Gender bias — we all have it one way or another

It’s a lazy Friday afternoon, and I’m thinking of doing something wicked!

Now don’t get your hopes up.

My son is hanging out with his friend, and I am not quite sure when I must go retrieve him. I was just about to text his friend’s mum who works over at the DIFC, when a thought struck me: “Why is it that mums are always in charge of arranging pickups and drop-offs when their children socialise?”

Why not, thought I — seeing as we recently celebrated International Women’s Day — I try and break the gender bias, and shoot off a text message to the Dad.

‘Hello, hope all well. Hope the boys are behaving themselves, and haven’t brought the house down. Just wanted to check when should I come pick my son up?”

Possibly in a case of bias working in reverse, I imagine the dad out for lunch with the office gang feasting on gossip, jokes and yes food too; or maybe downstairs with a friend for a quick smoke, or possibly coffee.

And over at the DIFC, I imagine his poor wife frantically focused on her laptop getting her work done in between calls from her son:

“Could I order pizza?”

“Could I and my friend go to Carrefour and buy something?”

I imagine her rolling her eyes in exasperation. ‘Could I just get my work done?’ is all she wants!

Her train of thought wrecked, she barely manages to suppress the irritation from her voice as she alternately harangues and cajoles her son to see reason over demands that border on the increasingly unreasonable.

So why not, I now say to myself, I cut the lady some slack and turn the spotlight onto the dad.

I imagine the confusion on his face as he stares at his mobile. ‘Okkaaay ... now who’s this? And my son has his friend over? That’s news to me!”

Dad has two options: call his wife and confirm and then come back to me with ‘such and such time will be best for you to come around and take your goods away,’ or lines to that effect.

Or ... to just text me his wife’s number with a few words: ‘Hi, in a meeting, could you please check with my wife? Thanks.”

As far as I’m concerned, my gender bias is so skewed, that I have no doubt in my mind that he has chosen the second option.

On a whim, I tell my better but bitter half, what’s going through my mind. In fact it strikes me that maybe the two dads ought to be texting and arranging pickup times.

As always, I can see, that he just doesn’t get my feminist tirade! For him, it’s just a waste of time and thought. In fact, he belongs to that male set who believe with every fibre of their being that we women have it easy!

Push him into an argument and he will bring out his pet peeve. “Tell me, if everything is supposed to be all equal, why do we have a separate queue for women? Why can’t they just stand in the same line? You women crave equality on your terms!”

However much we try, bias this way or the other, is here to stay. Like so many things — such as a lack of pride, prejudice and ego ... a world with humanity and compassion, reason and justice, the equitable distribution of wealth and resources — all this and more belong to a world that isn’t quite here yet.

We are used to roles, skills and attributes being gender specific. Often a man at ease in a woman’s domain is a source of admiration. ‘Oh wow, he’s so good with kids! He CAN COOK!’

But a woman in a man’s world is disconcerting.

I wearily dig out my mobile. There’s still that text message to send.

Who do you think I wrote to?

PS: I realise that in painting a picture of my son’s friend’s parents, I might have done them a grave injustice, for I do not really know them that well. I might have stepped on a few toes here, and that was unintentional and therefore regretted.

Guess I am just apologising for my deep-seated gender bias.

Maria Elizabeth Kallukaren is a freelance journalist based in Dubai