battle of the sexes
Date: Jul 5th, 2007 11:06:01 pm - Subscribe
Mood: interested
Women have been fighting for a long time for equality, but do we really want it? I've been thinking today when I saw en episode of some kind of reality program set in a prison. There was an altercation between one of the female guards and one of the male prisoners. This is an all male prison. This is a correctional facility. A lot of these people aren't even going to be up for parole any time soon.
It got me to thinking, why would there be a woman in this facility at all? There was a female warden, and this was a female screw. But for the record, this guard wasn't a very big woman, reasonably feminine, didn't seem to be overly athletic or muscular. Does she really fit the bill for someone who is supposed to patrol, control and tame some of america's most violent male prisoners?
In thinking about this I pointed out that perhaps this woman shouldn't have been there in the first place, that the job itself obviously requires more than her physicality could allow for. But my partner pointed out that if correctional officers were hired on the basis of their physicality then there would be a tension in the prison system and the prisoners would feel like they were then given some kind of subconscious permission to wage war on this enforcing system.
I simply argued that part of the job description should be a capacity to defend yourself when attacked... I think there should be a psychological element too just quietly, with guards having to be the kind of people who rehabilitate these people, there should be some kind of test that they have to sit to make sure they aren't sadistic fuckers or whatever...
But the point I'm trying to raise is this: This woman, whether she was sexually harassed or not really shouldn't have been in this facility with these men. I'm not saying that all women wouldn't be able to, I think some women would have the ability to defend themselves and take care of themselves in this situation, but are we really at a point with political correctness that we can't put the best person in a job because of what would be considered offensive?
There are laws in place so that you can't be fired without good reason, and you have to be given an equal opportunity to do the job at hand, but realistically, are we all capable of doing the same things? Most men will be able to do most of the 'masculine' heavier jobs than most women. Thats a fact. I'm not saying that all women should be excluded, I'm just arguing for a bit more sense when it comes to where we put people. I'd argue the same thing for men who can't do the job. Some men aren't suited for these kind of jobs either.
Unfortunately, it doesn't always swing back the opposite way, men can do the same things that women can do. Often there is a fact that we have to acknowledge, that we are generally built differently to our male counterparts and this will restrict us.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not arguing for all women back to the kitchen or anything like that. I'm proud to be a woman, and I'm proud of what we can do. But I think we're winning battles on the wrong fronts here. Being able to work in a correctional facility isn't a gain, its some kind of stupid appeasement.
Maybe I'm just on a rant here, and maybe after a little more thought I'll come back and edit all of this to be more succinct and articulate, but until then, this is the rough sketch of an idea that you might like to think about...
xxtron.
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