Concrete Objects

Did you know that 79% of named statues in London are men? Perhaps that doesn’t come as a surprise to you knowing that women could only vote in 1918 and that the UK parliament is still made up of two thirds men, although 2022 is the first time that women have represented more than a third. Did you also know that, according to a UN study, an estimated 97% of women ages 18-24 have been sexually harrassed?

We can, like everyone else, throw statistics around and hope for the best, hope that this can galvanise society into achieving greater equality of the sexes. Certainly it can help, but statistics are statistics, they are numbers, so let's also put the lens on our everyday experiences, perceptions and thoughts.

What better place to start than looking ‘in the bedroom’. Consent has been a hot topic recently, and although the focus has been on ‘verbal consent’ there is something much deeper and subtler at stake here. Something much more than words, that we could call sensitivity and intention. Do you care? Are you sensitive to how your partner will experience intimacy with you? Or in other words - where is your heart at in the bedroom?

This isn’t to say hand-cuffs, ropes and nipple-clamps are off the cards, it means that no matter what preferences you have for activities in the bedroom, there is, underneath any played-with dynamics, a sensitivity, a tuned-into understanding of what your partner wants and enjoys.

Due to the fact most of us only ever experience sexual intimacy as the gender we are conditioned into, we are blind to the difficulties others might encounter. So we could ask the question - how can I become more sensitive to how gender inequality manifests in my life, sex or otherwise? But let us not ask the question in a way that passes the responsibility to discover the answers from others, not least from those who are oppressed. We are all born with the capacity to feel, and to not ignore what is in front of us.

What other areas are there in our experience where gender dynamics are out of whack? If we are leaving aside statistics, perhaps only you can say, because each of us has our own individualised perception of reality. However, regardless of our individual perceptions, we can zero in on the root of many of the abuses related to gender. I.e. the internal habit of body objectification. Which includes abuse to the male as well as the female body.

Could Putin send fifty five thousand Russian men to their deaths without objectifying their bodies as war tools? Could the millions of men who sexually assault women do so without objectifying their bodies as tools for their own gratification?

Surely therefore, investigating how humans objectify others is of tantamount importance as collecting statistics on gender inequality. It’s time to take to the streets of your mind. Are you part of the problem, or part of the solution? Can we as humans relate to others, of any of the many shades of gender, with our sensitivity, sensing, feeling capacities, rather than the objectifying, dehumanising, utilitarian capacities?

Whatever your answer, no one can argue with the literal and figuratively concrete example of gender inequality, symbolised by four fifths of London’s named statues being of men.