Both sexes can do everything

At DNS we have always been quite rebellious when faced with dogma and we have had many discussions about behavior and attitude towards practicing equality

Both sexes can do everything

Had it not been for the numerous examples from the past and present of how men and women treat eachother differently in society, and how people – traditionally women – are discriminated against and not given equal opportunities in life on the basis of their gender, this article could be cut short, almost down to a ”Yes, both sexes can do everything”.

But in the world we live in, a battle is being waged to consolidate perceptions to the opposite, that men and women do have their different, fixed roles to play in life. The battle is a cultural one. It goes on in the cities, where the battle for tradition is getting a heavy beating. It goes on in the rural areas, where restrictive and conservative perceptions are strongest. It goes on in DNS as well. First and foremost it goes on in the minds of people and in upbringing of the small ones during the vulnerable period of life when the culture around what it entails to be man or woman is simply indoctrinated – not learned, but indoctrinated – by fathers and mothers who cannot imagine breaking or daring to rebel against outdated cultural norms.

What Women can or cannot do

– examples picked from asking around people working with Humana

In Malawi, a woman must not put salt in the food. She must prepare the food, but let the male put the salt. Also, she must not wear trousers, dig a graveyeard, build a house, become a pastor, and she must not report family violence. She must always obey decisions of her husband. She must not cook while having her monthly period. In Malawi, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, India and Honduras, marriage proposals are decided for the women, not by them, and this is also the case in many other countries.

In Namibia, women must not milk cows. They are allowed to make food products from milk, but not do the milking. A woman must not sit on a chair, dig a hole, climb a tree or bury a dead person, lead men or ask for love. She must not propose to a man for marriage or have the man as a boyfriend, or wear unsuitable clothes, fetch firewood and so on.

In Cameroon, female office workers must not wear trousers. A Muslim Cameroonian woman must not sit with her husband during a meal and cannot go out without covering her hair. In Cameroon, women cannot be traditional rulers in the village. They cannot decide the number of children to have and cannot keep sitting on a chair when a man is standing. She must marry a man of her parents´ choice. A widow is expected to become the wife of the deseased husband´s brother. The women are obliged to listen to men and do the cooking, laundry and cleaning and care for the children

What men can or cannot do

When it comes to the men, the list is considerably shorter and the burden easier. In Namibia, a man must not carry things on his head, carry a baby on his back or push a trolley with a child, do babysitting or do laundry or cook when the wife is around. But he must carry a pocket knife, without which he is not considered a real man. In the cities if Cameroon, a man must not beat his wife, even if she is wrong.

In Malawi, he must not attend the funeral of children less than 6 months old. In Japan, men must be calm and not talkative.

In Zimbabwe, a man must not cook, wash or iron. If he does cook, it shows greediness. If he does was or iron it shows that the woman of that particular home is suppressing her husband. Men can have several women in their life, but women cannot have several men.

In Europe

In most of Europe, a polite man who knows his manners opens the door for a woman and allows her to enter first. The cultural assumption is that women are weak and need protection, and this is shown and confirmed in public in this way. At home however, she can open the door herself.

Until a hundred years ago, no woman in Europe was allowed to cast a vote. But today, a woman in many parts of Europe is supposed to be free. She can take any job, play football, be a weightlifter, lead a company etc. However, the cultural pressure, you will find very few females in jobs such as mechanics, carpenters, truck drivers, bulldozer drivers, crane drivers or building workers. Out of 100 welders, you may find one female. Her “strange” choice of job will invoke reactions in the way of raised eyebrows and advice that she should “become normal”.

A man can do the cooking and even serve the food on family occasions, and he will be honored. As he serves the food he will be admired and praised. When a woman does it , it is a normal thing to do.

Often it is convenient for women to let the men do the hard work. A public bus has a break down. Maybe it has a flat tire. You can be sure that the one to step forward to solve the problem is a man. The women present will not step forward. No matter how much they have professed  equality, they find it convenient not to step forward. Somehow, this also shows up in statistics. On average, men in Europe die 3-5 years before the women, probably because they expose themselves to more dangerous tasks and stressful jobs. On average women get less pay. They are excluded culturally from a  number of jobs.

What to do with outdated traditions of fixed roles

Everybody is better off without most of these burdening remnants from the past.

Often parents uphold outdated traditions and the world will not develop as well and as fast as it should.

But society can persecute whole groups of people in order to force them into subservience. Breaking the norms can be punished severely. For  example, Muslim Somali girls are not supposed to play football. But in a refugee camp in Sudan, life does not have many options, so football came on the agenda for one crafty girl. Her father, having said no, changed his answer to yes – he would rather summon the courage to face the outrage of traditional people in the family than continue to oppose a strong and crafty daughter. She immediately organized a football team for girls, in itself an event. Sometimes, revolutions come in small steps. One day, a woman wears trousers instead of a skirt, standing up to tradition. And so on.

Both sexes can do everything

At DNS we have always been quite rebellious when faced with dogma and we have had many discussions about behavior and attitude towards practicing equality by not shying away from difficult tasks and not shying away from breaking without dated norms.

Examples:

At DNS, women have leading positions. Women from DNS took part in building the windmill at Tvind. Women at DNS do not wait for men to speak or neither do men wait for women to speak. On thousands of occasions, we have practiced the opposite of silence by asking for comments from everyone, specifically those who did not usually speak up on important matters. Women have welded, grinded, lifted and done all on equal footing with the men. At DNS, men and women have served food, cooked, washed the dishes and cleaned. Men and women have renovated buildings  together. Even at DNS, it is quite often men who volunteer for jobs such as lifting a thing weighing a ton but one cannot say that the women have been exposed to pressure to keep away from technical matters. Many women at DNS have gladly taken on challenges such as driving a bus or put up electrical wires in a house. In general we can aspire to a “world record” when it comes to men and women working together as good comrades to solve all kinds of difficult tasks together.