Monday, November 29, 2010

Gender inequality


Last Wednesday we tackled about inequalities and we were able to touch the issue on gender inequality. I was captured by the topic since I consider gender inequality as one of my most favorite issues to analyze since in my own opinion, the issue about it is very mind bothering and it indeed challenges our beliefs as a culture in a way that they silently plead for attention.  We’ve been seeing a lot of LGBTQ’s (Lesbians, Gays, Transsexuals, and Queers) around. True that they do not have the capacity to reproduce in the sense that they are not attracted to people who have different genitals as theirs, but, the thing here we are seeing a lot of them every now then as if they are becoming normal in our everyday sight. Although there have been scientific studies which would prove that these LGBTQ’s are not abnormal, we could still see the different discriminations against them. So I asked myself, is gender an identity that I myself, as a person thinks I am or my identity as what my society dictates me to be? Is this a role which I should play? I have a friend who admitted that “he” is a gay. I asked “him” before to describe to me the feeling of being a gay. “He” answered me in reply: “I know what I have here (pointing at ‘his’ genital) is that of a boy. But I also know exactly what I feel. I am uncomfortable and irritated acting according to what and how I should behave. My feelings are as important as any logic that those damn people dictated me to be. Napapagod na ko sa kakasunod. Dati kasi sumusunod pa ko sa sinasabi ng ibang tao e. lalo nang parents ko. Sasabihin nila sa akin dapat ganito yung pananamit mo, dapat magkagusto ka sa girls blah blah. Friend, wala talaga e. ito na talaga ako. Bat ayaw nila akong tanggapin? Tapos pagtatawanan pa kasi bading ako? Alam ko sa sarili ko na Normal ako dahil wala akong sakit. At wala akong nasasagasaang tao. Kala ko ba gusto nila magpakatotoo na lang ako? Ano ba mas madaling gawin? Ang tanggapin ang sarili bilang ako o di tanggapin ng ibang tao dahil sa ganito lang ako?” after our conversation then, what “he” has said to me triggered me to delve on this inequality more. I conducted some little research – thanks to my Genders class before – Even APA has proven that being LGBTQ is not psychologically ill. They are normal. Actually, our notion of abnormal and the word normal are quite political on this issue. How do we define what is normal and abnormal? Why is it so hard for cultures to accept these people and stop treating them as if they are contagious despite the scientific proofs? At some point in this generation, there have been quite few improvements on treating these people. However, this idea of gender inequality still continues now as I can still see dividers in the LRT trains separating only 2 genders – males and females. Where should we put gays and lesbians then? I’ve heard a lot of stories on men being raped by gays. Now gender segregations are seen in 2 ways. One, the feeling of a person and two, what the society has been dictated us to be. Lesbians should be considered as males in the sense that that’s how they feel they are and so they are manifesting them. Same case should be for the gays. Because as how I am seeing these things, the government seemed to acknowledge only 2 genders and the criteria on which depends on the kind of genital do you have. How would this hamper our progression as a nation? This social belief affects and hampers equality in our society as well as in access to services from the government. Moreover, the laws in our country don’t sanction the needs of protection of these people. This wouldn’t end so long as we’d be able to really dug into the roots of this stigma and fix the problem.

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