My landing window, I just love a new moon. Actually I love a full moon too and when you can see the moon in the sky during the day. These dark morning are killing me and they are going to get worse.Just A Thought
On the way to work I had to go into Sainsbury's which to my eternal gratitude opens a 8am. I needed coffee, I start the morning with two buttered tea cakes and a coffee. I had run out hence my last minute trip.
It is generally full of kid's buying supplies for the day. It is close to three schools and today I over heard one boy tell his friend that he managed to sell his biscuits to his friends for 10p each, quite a healthy profit for a small outlay. At first I smiled, it took me back to when I taught in a mixed school and I miss that drive that boys have.
BUT, it then occurred to me that in this tiny entrepreneur was actually the root of all that is that is wrong with the world at present.
What follows is oversimplification but I truly believe that if a girl takes a packet of biscuits to school she will share them with her friends. A boy sells them. This is why men are invariably at the top of most financial and many other institutions, they are fixated with trying to make money. Women on the other hand are happier when they are reaching out to others by giving.
There is far too much greed in this world and not enough giving, I appreciate many women are now further up institutional food chains but to get to the top and stay there most women lose sight of what makes them strong and so we perpetuate the damage done to society by not just financial institutions, but business in general.
Depressing really
1 comment:
For the most part, children will value what they are taught to value.
If in a society girls are praised for being thoughtful, and boys are praised for being competitive, then this will become the norm for each gender.
The problem cannot be pinned on
"women...further up institutional food chains// to get to the top and stay there most women lose sight of what makes them strong".
Because once a certain type of highly competitive societal structure/system/ or "food chain" is in place, then it's crush or be crushed/ eat or be eaten. Bowing before those that would eat you is not something even pacifist Ghandi would encourage.
It seems very short-sighted to put the blame on the few that try to challenge such a system in any way whatsoever.
So, the problem cannot be attributed to the handful of women that learn to climb within this close-knit network in which men regularly are praised and women diminished for the same values.
Women still regularly earn less for the same work, and are no doubt expected to care for family as well.
To those women, I say 'kudos'; simply by being there, they are creating a change within that system. It may not be enough of a change, but it's a start.
The real problem is that boys need to be taught different values. No longer should we smile when boys act thoughtlessly or selfishly. "Boys will be boys" is far too often uttered to excuse poor behaviour by boys.
If we want to live in a society that values a different kind of strength, then boys too need to be taught the importance of generosity, of being kind, and of respect, the same way that girls are taught.
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