13
“I have learned to observe
gender conventions in different
cultures by trying to see where
power actually lies, rather
than where it looks like it is.”
W hen Emily was in Botswana, it seemed to her that in
the traditional culture, the women did most of the work.
The culture is matrilineal, which means that power
goes down through the woman’s family. Most families
had a herd of cows, and also grew food. She witnessed
that while the men were in charge of the cows, the
women were growing food in the desert which was a lot
of work and they also wound up running a lot of small
businesses as the economy started to develop. When
Emily came to Thailand, she saw the gender roles
seem quite different than in many other Asian cultures.
Women there ran a lot of businesses and seemed to
have fairly equal access to education. Even though men
still got to act like they were in charge, Emily didn’t
often observe that they were.
Emily thinks that equal doesn’t mean everything’s the
same. She also explains that women in their careers
lose seniority if they want to have a baby, while men
won’t lose anything. She notices that it’s unfair for
women to always make the sacrifice for family and jobs.
While they have to do all the domestic work, they also
get penalized or punished in the workforce for working
part-time. Emily was always told when she was young
that women could have a full-time job and a family
at the same time, but there were very few role models
for this. Looking back now, she finds out that it is not
always possible.
W hen Emily worked for a law firm after college,
she witnessed young lawyers who were just out of
law school were not able to have a family because
of their jobs. At that time, she hadn’t met Gordon
yet, but she knew she wanted a family. “It’s more
about choices than making everybody to do the
same thing,” Emily says women can choose to have
a family, or job, or a combination. “ Feminism
should say they should have the
choices, but I don’t think they
should (have to) choose between
the family and their jobs.” Similarly,
Emily says men shouldn’t ignore or deny women’s
choices. “The things I think are important
have to do with reproductive health, and
access to abortion. If a woman got pregnant
and felt it’s wrong to have an abortion, she
shouldn’t have to have one, but I think she
should have a choice.”
When she was at the law firm, she always witnessed
women would come to work wearing clothes like
dark men’s suits because they wanted to look as
much like men as possible to be taken seriously.
Questioning these women, she thought that women
should be willing to say women are different in
many ways and keep some parts they are good at.
“Men haven’t run the
world that well and
I think we would be
better off if more of it
were run by women.”