On Monday, the day after Women’s Day, a good friend of mine had a job interview. She was quizzed about her abilities and she thought she did rather well. Then, at the very end came an unexpected volley of questions. “Do you have children?” “Are you planning to have children?” “What are your plans if you get pregnant?” “Have you made any childminding plans?” and “Would you still be flexible with your time?”
All that was missing was asking her how often she had sex in a week and whether she used a contraceptive.
I still have to hear of a man who was asked the following questions in an interview: “What are your plans if your wife gets pregnant?” “Will your wife be the one to get up at night for feeds or will you be doing it – because we don’t want you to report for work with bloodshot eyes” or “How many children do you plan to have and how much quality time do you plan to spend with them?”
Maltese recruiters, please note: these questions are discriminatory and therefore, illegal. Maltese women, please note: report any such interviewers to the National Commission for the Promotion of Equality.
Things are still far from being well on the equality front on these macho shores of ours.
When a gainfully employed girlfriend of mine wanted to take a loan to buy a house, the bank managers would only do so if she roped in her boyfriend in the deal, even though he was still a student, with not a penny to his name.
Bank managers: “We need Him as a guarantee because you will soon have kids and stop working.”
Friend: “Right” [pause]
Friend: “Will you give me the loan if I won’t have kids?”
Bank managers: [smirking] “Sinjorina, you will be getting married, it’s to be expected.”
Friend: “Very well” [takes off her solitaire ring].
Friend: [turns to her boyfriend] “Tim, the engagement is off.”
[Stunned silence]
[More stunned silence]
Bank managers: [squeaking] “Le le, sinjorina, iva ma nagħmlux hekk.”
All this means brings me to the whole point of Women’s Day in Malta. There is so much to be done on the social front and yet it seems that we are getting befuddled. Come early March, men gather around the boardroom tables, rub their hands and decide ‘to go for it’ and promote it as something of a mix of Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day.
Just to give you an idea of the marketing spiel going on last week: a friend of mine found a flyer in her letter box, promoting ‘exclusive offers’ for International Women’s Day. The ‘offers’ included: six chicken drumsticks with every €30 spent, free fresh soup with every €15 spent and one kilo of cozze with every €25 spent.
The ‘Women’s Day offers’ included: six chicken drumsticks with every €30 spent
Meanwhile, flyers and adverts in my inbox encouraged me to go to make-up sessions, nail painting, baking muffins workshops, how to diet lectures, flower arrangement talks and a fashion show – all in the name of Women’s Day.
If this is what makes us women, then I have an identity crisis. Yes I love talking about clothes, I love fresh flowers and I enjoy eating muffins, but don’t men too?
Women’s Day is slowly being commercialised by people who have no clue about its meaning. Let us keep in mind that the international Women’s Day was established in 1910 to honour the movement for women’s rights.
Over the decades, the day has served to highlight serious issues – from poverty to the right to vote and to hold public office; from women’s rights to work to an end to discrimination on the job.
What started off as a political and social awareness of the struggles of women worldwide has these days lost its political flavour and became simply and occasion when we get another rose.
Will everyone please quit this rose business and focus on the real matters at hand?
Take advertising. If you were an alien to the human race and watched adverts all day, then your eyes would get more alien-triangular than ever and conclude that women are on earth to produce children, to take care of the homes while scantily clad or to-be secretaries in mini-skirts and pencil in mouth.
Recently, businesswoman Claudine Cassar said Malta was losing “hundreds of talented girls” who had the potential to become leaders because they were not being encouraged to pursue the careers they really wanted.
“Engineering? IT? That’s for boys”. I am not surprised: we are media brainwashed.
The other day, a chap was telling me about how he enjoys working in a men-only environment because “inthom in-nisa titkellmu fuq faċendi u l-ħasla biss tħobbu.”
There’s nothing for it: parents, it all rests on us. We are the ones who can instil in our young boys and girls that there is no dominant being on the planet.
Hopefully by the time our children grow up and start being called in for interviews, the world will be a better place.
krischetcuti@gmail.com
Twitter: @KrisChetcuti