They have a person give six year old children these huge boxes saying
“Here's a present. Open it up.” The kids’ eyes light up and they open up the
box but inside there's nothing but a single, pre-used pencil or perhaps a
single odd sock. When they ask the child “Do you like your present?” most of
the girls shyly force a smile and say “Yes, thank you.” In contrast, when the
boys got the sock they would say “Is this it?” and if they got asked “Do you
like it?” they answer “No way!”
In another experiment, they got the same kids to drink some juice that
had salt in it. The ones who simply said “Yuck!” the moment it passed their
lips were mostly boys. As for the girls, they would clearly scrunch up their
faces but, when they got asked “Is it yummy?” they would whisper “yes”.
The conclusion:
Where most girls will give a “polite” answer, most boys, without
worrying about politeness, will express their true feelings and these
differences between the attitudes of men and women are already apparent in six
year olds.
This was a huge shock - the gender gap already exists at the age of six!
The boys casually told the adults in the experiment exactly what they
were thinking but the girls hid their true feelings and answered “politely”.It's about having an obligation to thank an adult who gives you a present, no matter what it is, and replying “yes” when asked if juice that has been tampered with is tasty, right? Because that's what it means to “be polite”.
Obedient and deft at
handling such situations, these girls have already mastered the art of such
“manners” at the age of six and speak and act exactly as they are expected to
in accordance with both the time and the situation. And the validation they
then receive from adults further incentivises these girls’ “polite” behaviour.
A child who doesn't say thank you, or cries out “yuck” is a child who is rude
and is ignorant of proper manners...
But, this is all
really very strange.
Why should they have to say thank you after receiving a solitary, unmatched sock? Wouldn't it be better if they did clearly say “yuck!” having being made to drink something filled with salt?
According to the
American therapist Beverly Engel, there are a number of cultural, physiological
and psychological factors contributing to women being largely incapable of
expressing their own true feelings. Even among the most successful business
women, artists, and actresses in America, there are lots of cases of women marginalising
themselves, acting against their own interests and being unable to express
their true selves when around men. Such is the reality of America which looks
at first glance like “the country where women can best put themselves on a
level playing field with men”.
Engel labels such
women “Disappearing Women” and there are remarkable differences in the degree
to which this happens depending on the country and the culture. Just as there
are women who are completely covered from head to toe and are not permitted to
even leave the house without being accompanied by a male, there are also women
like those in this country who worked together with men and were the very first
to secure a woman's right to vote. But, that doesn't necessarily mean that each
and every one of these formidable women is able to express their true selves
completely openly.
It is said that from
a young age girls are taught to make those around them happy, even at the
expense of themselves: the experiment from before is a perfect testament to
that. As long as women continue to be modest and be a support to those around
them at home, at school and out in the world, they are going to be praised for
being ladylike, attentive and mindful and the chances of anyone seeing anything
wrong with this state of affairs are rather slim.
And let’s say you
keep this up when you're in a relationship and you play it safe and do your
best not to rock the boat. Then you get betrayed by the man who you've
sacrificing yourself like this for or your body starts to waste away from
self-neglect... it's when it gets to that point that we see what's wrong.
Why have I been keeping myself underfoot this whole time?
Why couldn't I say that I needed to think about myself more?
Why did I let this keep going on for so long?
That moment of
realisation is the first step on the road to self-empowerment.
There are people who, when they hear that “divorce rates are high”, see it only as a bad thing, but the way society works is not that simple. It is by the very fact that oppressed and enslaved peoples rise up that we have civil wars and it's when the existing establishment needs to be brought down that things end up changing. Between a woman who is suffering through a marriage because she's afraid of having to stand alone and a woman who has plucked up the courage to take that first step towards finding out who she really is, you can't simply compare them and say which of them is better off or which one of them is happier.
But there's been that realisation - your soul might say “I'm kind of ready”.
You switch from being on auto-pilot to manual control. And then you start asking yourself all sorts of questions.
Is this something that I really want to do?
Can I actually say what I want to say?
Can’t I be more assertive now?
If the present in the giant box is just a tiny pencil, it's normal to be shocked and say “Is that it?” If the adults appear to not know that their juice tastes bad, isn't it better to help them out and tell them “this is gross”?
That's real communication.
Let's set our voices free!
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