When I think of a topic to write I have many ideas such as UX, women in technology, and anecdotes, but I know women live in patriarchal systems and I want to share how I realized I was living in a patriarchal system. Why? We have normalized patterns of behavior through culture.
Before I begin, I will give the context of my family. They are from a town in Jalisco, Mexico. We live in a small town outside the city where I lived for 25 years. In my childhood, every Sunday, we went to my grandfather's house to make barbecue or traditional Mexican dishes. I started to always see the first to eat were the men. During this period of time I thought “This is ok, women want more time to eat and chat”. I never thought this behavior was bad.
In my 20’s I started to learn about women's communities. The first community I found was TechWo.
I always followed its social media, but I didn’t go to the events. One day I was sure I wanted to meet these women and I registered for the event.
The event daaay!! I was still not sure if I should go. I told my father about the event. He didn't understand. At the time I was ready, my father said the phrase that changed my reality and my beliefs:
“Don't go, it's better to stay home to clean up”. At this moment, my head went BOOOOOM! What? Cleaning is better than learning? I ignored the comment and I left.
Since that day, I knew I lived in a patriarchal system. Men (not all) see women as housekeepers or people who should only do activities at home, and they want to dictate how women should act. This led me to know in my life that I suffered and lived in a world of machismo, but the system says it is the right way to be.
Today, I know that I can't change my family and their beliefs, but I can stop allowing myself to be the last one to eat or who is in charge of the cleaning.
Photo from event
Conclusions:
Women are capable of doing anything, that is why I invite you to question your beliefs and behavior. This is the only way we can resist patriarchy. The next time your family or the system tells you that you shouldn't do something, ask why.
I embrace you all, together we can!
Oldest comments (4)
While I do support any woman that wants to participate in the "world of men" as you call it, I do need to emphasize that most of the teachings of today's feminism have been debunked, starting with your conclusion: Women are not capable of doing anything a man can do. Women cannot be as good law enforcers, cannot be as good firemen, and statistics have also proven that women, again, statistically speaking, cannot program software as good as men.
A clear example is Twitter: Elon Musk fired developers based on the number of commits developers had. The ones with the most commits stayed; the ones with the least commits left. The result? Mostly men stayed.
Having said that, I will be 110% supportive of anyone (man or woman) that would like to learn how to program or pretty much do any work in this world, because statistics cannot judge individual people. So count me in as a supportive person, but count me out as an idealist that thinks "everyone can do anything".
Your post sounds everything but supportive.
Should I encourage women to be firemen and see how victims rise, just to cope with whatever nonsense some manipulative minority has instilled/endoctrinated in the minds of the more influenceable crowd? Or maybe see how these women end up themselves dead in the line of duty, knowing perfectly well that their chances to succeed started diminished by the inevitable biologic nature of their beings?
Does that sound like a better thing to do to you?
Could you please share the sources that claim that the rise of women firefighters in modern times has caused or will cause an increase in victims and that this is due to their biological nature? and that they die more often than their male counterparts because of their biological nature? I'm interested in reading those studies. Thanks.