Viva la difference!

When I was a pre-teen in the late 60’s, early 70’s, the Women’s movement started taking an aggressive, militant form. At least, that’s when I remember it taking shape. Helen Reddy’s popular tune, “I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar,” was the anthem for the movement. Bras were burned, men’s faces were slapped for opening the door for a woman, the mantra was that women were exactly equal to (or in fact, better than) men and no one should dare claim otherwise.

Now much of what happened in that initial phase of the women’s movement was a pent up explosion of hostility many women rightly felt towards the status quo of the time. Women had been relegated to lesser paying jobs, or worse yet, paid less for doing the same job as a man. Many jobs weren’t even open to them. And I had no problem with those wrongs being righted. But the absurd notion that women and men were exactly the same in every and ALL ways, and thus, should be treated as such has been underlined, highlighted and put in BOLD text with this recent report about plastering a men’s room with photos of gawking and laughing women.

It’s been reported that the brand new, $45 million Hotel Sofitel in Queenstown, New Zealand is featuring local models with humorous looks on their faces as they check out the men while they take care of their business in the hotel toilet.

Now if anyone could possible imagine the REVERSE case scenario to this story ever actually taking place, then they should also have no problem imagining the public hue and cry that would result from such an outrage. The author of such an idea would be labeled a sexist pig and be run out of town on a rail … if he was lucky. More likely he would be taken to court for some kind of sex crime.

However, in the current case, this story is considered humorous and lighthearted, and certainly isn’t making the red hot headlines a reverse situation would invoke.

In fact, I would get a big laugh out of it myself.

So the next time someone tells you there is no difference between men and women, take a gander at their genitals, laugh out loud ... if you find yourself locked up with a bunch of other men, you’ll know I’m right. Or, if you can then just calmly walk away, leaving a red faced gentleman in your wake, you’ll STILL know I’m right.