experiment at a university in the States, rĂ©sumĂ©s were e-mailed out to faculty for consideration. The rĂ©sumĂ©s were all the same, but some were titled with a womanâs name while others had a manâs name. The rĂ©sumĂ©s labeled as belonging to a man were viewed far more favourably than those belonging to a woman.
Our gender comes before all else: our words, our actions, our opinions. No one is exempt from the assumptions made about women. I, too, find myself judging women differently from men, and itâs always disheartening to realize.
Until we start seeing women as people, we will have to start using men as placeholders in our lines of thought. Think of it this way: if a man wrote this article, would you take the content more or less seriously?
