Revised Response Essay - "The Sterner Sex".

Response to "The Sterner Sex" by Rebecca West

Throughout history, women are struggling to earn equal rights with men. Societies themselves are build up in an unfair way towards women, something that makes the situation for them even difficult to change. The general mentality of men is that women should not have the same privileges as them, and even some women of older generations seem to have the same belief. This is probably due to the fact that from the moment these women were born, they were taught to be subordinate to men, so that notion seems to be correct for them and they consider it unacceptable to think otherwise. Nowadays, women in most societies are considered by law to be equal to men. But that’s not the case. Unequal treatment of women in Cyprus is a proof for that.

According to a survey, there are less women employed in either the public, semi-government, or private sectors than men. In addition to that, the same survey shows that women are underpaid in relation with their male coworkers. There is a gap of 3.8% in the salaries of the public sector, in the semi-government sector it’s 29.3%, and in the private sector it’s 30.6% (Papadopoulou, online) (My translation). This difference in the salaries can’t be attributed to anything else than the gender of the employees.

Regarding politics, there are less female than male politicians. When governments are formed after elections and each president is about to assign ministers to each ministry, there are more male than female politicians being assigned as ministers. Even in the parliament women are underrepresented. How are women expected to get the majority of votes in the parliament regarding the formation of a new drastic law that favours them, if they are outnumbered?

Women that decide to stay at home and raise their children should be supported much more financially by the governments. Raising children is a difficult and time consuming thing to do. Each of these women has the role of the mother twenty four hours a day, and things are more difficult for working single mothers. Governments should increase the financial support to these women in order to help them, but also as a way to praise them for their contribution to the society.

I believe that the Church of Cyprus is unfair to women regarding the fact that women are not allowed to become priests, and moreover to be candidates for archbishops. A defender of women’s position on that aspect is the Provincial of the Patriarchate of Alexandria Seraphim. He says that the time has probably come for the Orthodox Church to ordain women as priests. Seraphim also asks for the initiation of dialogues at a top-level at the Synod of all Orthodox Churches, so that the Orthodox Church take an official position on the issue of women’s ordainment, like other Churches have already done (Antoniadou, online) (My translation). Seraphim even wondered: “Which are the theological reasons that prevent us from being positive in the matter of women’s ordainment?” (Antoniadou, online) (My translation). I will not go deeper into matters of the Church because my knowledge on the subject is poor but I have the belief that several aspects of it show that it’s biased against women. If the Church that affects the beliefs and way of thinking of many people is biased against women, it’s inevitable for these people to think the same way.

The image that society created for women is the one of a kind, delicate, weak person who needs to be protected. Society’s notion is that at first women are protected by their family, but after that they must get married so that they have a husband to look after them. In the past, when women were mistreated by their husbands or were unhappy, they didn’t ask for divorce because they were afraid of what other people would think, what would happen to the children, and of what would happen to them regarding financial issues. Nowadays, mistreated and unhappy wives tend to ask for divorce more easily than they did in the past, but still some of them choose to stay married. That change of tendency of women towards divorce happens because of some amendments in law. These amendments happened because of women’s attempts to earn them. They happened not a long time ago, and arrange various issues like the custody of the children, and the right of women to claim for property in divorce. The change of society’s and even the Church’s attitude towards divorce also functions positively to the decision of these women to ask for divorce.

Many people, and especially men, may have counter arguments for the issues that are raised in the previous paragraphs. Some of their arguments might be that women do not seek for a job because they prefer to stay at home; that there are not many women in the parliament because women are not very interested in politics; that working single mothers receive alimony from their ex-husbands or receive a satisfactory pension from the government in the case of widows with children; that women should not become priests because “Jesus trusted the spread of His word to the Apostles and later on to their also male successors which are the bishops, the priests and the deacons” (Thrasivoulou, online) (My translation); and that many women get married and after a certain period of time claim for a divorce, because they wish to claim for themselves part of the property that them and their husbands had together after they got married. These arguments, in most of the occasions that each one refers to are not valid or satisfactory enough to explain or justify why things are the way they are today.

Women should be treated more fairly, and additional measures should be taken in their advantage regarding all aspects of their lives. Women are strong because they earned most, if not all of their rights with struggles. Life was harsher for women in the past but they did not abash. They found the strength to oppose to the existing situations and they still do. So, who should be considered as the “Sterner sex”? Men that had all the privileges in their possession from the beginning, or women who fought to earn every single one of them?

Works cited:

Antoniadou, Maria. "Πρόταση για χειροτονία γυναικών (Proposition for ordainment of women)!" Το Βήμα Online (To Vima Online). 28 Jul. 2009. 6 Dec. 2009 <http://www.tovima.gr/default.asp?pid=2&artid=280498&ct=32&dt=28/7/2009>.

Papadopoulou, Antogoni. "Μισθολογικό χάσμα ανδρών και γυναικών (Wage gap between men and women)". Αντιγόνη Παπαδοπούλου (Antigoni Papadopoulou). 7 Oct. 2007. 6 Dec. 2009 <http://www.antigonipapadopoulou.com/articles_details.asp?ID=552>.

Thrasivoulou, Antri. "Μερικά πράγματα είναι δεδομένα και δεν πρέπει να κρίνονται με ανθρώπινα κριτήρια (Some things are granted and should not be judged according to human criteria)". Η Σημερινή (Ι Simerini). 23 Aug. 2009. 6 Dec. 2009 <http://sigmalive.com/simerini/politics/interviews/184225>.

P.S: I would like to apologize to the non-Greek speakers for the use of sources written in Greek, but I couldn't find any relevant ones written in English.