Scientifically speaking

Gender (in) equality

I am starting this article with a rider. The views expressed in this article are completely personal. They are not intended to demean either of the sexes.

Life started on this planet accidently. It evolved naturally from a single cell to humans. One should note that homo sapiens was the last specie to evolve and since then no other specie has evolved to supersede humans.

What is the purpose of life? As far as nature is concerned, purpose of life is to live and procreate, regenerate. All the things around us have naturally evolved to assist living and regeneration of living species. This applies to humans also.

Life started with single cell. Growth and regeneration took place by cellular multiplication and division. At some point during the evolution male and female forms emerged and the regeneration was carried out by mating of the males and the females. As the species evolved, brain was formed and then it started becoming bigger and bigger, culminating into formation of the human brain, which is the biggest. With the brain came the process of thinking and the decision making ability. Humans emerged from the caves and the jungles to form groups. This in turn gave rise to social structures, families, settlements, villages and so on and so forth leading to civilizations and ultimately to the life in the present form.

One must remember that every step in evolution has a specific purpose. As stated earlier, one of the fundamental purpose of life is to procreate. Nature created male and female form for this purpose. As an incentive to procreation, sex life evolved. Sex is the ultimate pleasure of life and that ensures procreation. The other reason behind the male-female creation was division of labour. And this is the crux of the matter.

Nature intended females to be the bearer of offspring. Nature also intended the males to be the protectors of the female and the offspring. They were also supposed to be the providers.

To ensure procreation, females were made to be attractive to the males. To ensure protection and provisions, males became physically stronger. This is true in most forms of life with few exceptions. The queen Bee in honeybees, for example. In some bird species, the males win over the female birds by intricate dance steps or display of their assets like feathers etc. In animals, males fight with each other to win over the female. Once nature laid down these rules, most of the living species strictly followed them. Problems arose when the human brains started to grow. Humans started thinking. They started questioning the natural processes. Social life evolved to the extent as we know it today. In today’s world, women are becoming physically equally stronger. They have a thought process similar to men, and they have started questioning the natural design. They have started questioning the division of labour as defined by nature.

On the other hand, men have become arrogant due to their obvious physical advantage. They have become the dominant species. Women, rightfully so, resent this. Nature designed women to be beautiful and attractive. By natural instinct, women want to attract men. In today’s world, woman enhances her beauty with attractive clothing, makeup, jewelry etc. This obviously works and man instantly gets attracted towards a woman.

As social life evolved, rules were put in place to streamline life. Social structures were created. Concept of family and monogamy emerged. Most of the humans follow these rules. However, there were two crucial fallouts. One was, male became dominant. Second, they started putting restrictions of female. This has led to gender discrimination. Now the issue is this. Should today’s female, abandon the role assigned to her by nature altogether and try to become equal to a male in all respects? And whether this is at all possible and desirable?

And should the male completely resist this and try to remain dominant?

This conflict and skewed mentality of some misguided males has also resulted in problems of Sexual harassment, rapes, polygamy etc. In some cases females are also provocateurs.

There is no question but the difference between a male and a female is diminishing in many aspects of life, but crucial difference still remains. That is child bearing. This and the male chauvinistic thinking are the two major factors that are preventing the gender equality in today’s world.

It is possible that in near future Science can provide answer to the first problem. It would be possible to genetically alter human body and allow the child bearing to take place in artificial womb. But the problem of child care still remains. And how does one solve the problem of male chauvinistic attitude? It is said that man is a born polygamist. So do we blame the nature for this? Can we genetically alter this behavior?

If we genetically alter our bodies so that sex remains only as a pleasure exercise, will this bring gender equality?

My own view is that this will help, but still, a course correction is required in our thinking to really achieve the gender equality.

Shashank Purandare 21/04/2023