I have just been reading a newsletter from one of my customers and welcomed their series of articles on ‘Choosing Respect’. Whilst their message covers all aspects of respect, I know that one of their focuses is on cultural respect and I applaud that. This months article was ‘treat yourself with respect’ and no one could argue that this is such a strong platform for a healthy life.
However it got me thinking, as to how broadly you could define cultural respect? At the risk of stating the obvious, as I have grown older, I have developed a much better understanding and appreciation of the differences in the ‘cultural’ make up of men and women. As recently described by a male Face Book friend ‘Men are from Mars and Women are from some place that doesn’t make sense to men whatsoever…’ and I can echo the same sentiment in reverse. Which of course is one of the great tensions in our lives; that exchange between two very different perspectives and the two very different ways of navigating this world. And at the core of it, I think that is just delicious.
When it comes to respecting that cultural difference though, women appear to get the short straw. I acknowledge that women use disrespectful male cultural stereotypes, such as men not being able to do two things at once. However in the current Australian landscape the lack of and even disrespect for women broadly, wins hands down. The examples are many and varied and I don’t want to bore you by repeating them here, but I need to ask, why is this? All of us have mothers; many of us have sisters; a lot of men have wives, female partners and daughters. Do they not get that, showing general disrespect for women is, in fact, reflecting that disrespect upon their nearest and supposedly dearest? I think the following quote, from an unknown author, says it all – “Boys laugh at what they put girls through but they wont be laughing when they are wiping the tears off their daughters face for the same reasons.”
So my dawning observation (and I can literally hear the female readers collective Doh!!!!!) is that, due to the entrenched patriarchy that is prevalent in our society, many men and some women do not know HOW to respect women or how to demonstrate that respect. Many of the social norms in the Australian landscape that we (yes, us women too) are surrounded with from infancy reinforce disrespectful female stereo-types and do little to engender respect. So, assuming that every body understands what it means to show respect for women, may be an assumption we shouldn’t make. We may need to explicitly teach and show people firstly why women should be respected and secondly, how to demonstrate that respect. Yes, there may be women that do not end up earning that respect, but hey, at least give them the chance and don’t disrespect them as a matter of course.
This month’s newsletter lesson, ‘treat yourself with respect’ can be a big ask of women and girls when many of the messages they receive on a daily basis lack respect for one of their core identities, being a female. Australia needs all of its people, men and women to be strong and resilient to build this country and the ability to ‘treat yourself with respect’ is a core strategy for resilience. Lets ‘choose respect’ in all its forms.
