I don't believe this.
Out of the blue my mum says, "Boys are more intelligent and capable than girls."
What the fuck?
I know that my mum has always been a little chauvinistic towards her own sex; she used to say that the wife should never have to work harder than her husband, and she seemed to think that teaching, nursing/medicine, and accounting were what girls should do, but I just attributed that to the conservative and traditional environment in which she was raised. But she had never ever told me once before that I was inferior to males, and then out of nowhere she tells my brother, in reference to his friend who is a girl, "You are a boy, of course you should be better than her." My brother does not need this; he already goes to a bigoted boy's private school; and I don't need this either, just when I'm about to leave school and choose careers.
Obviously having attended girls schools all my life, I fired back at her. Her evidence was that since all the leaders of the world and other powerful people are all men, then clearly, men were more capable than women. Well I pointed out some women prime ministers and women in powerful positions, and it was clear she hadn't heard of them. And she goes, "well, most of them are men, so obviously..." well obviously its because of chauvinistic people like you that immediately consider someone less intelligent because of their sex. And anyway, I do not believe that the leaders of the world are the most intelligent people in the world. George Bush, anyone? Robert Mugabe?
In the end I just decided to drop it, because my mum, and my dad too, are not the kind of people who are gonna listen to their seventeen-year-old daughter who has no experience of the world whatsoever and therefore has no right to contradict their irrefutable wisdom.
But I think the thing I don't get the most is why push me and encourage me to strive for the best and want me to be a doctor when secretly you think that I'll never be as successful as my brother?
I can't wait to get out of this house.
On the same note, today I read this SMH article which linked back to the ordination of female bishops in Britain. According to the article, members of the Church of England met on Monday to vote on a proposition to create a rank of 'super-bishops' - in some sort of compensation for those who are opposed to the ordination of female bishops - which got rejected. That should not have come as a surprise, because if it was accepted, it would just undermine any progress that women have made. The surprising thing was this:
"The vote followed an emotional six-hour debate, and resulted in one bishop, the Right Reverend Stephen Venner, the Bishop of Dover, breaking down in tears after announcing he was "ashamed" of his church for ignoring the feelings of those who cannot countenance women bishops."
Uh. The ones who should be ashamed are the ones who cannot countenance women bishops. What the hell is wrong with these people?
[it has been so hard to refrain from swearing my arse off. And I'm sorry if I scared you with this sudden burst of feminism.]
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haha "no experience of the world" Sound like something my parents would say. Ever thought that perhaps I just might know more than you?
=]