Oddly enough, something I said on Facebook actually captured some amount of interest.
Who knew I could come up with something interesting?
So I'm blogging it here, because I don't want the thought to escape into the deep recesses of the internet, never to be see again.
Besides, I want to prove to my children that occasionally I do have thoughts besides "you can't put metal in the microwave" and "don't leave your shoes in the middle of the hallway".
It ended up being christened by someone as "The Thought Experiment" because, well there was some thought involved, and even though it wasn't their thought, they recognized that I had thought.
So here it is, "The Thought Experiment"
Imagine a classroom where the ratio of boys to girls is fairly even. There might be one or two extra girls, but that's about it.
One day the teacher decides that it would be good to create leaders in the classroom. A president, a vice-president, a treasurer and other leadership positions.
However, all leadership positions can only be held by boys.
These positions allow the boys to make all the decisions. They can
choose to ask the girls for their opinions, but they don't have to.
Any
money raised by the class for special activities, will be handled by the
boys and all the activities are chosen by the boys.
The girls are told
they are equal to the boys but they have special roles. They can take
care of the class pets. They can clean the erasers. They can hand out
papers for the teacher. These are special roles that only the girls can
do. The boys decide which girls do these roles.
Now the girls are encouraged to have their own special club where they can learn to do wonderful things like bake bread, and sew, and look pretty. They even get to have special lessons in their extra special club. But, the boys decide who is the president of that club, and they decide what lessons should be taught, and who teaches the lessons, and they also have to be told what the girls are doing so that they can stop them from making a mistake and doing something wrong that the boys don't like. With authority comes great responsibility so it is up to the boys to make sure the girls are doing the right things.
The boys get to have their own club too. Now the boys can go to the girls club anytime, and they can even teach lessons there, but the girls are never, ever allowed to go to the boys club.
But everything is completely fair, because just because girls and boys have different roles, doesn't mean they aren't equal. Everyone is completely equal. After all, the hamster cage has to be kept clean. It's important, even if the girl who is assigned to it doesn't like doing it.
For example, in this class, when someone does something wrong, they set up a court system, something like governments do. Both boys and girls, when they do something wrong might have to face the court.
So when a boy does something bad like hitting a girl, he has to face the court. The court is made up of a judge and jurors just like in real life. There are only boys who serve as judges and jurors because the girls don't need that kind of responsibility. So when a boy has to face his buddies, some of them get to be on his side and defend him to the court. That way his side is heard and everything is fair. Then the jurors and the judge make a decision about what to do with him. He may not be punished at all. Or he might have some of his rewards taken away for a little while, or he might be thrown out of the classroom altogether. But they don't really want to throw him out so they try and make it so that it doesn't need to happen.
It's just as fair for a girl. If she does something really, really wrong, like say that the system is unfair and ask why the girls can't be leaders and make decisions too, then she has to face the all boy jury too. But she doesn't need to defend herself and she doesn't need to have anyone defend her either. She just needs to apologize and promise to never, ever, ever do it again. If she doesn't do that, then the jury can punish her just the same way they do a boy.
See, totally equal and fair.
And the boys can reward the good girls who do the things they ask without question. In fact, those girls are allowed to form a group together and stand against all those nasty bad girls who cause problems and question the rules.
Plus the boys are allowed to tell the girls how to dress, and teach them that if they don't dress properly then they will be a distraction to the boys and how can the boys do a good job if they're being distracted? It will be all the girls fault if the boys do something wrong because they're being distracted by what the girls wear. See, it's only right that the blame falls on the people that are causing the problems.
It's obvious, that even though girls and boys have different roles, everyone is completely equal.
There is no reason to change a thing.
