The other day, I was sitting on the couch while my father and grandfather were watching a football game. They were discussing the game and what the male TV announcer was saying. Then in the middle of their conversation about the play, a female announcer came on and started speaking about the exact same thing as the previous, male announcer had. Instead of adding what she was saying to their conversation like they had done with the male announcer, my father and grandfather completely disagreed with her, and complained that they hate women sports announcers.[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Why do adults tell little girls that they can do anything, but change their tune when a girl becomes a young woman?[/perfectpullquote]The room was quiet for a moment, then they both turned and looked at me. Immediately they started to explain to me trying to justify what they had just said. They told me it is not that women can’t do everything men can do, but that sometimes they shouldn’t. At the time I just ignored their statement and went back to playing on my phone; however, looking back, why did they feel the need explain to me that sometimes women shouldn’t do jobs that are “meant” for men? When I was younger, they would always tell me I can do or be anything I want, they would encourage me to do things that may have been considered masculine things like hunting and fishing. But now that I am older they tell me that I shouldn’t do certain things. Does this come from the fact that they believe men are better than women? Or do they just think that women can’t do everything that men can do?

The Stronger Sex

Photo by Leon Martinez from Pexels

Your whole life, just like mine, you may have walked around thinking that men were stronger than women because that was what you were always told. Yes, Physically, men may look stronger than most women, which might be where the stereotype men are stronger than women came from, but what is the actual definition of strength? According to “Webster Dictionary”, the definition of strength is the quality or state of being strong: capacity for exertion or endurance. Strength is a quality, which does not necessarily mean that someone is stronger than another purely because of their physical body; physical strength is not the only type of strength, there is also mental and social strength. You can’t go around saying that you are stronger than someone because of your muscle mass and men are not stronger than women just because they appear to be stronger. In fact, women are mentally and socially stronger than men and have a higher survival rate than men. According to an article by “PNAS”, women have higher survival rates and tend to live longer than men in high mortality situations like slavery, famines and epidemics. Women also tend to live longer in general. On average, women tend to live about 5 years longer than men. Yes men may be physically stronger than women, but that does not always make them stronger in the end.

Is Bigger Really Better?

It has been scientifically proven that men have bigger brains than women does that mean that men are smarter than women?

According to the video, the answer is clearly no. The size of your brain has nothing to do with how smart you are or can be. According to a study by Stellenbosch University “Relative to their male counterparts we find 27% more females who qualified for university, 34% more who enroll in university, 56% more who complete any undergraduate qualification and 66% more who attain a bachelor’s degree. This despite there being roughly equal numbers of boys and girls at the start of school.” Additionally, the video states that due to steretyoes women tend to do worse than men by defect. For example, when a male and a female turn in an identical application the male tends to be hired more often and he will get paid a higher salary than a woman would for the same job. Now, this has nothing to do with the fact that men are smarter or more applicable for the job, because in this situation, both genders turned in the exact same application. Gender stereotypes often play a large part in an application process and on average, men get hired and paid more than women who apply for the same jobs.

The Real Problem

Stereotypes are everywhere in our day and age. Whether someone admits it or not, it is impossible to be completely unbiased or unexpected by the influence of stereotypes. Some stereotypes have surrounded us since we were small, engraving them into our minds and making it almost impossible for us to stop from using them.[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]We are often blinded by stereotypes, making it hard to notice when we use them ourselves. [/perfectpullquote]They surround us and are used on a day to day basis, most starting in school. With many people leading you to believe that they also end in school, which, unfortunately, is false. Whether you want to be or not you and your peers are placed into a group by these stereotypes in school and out of school. The big question is, where do stereotypes come from? The saying “Every stereotype has some truth to it” is correct, but extremely exaggerated. Stereotypes come from about 1% of the whole group, making another saying that is sadly true, “One bad apple ruins the whole bunch”. Likewise, there are some people who fit these stereotypes and that’s why they make sense, but the labels that represent the 1% have spiraled out of control. People shouldn’t assume someone belongs to a certain group purely because of the way they dress or act. Yes, there may be a very small pool of people that fit the stereotype, but that is not the majority, making most of these stereotypes false and harmful to everyone else who gets put into them. Gender stereotypes being one of the worst of them all.

The Dream Gap

According to an article by Barbie Starting at age 5, many girls begin to develop limiting self-beliefs. They stop believing their gender can do or be anything. This is known as the Dream Gap. the Dream Gap Project, an ongoing global initiative that aims to give girls the resources and support they need to continue to believe that they can be anything.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpLT8bEQ78A

Barbie has been working on improving little girls self-esteem, they have given the Barbie doll hundreds of occupations showing little girls they can be anything and have any job they could ever want. Their goal is to show girls before the age of six that they can do anything they want. Hopefully they will take that lesson and begin to believe it as they grow older so someday when they are challenged by a boy they won’t back down, they will stand taller and believe that they have the same rights as he does.

Women: The Final Draft

Women are stronger and smarter than men in many aspects and stereotypes are most often incorrect. Yes, I know there is an argument stating that God created man first, therefore, men are better than women, but He created women right after, taking a part of man to make women from it.[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]God saw that man was not good enough all by himself and he needed a women to be there with him.[/perfectpullquote]It is like writing a paper or a blog, first you must have a rough draft then you look it over and decide that you like some parts of it but other things you messed up on, and still need a lot of work. You go back through your paper and edit it-in some cases multiple times- before you finally land on something good enough to turn in to your teacher or make public to the world. Even the smartest people have to edit their work before they submit it. Even Hannah Montana said “nobody’s perfect”. What is there left for me to say? Women are better than men men hands down.