Everybody has an opinion about gender equality

GenderEven if I use money every day, I would never claim to be an economist or have the audacity to write an article about finance. Even if I use a phone every day, I would shut up and listen when technicians explain to my why it’s not working. The same with oxygen… I breath it every day, but wouldn’t claim to understand the chemistry behind it. However, strangely enough, with regards to gender equality, everybody seems to have a strong opinion about it based on their own experiences, and think of themselves as authorities on the subject just because they are a gender, or perhaps because they are vaguely known in a totally different area of expertise. I wonder if people who work with gender equality ever will get any respect for our knowledge, except hear that we are “feminist man-haters”. Sigh.

Toilet signs 5 (Cute one from Beirut)

There seems to be no end to people’s imaginations when it comes to playing with toilet signs of different sorts. This one is from Café Mandaloun in Beirut:

IMG_0593

The same two figures were attached to the two doors in the floor upstairs.

Beirut traffic/gender activism

Walking in the streets of central Beirut, and this sign suddenly turned up. A nice surprise, apparently thanks to a parking service company!

Parking/gender sign in Beirut

Children and traffic in Kabul

In Afghanistan it is important to have many children. So it is good to make others in the traffic take caution when there’s a pregnant woman on board, right?

Mama on board

But what about after you have had too many kids? Oh well.

Too many kids

Pondicherry street art

Walking along in the streets of the old town in Pondicherry, among flaking paint, rickshaws and dust, I see this painting rising in front of me on a wall. A small detail, but still important in a country from where we have heard too many ugly stories of violence against women cases during the last few months.Image

Toilet signs 1

It’s amazing how much toilet signs can say about men and women – both our physiologies, our (changing) roles, and what we strive to be.

From airport in Tonga.

Yes, this is how women feel like when we have to.

Yes, this is how women feel like when they have to.

Another sign from Tonga. They are very observant there.

This is how it's done.

This is how it’s done.

From a toilet door, can’t remember from where.

Who said fathers aren't as important as mothers?

Who said fathers aren’t as important as mothers?

Toilet signs from a nightclub in Fiji.

Yes, that's us.

Yes, quite a few of those in here.

Plenty of those in here, too.

Plenty of those in here, too.