Role Reversal

Looking the part.*

What do you think when you see a man embroidering or knitting?

You may find yourself in a waiting room, usually a doctor's office. There are people around you, and many of the women are doing exactly this. Then that oddball male presence doing the same thing suddenly stands out, and the reaction is one of many — he's obviously a mummy's boy, or he has to be gay.

And when you go into a diner and see a row of construction workers all dressed the same — utility belts, heavy woollen shirts, dirty jeans, and steel-capped boots — seated at the counter eating their meals, and one turns around, you can tell immediately that no man has breasts like that. She must be a dyke. She must have been brought up in a family of ONLY men.

So where do we go from here?

Are men really the best chefs? Do they make the best hairdressers? Are they better stylists?

And women? Do they make the better chiefs? Are they really that much better at business planning, at budgeting?

And our perceptions are stretched into believing all of these facts can only be true.

When Fogy was young, he and his sister were both taught how to sew, knit, do the washing and cleaning, and eventually how to cook, to a lesser degree. His mother was an excellent cook, and even some years later, when Fogy was a professional chef, he never quite mastered the art to the same degree as his mother.

If truth be told, most would admit that their excellence has come about, to a certain extent, because of the need to compete in such alien environments — not to be good enough, but to be the best, just to be accepted.

Many of us have talents that fall outside the stereotypical norms society forces on us. The world today is slowly accepting the fact that no task has to be gender-specific, and that a nurse, commonly thought to be a woman, could also be a man.

We tend to forget that gendered roles haven’t always been this rigid. In ancient Egypt, women served as physicians. In medieval Europe, brewing beer was considered women’s work. Nursing began as a male profession in war-torn hospitals. Somewhere along the way, practicality gave way to prejudice.

A male priest was thought to symbolise the strength and surety of a man's world and sufficed perfectly for the male brethren. But what of the feminine touch — that sense of how to deal with emotional challenges? And what happens when that man is actually a woman?

Gendered roles had their place for so many years, and most felt more comfortable relating to these.

The picture, however, is changing—if unevenly. More women now lead Fortune 500 companies than ever before. More men stay home to raise children. In classrooms, hospitals, boardrooms, and building sites, the old uniforms don’t fit quite as snugly anymore.

In this new world, it is time to understand that both men and women can be fitted into all walks of life. It is those around them who need to change — to adapt and value the expertise brought by each, rather than the gender each represents.

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