Equality should be slam dunk

Talk about it

Is it me or has the whole equality issue between men and women lost some of its luster and controversy? Either people don’t care anymore or women have simply reached the mountaintop. Or maybe the public is more interested in Michael Jackson’s sleep aids, what garment the first lady pulls out of her closet and which athletes became superstars because of steroids.

Whatever the case, I thought I’d throw in my 2 cents. And just so you know where I stand, I want to say that my favorite boss was a woman, my favorite teacher was a woman, I’d be very open to voting for a woman president, one of my best friends is a woman, my mother and grandmothers were all women, I was married to a woman and I’ve dated only women. From that I think you can surmise that I am very much in favor of women.

Still, I sense that this equality thing could be a black hole. I mean, where does it end? Because if it’s going to include us having to share restrooms at airports, basketball games and the local tavern, I’m opposed. But if it includes shopping for boxers amongst lingerie at Wal-Mart, I’m in like flint.

I must say too that I’m glad the shift in roles happened later rather than earlier. Because, had my father been in charge of cooking in my formative years, I’d have starved. Not to mention the inept cooking abilities of my two sisters, who led me to assume that cooking had been bred out of the next generation.

Still I can’t help but reminisce about those big caramel rolls that my mother used to make for after school, the ones that made me very popular with classmates. But with moms and dads now both working, after school caramel rolls have become obsolete.

Maybe there’s a natural evolution taking place and the two sexes are becoming more alike. Because growing up in western North Dakota, I always assumed that the average man’s hands were big, weighed about 40 pounds, were as soft as sandpaper and could completely envelope a can of beer. Then I got to Los Angeles where typical businessmen pluck their eyebrows, frost their hair, use spray to keep it in place, and take their hands, which are as meatless as runway models, to places where they soften them and manicure the nails. My uncle would have kicked me off his ranch.

Or maybe equality between the sexes is just about the salary variance between genders. If that’s the case I think that whoever does the best job should get the best pay whether they’re male, female, pink or green.

And as I think back, I can see that I’ve been in favor of equality for nearly my whole life. Because I can remember wondering, when I was a kid stacking square hay bales in torrid, midsummer heat, what life was like in the living room where my sisters were watching soap operas and sipping on cold drinks with their girlfriends. Even then I was open to adjusting roles.

— Holten is the Dickinson State University Foundation’s communications director.

Tags: opinion, columns, kevin, holten