“Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.” – Benjamin Franklin
It is needless to say that gender justice is definitely more important than gender equality. Gender equality means giving both men and women equal opportunities in every aspect of life but it does not recognise that a woman’s experience and reality is different from a man’s. Gender justice, on the other hand, is beyond me equality of opportunities and provides a transformative change. Gender justice means giving people opportunities as their requirements. Gender justice stands for people across the gender spectrum to dismantle the harmful structures in society, including patriarchy, transphobia, homophobia, etcetera. Currently, it is important to be treated fair than to be treated equally. People unwittingly practice gender discrimination in their homes. Discrimination based on gender starts at a very young age. Boys are given cars as toys while girls are provided with dolls, sure both of them have toys but the division isn’t fair. Both the genders have chosen a colour for themselves which is wrong. Indian families ask their daughters to return home earlier than they expect their sons to.
The main aim of gender justice and gender equality is to provide women with better representation in society. In many families, men are the sole decision-makers while women take part in taking decisions like what to cook in the evening. Recently, things regarding this seemed to have changed but there is still room for improvement. Men have also been subjected to a social bias. They expected to be emotionless, not like the colour pink and have to be the earning member of the family. Society has to be fair to not only women but to men as well by removing these clauses of being “masculine”.
Although they have many improvements in various aspects of society, there still needs to be some more work done. To put gender equity into practice we need to be aware of its different dimensions. Both benefits and the costs and risks need to be distributed among local men and women. There should be equal opportunities to bring both perspectives to the table.
So, gender justice is more important than gender equality.