Look, let me be frank and honest with you: I listened to Emma

Watson’s “HeForShe” speech to the UN back in 2014, and of course

she is absolutely right. 100%. Boys and men need to be involved in
Gender Equality. It’s a must. A no-brainer. Just over half of the
people in this world are female and quite frankly they, with some
exceptions, have a pretty raw deal. If you are a woman, life is a
struggle, like the task where Hercules had to roll the boulder up the
hill only for the boulder to always roll back down again just as he
had conquered the challenge. And I don't miss the irony that
Hercules was a man as so many Greek heroes were.

But, and you might hate me for saying this, I can feel
myself becoming the most unpopular kid in school - a
regular pariah… But, but, but, this inequality is not
necessarily the world’s greatest injustice. I want you to
consider the following list before you throw the baby out
with the bathwater! The list of inequalities: age; origin;
ethnicity; disability; sexual orientation; religion; access to
technology; access to clean water; access to education,
health care, safe housing, democracy; basic human rights.
Wow! What a list! Where to start?

Well, in the ten years since the Financial Crisis an

Oxfam Report stated that the number of billionaires
in the world has doubled. Disgracefully the 26 richest
people on the planet hold onto as much wealth as
the poorest 3.8 billion people. Tell me - is that right?
This for me is a shocking and disgusting situation
which shows just how unfairly, unevenly and unjustly
is the distribution of the world’s wealth.

What about water? We take that for granted here in the

UK, where despite our constant bleating about how badly
off we all are, we do at least all have access to regular,
reliable and affordable water. Billions have to walk miles
to a muddy hole before they then trudge back with dirty,
foul smelling water which we would hesitate to offer our
pampered pooches… Sure we sometimes think of this
for a nano-second when it’s a fundraiser for Water Aid.
And here’s another imbalance in terms of the world’s
water. Did you know that the richer northern hemisphere
countries have so much fresh water trapped in
reservoirs that the world has actually moved marginally
off the 23.5 degree tilt (that’s the one that gives us our
seasons by the way!)

Do you know how tough it is to constantly be asked “Well where are you from?”
Ethnicity is an evil curse, you can speak fluent English, have lived in the UK for 20
years, be married to a British Citizen for 20 years and still be asked this question by
any Tom, Dick and Harriet who thinks she/he is Sherlock and detects a hint of an
accent. But that is nothing compared to the problems facing you if your skin isn’t
the same colour, or you don’t fit in because you were born elsewhere. Then those
bigots, racists or xenophobes really make your life a living hell. Sure, you don’t see
“strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees” in the deep South (of the US) anymore,
but it’s well documented how dangerous it is to be black and pulled over by the
police for some minor traffic violation anywhere in the Land of the Free.
 Basic Human Rights are pretty darn
important too. Yet many millions live in
fear, do not have the right to protest, do
not have privacy, do not have freedom,
do not have the right to vote. The list is
long. Those on the list often try to flee
the lives they endure. Those on the list
then follow torturous routes, overcome
terrible obstacles, risk life and limb to
then be treated like animals when they
arrive bedraggled, bemused and
bewildered on the pebbled beaches of
the south coast of England.

Disabilities suck. Disabilities suck the life out of a

soul. Only the toughest manage to triumph; many
simply struggle and struggle and struggle. Yes Emma,
being a girl, a woman, is tough - more than tough but
stand tall be happy you don’t have to literally drag your
broken body through the festering putrid streets of
some far flung, over-crowded third world city to put
out your hand all day hoping to beg enough to let you
exist to see another sunrise.

So I don’t know what to say: I have massive

sympathy for those calling for Gender Equality -
it’s too bad that so few of our leaders are women,
too few of our CEOs, or captains of industry are
female. It is also massively wrong that women are
killed at a rate of 2 a week usually by their
husband, partner or lover and almost always by a
man. And yes, the drip, drip, drip of insidious
comments, inappropriate touches, and constant
devaluing is abhorrent to me as I am sure it must
be for you? Here in the UK I think girls and women
have it tough but girls and women around the
globe have it way tougher. Drowned because the
baby wasn’t a boy, treated with disdain as a girl,
forced to marry a man old enough to be her
grandfather at 12, raped on a daily basis by a man
determined to make you pregnant dozens of
times - so life becomes an endless drudgery of
giving birth, nursing babies, herding children,
tending the oven, cleaning the house, repeat,
repeat, repeat. Then die.

Okay I get it. Emma may well be right -

especially in the poorest, most
repressed countries of the world where
basic education is withheld, faces and
heads must be covered and eyes must
be downcast. In the end it’s not my
opinion that matters, it’s what you
think that counts. So what will it be?
“HeForShe?” or “Simply more Equality?”