Guest comment
When will everything go back to normal?
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We all want it back – normality. Especially after Corona. Or the stress with women. 50 years of women’s suffrage and me-too and much more. But what normality actually?
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Dear men
When will everything go back to normal?
First came paternity leave, so that the men could support mothers who were weakened by birth and interrupted their careers for at least two weeks; then the 50th anniversary of women’s suffrage; then equal pay day; Burka initiative and now women’s day too. Equality here, feminism there, but now it’s enough with these women’s issues, you have to think, now we could return to normal. And you’re right about that.
The only question is what this normality is.
For many centuries, normal was a traditional way of life: Everyone worked, whether man or woman, the women gave birth to a few more children in between, most of the children died young, including many women during childbirth or in childbirth, but there was for Glück unmarried sisters and brothers, maids and servants or grandparents who looked after the children. Women who were fit for work had no time for something like that, they had to work on the farm, in the stable, in the trade. Despite the high female mortality, the surplus of men was kept within limits, wars and risk activities ensured that the precious female bodies of childbearing potential were preferred to be kept away from. In the extended families it was not always so clear who was related to whom and how, because, thank God, wars, migrations of peoples and refugees occasionally brought fresh blood into the valleys and crashes.
It was also normal that the aristocracy and the rich bourgeoisie kept servants, child carers, nursing nurses, the pastor made sure with prayers or pastoral hours in the confessional that there was finally a male successor. That too is a lucky coincidence, otherwise the high nobility would have become unhealthy and incestuous. The family trees, which only show male lines, are even less valuable than Covid Contact Tracing.
It was normal for someone to stay at home
For a very short time after the world wars, it was normal for someone to stay at home in a marriage. The housekeeping was still laborious enough to fill the day, but no longer so strenuous that it required staff. It made sense that more physically demanding jobs were done by men. More intellectually demanding jobs were withheld from the better educated, that’s normal, they were men back then too.
What does biology teach us?
If we widen our view, normality for many species means that the males are only responsible for fertilizing the females. Pure semen delivery machines of no further importance. Females are breadwinners, leaders of the herd, the swarm, the pack. In animal husbandry, it is therefore normal that young males are usually fattened and slaughtered. In poultry, even shredded alive as chicks. Only the females are granted a longer life because they produce milk, eggs and young animals. A few male specimens and a few seed banks with tubes cooled in nitrogen are now sufficient for fertilization.
Of course, that would be out of the question for our species. Civilization distinguishes us from animals.
Do not worry, dear men, women do not want to condemn you only to physically demanding housework. Or send to war. You don’t all have to stay at home to look after the children, because women are educated better and more expensively on average. And we refrain from barbaric methods such as shredding, stabbing to death or being eaten up after copulation.
And what about the pesky feminism? It is like the Corona measures: laborious, unsexy, arduous and everyone would be happy if it was over soon and no longer needed.
Let’s hold on a little longer.
Soon everything will be back to normal.
Until then, all the best
Patti Basler
Patti Basler is a writer and cabaret artist. The educated scientist received the Salzburger Stier and the Prix Walo (Comedy) in 2019.
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