The Impact of Sexuality in Gender Equality

This one’s a relatively contentious topic to write about. I am doing it with the intention of exploring a topic I recently reflected on. So let’s dive right into it.

I was watching the Cricket World Cup this past weekend. As I watched it, during the commercial break, there was an ad where a father had taken his daughter to a sports shop and as the father was choosing a bat for his daughter, the storekeeper mistakenly assumed that the dad was buying this for his son and inquired why he hadn’t come. That’s when the father stated I brought the person whom this bat is for, it’s for my daughter. A beautiful ad I thought. This was followed by the storekeeper following the father-daughter duo outside the store and gifts the girl a chocolate which has Bismah Maroof, a Pakistani cricketer of the women’s team on its cover. He sends her away with a wish that inshallah one day she will be like Bismah Maroof too. The sweet ad, sweet messaging, everything is on point.

However, this ad got me thinking. If society thinks becoming a cricketer is equally alluring for both men and women then why aren’t a significant majority of women wanting to become cricketers (or any sportsperson for that matter) as most boys do when they are younger? The same applies to many other professions. Here I am not saying that every boy and girl should not have the chance to dream and pursue whatever vocation they want. I am asking the question about why the different genders aspire for different things growing up. One could say it’s the environment that frames them a certain way, or another environment-related argument could be that there aren’t the same number of role models for both genders. Well, both of these are valid arguments. But I think there is a much deeper force at play and I will try to write about that force in this article.

I think sexual appeal has a deep impact on our psyche. For men, this could be had through various different means. The most obvious one is physical attractiveness. This applies to both genders. However, for men, I think they have way more options to improve their sexual appeal. The underlying phenomenon for men is success. If you are successful at most vocations, your sexual appeal goes up. Well, maybe not if you are the best at playing video games but perhaps with most other vocations this does apply.

Be the best at doing business, be a great lawyer, be a great finance person, be an amazing artist, be an outstanding author, be a musician. All of these vocations and many more, once you achieve success at them, raise your sex appeal. Perhaps the same doesn’t apply to the fairer sex. While society definitely respects and to some degree admires women who have achieved distinction in various fields one could assert that this doesn’t raise their sex appeal for most of society.

Is this nature or is this nurture? I would lean towards this being part of our nature as a species. We attach a limited number of parameters for women to gain sex appeal points from while men have a diverse number of options besides the superficial good looks aspect and the underlying core principle of that being achieving success, distinction, and/or authority.

What does this mean for gender equality? Well, this means that at a young age, you look up to and admire people for how “cool” they are. And one of the aspects of being cool is having charisma and I believe sex appeal is closely tied in with charisma. Hence this means that young people will look up to those who they think are charismatic. Hence, we would perhaps continue to see men and women gravitate towards certain roles and aspirations in society based on what is desirable.

I don’t think the above is necessarily wrong. I think it’s just a thing and that thing ought to be acknowledged and made peace with. Not every phenomenon of life needs to be carefully socially curated and conditioned. Sometimes it’s best just to accept certain phenomena as principles of life and enjoy it.

That’s it from my end. No hate only love.