Age and Gender - Jonathan

If there were no distinctions of differentiation in terms of age and gender in Swedish society I believe that it would mostly give improvements when regarding gender, mainly due to the fact that the gender equality debate would be solved. No one could claim that men have higher salaries than women. All this is good but the distinction still has to be there, especially when regarding the biological part. Also, I think it is meant for us to complement each other, not do the exact same work in order to make things as egalitarian as possible. I doubt that many women change the tires on the car when winter knocks on the door with a decimeter of snow. In the same manner, I believe most men would rather change those tires than to watch the children and clean the windows.

Age on the other hand can be rather troublesome. Our solution right now to when people grow older and more tired is to put them on some retirement home and nothing tells us this is the optimal solution. However, to force all elders to work until the day they die would be inhumane. The same goes for young children. When it comes to the responsibility that comes with ageing it gets even more difficult. As it is today, with age comes experience and knowledge. Maturity also rides along with trustworthiness in the back seat. If the same responsibility was put on a energetic five year old as on his father of thirty-five the whole system of upbringing would fall since the authority of the father is abolished.

Social differentiation has most probably come to existence for a reason and even If the system has flaws that should be mended to completely abolish this in terms of age and gender would be foolish. The leaking holes should be fixed; the roof should not be torn down.