Battle for Equality?

One of the major controversies in the world right now is equality between men and women. This development has been brought up throughout the last century often. One movement we can look at that has made equality more prominent is the ability for women to vote. Since then other movements of equalizing the genders have been pushing the boundaries that were once set. Woman can be lawyers, when once that wasn't common and looked down upon. Men can be nurses, which was stereotypical a women's job. These revolutions are expanding more and more each day. However, is this ideal of equality pushing a boundary that we shouldn't consider?

This ideal of equality is close to me and actually has influenced my job career immensely. I will touch more on later. However, equality between men and women is a constant battle between the sexes. Is there truly a difference between them?

Equality between genders is commonly seen as "anything a man can do, a woman can do too." To many individuals this is how they see feminism to be. I see it differently. I believe that everyone should have an equal opportunity to obtain the same goals. Though, that is a questionable topic. I see that there are many things that a man does not have a natural tendency for or a woman might not have the physical strengthen for.

I will give a stereotypical example to make it more visual:

Imagine your house is on fire and you needed to be saved. A firefighter comes racing up to you and carries you, saving the day. But what if this was a woman that went through the same training as the male firefighters but had to drag you out from the fire still? Which one would you rather be saved by?

Also imagine that you are leaving your five young children with a nanny most of the day that will be in charge of education, food, housekeeping, and so forth. You have two nannies come to your door, one man and one woman. Both equality qualified and experienced, but you have to make a choice who you want to be around your kids while you are gone. What would you choose?

The scenarios above are stereotypical, however there comes a question of equality. Should we American's be so quick to pick someone with maternal nature, even when there is a man who is as well trained and experienced? Should we lower the requirements for physically tasking jobs to make it more fair for woman to make it more female friendly? To gain true equality in that aspect we would have to let go of past traditional ideas.

With this in mind, I would like to bring to light a person note about equality. I am the ROTC program at my school and have my sights fixed on commissioning in the United States Army. This is a physically extensive job and is commonly male population society. To be able to qualify I must meet a physical requirement that have been tailored to male and female standards. In my personal experience, and I do caution that this is my personal insight not all female cadets, the male cadets tend to excel in many of the exercises while I try my best to keep up. However, this motivates me to keep pushing myself harder to be just a good as my fellow cadets. In argument to that statement, if I were to ever get in a situation when I am pulling someone out of a fight, I do hope that my body is able to do it. No matter how much I train and prepare, my body might not be able to do somethings that are required of it.

So is it the right choice for me? That is something I have to wait and see. I may not have equality in physical training but I still have the equality in opportunity. I am honored for the chance to have this equality and even happy that my requirements are geared towards a female's physiology.

So what is equality? Well, I think it's enjoying life with sights set high on anything. The sky is the limit, you just got to make sure that you do your part.