One Brick Short

We’ve been giving women the stinky-end of the stick for years.

I’ve been mulling like cider a recent D-P story that asked the rhetorical question of whether we expect women to work harder in the workplace than men in order to be considered just as good. My first response was no. I’ve had many women bosses over the years and everyone has been as good or better as any of the men I’ve worked for and as for colleagues, some of the best writers and reporters I’ve worked with were women.

But a newsroom ain’t no normal place. We’re a cussing lot. We throw tantrums. We pry. We snoop. We have a strange sense of entitlement to know everything that’s going on with everybody else and the right to make it public, so maybe we don’t count. Then I started looking around at other aspects of life outside of the news bureau.

The majority of domestic abuse victims—we’re not talking the mental and emotional abuse that both genders may heap on each other in different ways, but physically, bang-bang abuse—are women.

In some countries women carry the loads and walk 10 paces behind the man. In other countries women must dress head-to-toe and are prosecuted—I would argue persecuted is the better word—and given prison sentences for chilling with unrelated men. In other cultures we mutilate their genitals so that sex is unenjoyable.

But what about US? We expect a lot out of women. We expect them to earn a day’s pay. We expect them to cook, clean and be the most emotionally available to children and those with needs. It’s not that men aren’t caring and loving, we just do it differently. OK, most guys my age do it differently. Most guys of younger age with whom I’ve chatted about this topic do it the same way, though, so my stereotype is not without music.

Without thinking about it, we naturally expect women to sense what’s wrong in others and explain, encourage and help them along. Often times, our male version of the same play is something like “suck it up, tough it out. Man up a little. You can do this thing.” We’re all about Vince Lombardi and winning one for the Gipper, but what about deep down below?

Too often we don’t go there.

Too often I don’t go there.

I don’t know if women need to work twice as hard as men to be considered just as good. After my mull, my gut feeling is yes, in most cases. I know that we expect more out of women than we do of our male selves. If you don’t believe me, ask this very small, seemingly insignificant question in your place of business: Who’s the one in charge of holiday gift exchanges or remembering birthdays and ordering cake?