The Respect Gap
I bet I’m not the only one who has had a rant about the journalist who asked Jacinda Ardern and Sanna Marin if they were meeting because they had ‘shared interests’, which was of course his barely-veiled way of asking if they were meeting because they are 2 women. He might as well have gone all in and suggested they were going boutique shopping and having a facial. Jacinda gave the fair but now rather predictable ‘I wonder if anyone would ask men this’ response - Sanna’s reply was a much cooler ‘Errr… We’re meeting because we’re Prime Ministers.’ Ok she didn’t say the Err, but I wish she had.
But why is this so rantworthy? After all, the reality is that only 9% of Heads of State are women, so to see two of them together in the same place at the same time is somewhat of a rarity - and was clearly too much for the journalist who asked that question.
It makes me rant because it’s yet another example of the Respect Gap. When this journalist, this man, saw Jacinda Ardern and Sanna Marin he simply did not see 2 Prime Ministers in the way he would have seen 2 Prime Ministers if they were 2 men. What he saw was 2 young women - and he was incapable of mustering any respect for them as leaders doing important work. I’m sure one day these women will have acquired the age, grey hairs and years of experience to command the respect of men like him, but this is respect that would have automatically been given to 2 young men in their position as leaders of the country.
The more I reflect on gender inequality, the more I think that the Respect Gap is at the heart of it all. It’s why we pose important questions to men and vacuous ones to women (ask any film actress about that). It’s why men interrupt women in meetings but listen patiently to each other’s monologues, because surely she doesn’t have anything interesting to say that they don’t already know. It’s why we expect women to carry most of the burden of the unpaid work at home and for the family, because hey, a man’s time and career is more important. It’s why we don’t take strong and decisive action to protect women from violence, because we don’t respect the seriousness of these crimes in the way we would if the victims were men. It’s why women are not universally trusted to make decisions about their bodies. Why they are banned from receiving education in Afghanistan and from dressing as they want to in Iran. And it’s why we are allowing a World Cup to be held in a country where women are forced to obtain permission from a male guardian to work, study and travel.
It’s a Respect Gap, pure and simple. Men don’t fundamentally respect us, not even when we make it to be Prime Minister of our country. And women will never have an equal place in this world until they do.