2016 US Election, Gender Equality and Bangladesh
The morning of November 9th; I woke up to start my day. Technically I did not wake up, because you need to go to sleep in order to be able to wake up and I could not sleep the night before. So let's say I stopped twisting and turning, and left my bed. Both my wife and I followed our same morning routine: freshened up, had breakfast, got ready for work and headed to the train station. It was the first morning after the great United States of America had elected Donald Trump as the 45th President.
I looked around, my eyes heavy and tired. Everyone looked unawake and grim – more than usual. No one was laughing or talking, everyone sort of blanketed themselves in silence and isolation. Well, New Yorkers are not famous for their “happy-go-lucky” style anyway, but this was unprecedented. “Or, is it just me?” Perhaps I was seeing what I was feeling inside of me. “That's a possibility” – I told myself.
I got off at Wall Street and took the short walk to my office. The streets looked unusually calm - no horn blowing, no super busy executive running on the side walk, or any dog walker with dogs on leash. To make it even worse, it was a cloudy and soggy morning; downtown New York almost looked like a scene from a zombie movie. I walked into our office and the security guy did not smile for a change. I punched open the office door, turned my office desktop on and saw my supervisor walking in. I waved, his reply was likewise but his usual sincere smile was missing. It was not just me, a big part of America, or at least New York was grieving. Good to know there were co-grievers out there; it's always a great feeling not to feel alone, especially when you are sad.
About an unusually quiet hour later, my colleague Jen messaged me to join her to see Hillary Clinton's concession speech. A full office watching TV on a workday – it was, like the morning itself, quite strange and unsettling. People were struggling to hold back their tears, some were seen crying silently. It felt like someone died, someone who we all knew. Someone who assured all of us that it did not matter where we came from, what God we believed in or how we looked – we all would be treated equally. It was most certainly not about the candidate who lost the election, but all about what America lost the night before. It was about the loss of faith that good would come victorious over evil. It was about losing faith in America.
We all went back to our desks to dive right into our jobs and somehow insulate us from this stinging reality. I was trying hard to concentrate, but could hardly do so and soon found out that I was not the only one. Larry, the head of our department, walked over to my desk and asked “Hey Arif, you have a minute? Do you want to talk?” “Thank you, Larry. I needed to let it out too” –we went into one of our meeting rooms. We talked, about the past, the present and how the future may look. We talked about why and how Trump won. I told Larry that I get how frustrated a lot of people were and how they had been misled. But I failed to understand how, after all the insults and invectives, women in their right mind voted for Trump. So I asked Larry, sage, a PhD, and as old as my father, if he had some answers. He took a moment before saying:
“It goes back to the Bible and what a lot of women of this country, especially in the rural, have been taught. They are taught that the main role of women is to support and follow men. And, men are superior to them, therefore men's immoral behaviour deserve some leniency. After all “boys will be boys.” So when you put all these together, you get some idea as to why women did not vote for a woman, and voted Trump even after all the sexual harassment allegations. I am not saying this is the sole reason, there are other reasons too that convinced many women to cast their ballot in favor of Trump. But this prejudice against women, no doubt, played a major role and partially explains why Trump got so many women-votes.”
Those few lines from Larry came to me as revelations. I almost forgot, despite the country being the number one economy and the only super-power of the world, how conservative rural America can be. Considering America's practice of objectifying women, sexist attitude against its female citizens (like almost everywhere else) and of course, taking the cultural contexts into account – I am sure a very strong case can be built that USA is not too far ahead of Bangladesh when it comes to gender equality and relevant issues. There is no doubt that Bangladesh has failed its citizens, especially her female citizens, in countless ways. Nonetheless, electing female heads of the government in the last 4/5 elections exhibits people's somewhat open mindedness, at least, towards accepting females in leadership positions, something that is a key United Nation's indicator to measure gender equality in a country. To corroborate this point, Bangladeshis have been electing female leaders in local levels for so many years now. The latest example of such would be the female mayor of Narayanganj getting elected for the second consecutive time. So it may seem silly to compare USA and Bangladesh – but when it comes to gender equality, I think it is not very silly after all.
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