Gender equality has always been a spotlight for discussion from our kitchen table to Congress. Often, we hear complaints about favoritism – from the workplace to the news to everyday conversations on how a certain someone favors a gender over another. In the fad of over exaggeration on social media, one tweet criticizing an actress’s latest performance can land you the title of sexist or male dominant, whilst supporting an actress’s career can label you feminist. The UN has labelled specific targets against abuse of women and children, yet the increasing bias and crimes against men go unmentioned. Recent reproductive rights laws in America strip women’s right to their own body, preventing equal reassurance of safe sex, and offers no security to victims of rapists while rapists, in some countries, are allowed to sue for custody of the child. People accuse and are accused of being sexist, and without specific guidelines, cases after cases are misjudged, rumors are spread, and condemnations are expressed – which leads to the question, when you misjudge a report of gender discrimination, does that make you sexist?

Disregarding whether or not it is even possible for there to be absolute equality, where the fine line between discrimination and generic criticism stand causes enough drama and confusion, and seems more prudent to resolve. What happens when a company hires the male applicant and not the female? What happens when girls score higher than boys academically? Which is gender biased, and which is founded on ability? 

Companies, especially multinational, aim to recruit more female workers to create rapport for egalitarianism – the political doctrine affirming people have equal rights since birth – although law forbids the selection of employees based on gender. Yet an examination by Business LinkedIn took data from over a million users in 2019 found women 16% more likely to be hired than men, despite the fact that averagely, assessed women applied to 20% less occupations. 

In school, a meta-analysis – including 369 studies of over a million children in 30 different nations – conducted by psychology professors Daniel and Susan Voyers in 2014 shows girls outperforming their male counterparts in every subject. This demonstrates, progressively, academia has been favoring girls, as criteria have evolved from mundane industry works to more complex processes. It now requires more conscientiousness – the ability to plan ahead, set goals and persist with care and thoroughness – than assembly line requirements our education system based off of. A study by Claire Cameron from the Center for the Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning at the University of Virginia shows as early as Kindergarten, girl surpassed boys averagely on cognitive-orientation and organization, leading to the conclusion that our education now favor predominantly female traits. 

With two most prominent areas of our society preferring women candidates over men, how does this say of our supposed male-dominant culture? Is the United Nation’s (UN) Sustainable Development Goal of gender equality finally taking effect worldwide to become more open-minded to women? No. The UN targets cover broader aspects than just employment rates and educational biases. One notable target is 5.5; the insurance of full women participation in politics, economics, and public leadership roles. 

While the news feature story after story of female discrimination, double standards in crimes of sexual harassment and rape have caused men unable to seek legal protection against rape; for on paper, many countries only count when a man forcefully causes sexual intercourse as rape. In the UK, it is, quoted by Doctor Natasha McKeever in her article ‘Can a Woman Rape a Man and Why Does It Matter?’ “maintain[ing] the requirement of penile penetration for a charge of rape [makes] it physically impossible for a woman to rape a man.” The definition of rape in UK, although said to be gender neutral, brands ‘rape’ as a gendered crime as only men can forcefully fulfill the definition of committing rape. According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC), around 9% of all rape victims are men, and that one in 71 males will be raped at some point in their lives; however, the assaulter can’t be guilty of committing rape – the crime can only file as ‘sexual assault/harassment’ or ‘causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent’. In the UK, although both have equivalent sentences, rape sound more urgent, serious and horrifying than the former. The fact that males cannot commit ‘rape’, but rather, the extended non-sense name portrays a lesser imperialism than if the victim was female.

Yet no matter how much men are helpless in face of sexual assault, it doesn’t deny them advantages under the majority of laws, such as the new Chinese Marriage Law, stipulating that property, by law, belongs to whoever made the down payment, whilst the spouse, who normally contributes vastly to the mortgage and renovation of the house, get nothing. Under Chinese culture, it is a norm for the groom or his immediate family to purchase or pass the honeymoon house as joint property. The first fallen victim of this amendment – Mrs. Zhu from Nanjing – had opened court a week prior to the stipulation, proclaiming ownership to shared property; yet after it had become effective, she could no longer claim the house – even with her husband’s two extramarital affairs on the table had zero effect. In such circumstance, is it really to question that the local government, familiar with local culture, is discriminatory towards women? The Epoch Times certainly believes so in their article ‘China’s New Marriage Law Favors Men Over Women’, stating “Internet and media commentaries concede that the amended law unjustly favors men, who already dominate the institution of marriage, and deals a low blow to women, by not promoting equality between the sexes and not affording women protection by law”.

The inflammation of sexism grew after the birth of the internet, with a mild compliment of support to a female Instagram model printed as a definite sexist, stereotyping you as either a feminist if you are female or a pervert if you are male. Even trustworthy news websites can be tagging such titles, such as a headline by CNN 5 Things ‘Yelling at Alexa Could Make You a Sexist’ as they grab attention. To be frank, people, when hearing news about yet another politician or celebrity being reported for an inkling of being sexist, we take pleasure in feeling moral superiority to the subjects of these accusations; they feel condescended and compelled to demean whoever is being blamed because it makes themselves seem less pitiful and ‘at least better than someone successful morally.’

This inflammation allows people to maleate morals in favor of personal gain in a divorce, fame, or economically. When such stories break on the New York Times or Washington Post, it often is in the minds of people to rally for the supposed victim, such as John Depp and Amber Heard, who accused her ex-husband of domestic violence on account of alcohol intakes. Depp of course, vehemently rebukes such claims, for instance, blaming Heard ‘painted fake bruises’ to court as in the previous hearings over a week showed no signs of these bruises. Although no one knows surely whether Heard was ever actually domestically abused, there are many such attempts within civilians to gain more property, money, or sometimes the custody of a child. The manipulation of worldwide attention and empathy continues to be exploited under the names of prejudice or abuse, making it harder for real victims to escape such circumstances, which in turn causes more gender prejudice from blaming governments and politicians that ‘they are too biased to save them’.

The overall analysis of gender equality is disorienting; one end of the spectrum dictates women gaining more upper-hands and male dominance deteriorating, while the other end still screams of female bias and male superiority. UN Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) targets the resolution of women and children abuse, while most laws stand side to the traditional favor of men – pitting international soft law against domestic hard law in our strive of egalitarianism. It seems idiotic that the world now depends on international politics to create a still seesaw of gender balance.

In reality, all we can say is that gender equality goals are sexist. Whether it’s the UNSDG only focusing on the trauma of women they completely disregard the increasing crimes against men, or the recent wave of reproductive rights laws in the US that strips women of the control to their bodies or the marriage property stipulate in China that again biases against women in Chinese culture. It seems that movement towards gender equality aims to either preserve male dominance or is unfairly feminist, with separate regards to the region where each mindset stands on the spectrum.

Until we can set concrete criteria and standards for what exactly is gender equality – you can’t expect biological equality nor mentality between males and females – any efforts towards a surreal goal will only lead to further discrimination, stereotyping, and public backlashes.

 Especially with social media and politicians as your speakers.