#GirlsShitToo

Why Different But Equal Fails

Dallas Delaney @DallasDelaney

.@AdreeSchmadree_dancer you can't say men and women are SO different but still equal. #DifferentButEqualFails

Why "Different but Equal" Fails

Published on January 31, 2015

Youtube Video Transcript:

Dallas Delaney here, returning with Girls Shit Too.

Adree is right: there are some biological differences between men and women, between people who are designated as "boys" and "girls" at birth, I mean. Like how men's (AKA people who are born as "boys") brains tend to be larger, and how their brain connectivity is different. And how women, or people born with female anatomy, can have babies and men, while people born without female anatomy can't.

But those differences shouldn't mean that men are viewed as being more capable than women and that women are viewed as only good for making babies. We can't prove men and women have differences that extend beyond those biological ones, and we can't attribute all supposed differences between men and women to our biology, especially since we are nurtured into our gender roles from our birth.

We can't know if there are inherent social and emotional differences between males and females. And we can't just use our observations to validate assumptions that we're different, because we can't know that those observations aren't the result of nurture. The question everyone thinks to ask when a baby is about to be born or young is whether it's a boy or girl. It's like...gender is the most important thing, right from the start. And this isn't lost on babies. It's this belief that we are different that we internalize from our infancy, and it influences the ways we behave. It causes us to be different.

The idea that we are the same is better for society. This is how we will gain sex equality, eventually. If we stop teaching little boys and girls that they are different, they'll stop internalizing that belief, and they'll stop acting so different. If parents treat their daughters and sons the same, we'll have more girls heading off to be engineers and rocket scientists, and more boys heading off to be pediatricians and teachers. If we tout the belief that we are the same, we might be able to correct the differences that have spawned from the belief that we aren't.

Saying that we are different justifies ideas about how different we are, which validates ideas that our differences should lead us to think different thoughts, to behave different ways, and to do different things. Can't you all see why we need to think that we are equal? Can't we just all be...people?