Charles de Montesquieu, a French political philosopher, said, “To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them.” To be great one must be defined by one’s own standards and not those of others.
Equality is defined as being a state of uniformity in ability, character, quantity or rank of two things.
Do we, as women, really desire uniformity with men?
The question of equality between the sexes is one of those immortal questions, it seems like it will never get settled because this type of equality is re-defined as society evolves.
First, women wanted the right to vote, same pay and to work the same jobs as men—all valid desires.
However this is just a display of equality, a dance to settle the feminists, to hush the voices of the misogynists and to give a little more courage to the timid housewife to go out into the world.
However—I believe it has to be said—men and women will never be equal because the way equality is defined these days is so incompatible with what equality actually should be.
Men and women are not the same, which is why we are created differently. We should never aspire for uniformity, that’s a Pandora’s Box we don’t want to open.
I get the impression that women want to be equivalent to men just because it makes them worthy, because it makes them feel more complete as a human being.
There is believed to be a freedom in finding equality with men, but I believe that it is just another way to remain under patriarchy.
In the corporate world most women tend to abandon their more feminine qualities in an attempt at success. It’s true that in a tough world like corporate America you have to be ballsy, tough, aggressive and go after the kill. But this is because it is a world where men have defined the standards of conduct; we should seek to define work and success by our own standards of conduct instead of compromising a critical part of ourselves.
If men define the standards of greatness, and we only aspire to live up to that greatness, then we are only ‘great’ by the standards prescribed to us by men. That is not greatness or liberty it’s merely a pretty mirage of equality that shall never serve us.
It is a privilege to be great in one’s own right, not to be great in the shadow of another. Equality is not gaining legitimacy through imitation, it is not victory in the face of another’s failure, it is individuals who are on the same plane not because they are copies of each other; but because they are individually great.
Women who aspire to be equal to men aren’t really aiming very high!
We should aspire not to be equal to a man, but to be brilliant in our own respects as women, not as an attempt to compete.
Activist Marianne Williamson once said “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?”
Who are we not to be great? Who are we not to define ourselves through our own light, not another’s shadow?
Philippa Hatendi can be reached at phatendi@ut.edu.