Age and gender - Liselotte

Liselotte: I really don’t like being the first to do this, but here I go.

If age did not matter in our society, I assume that all age limits we have today would also be gone, and in my opinion we have them for a reason. If children could get married without any obstacles I am sure many would do so, youth are known to be impulsive. Just generally, age limits exist for a reason and if they were taken away a responsibility would be placed on children that they most likely would not be able to handle. Responsibility is also something that is, to some extent, age related. But focusing on older people, since it is quite obvious that children should be treated as children until they are mature enough to be treated as adults, we do not have the respect for elders as they do in some other societies, for example the Ju/’hoansi. On contrary, companies often hire younger, newly educated people before the people with forty years of work experience (partly due to the fact they will soon retire). On this point, if age did not matter, it would be easier and probably fairer at least on the work market, and people would truly be judged after experience and knowledge, which in my opinion does not only come with age, there are several other factors involved. Young adults would not be judged in a negative way simply because they are young, either (which happens rather often, I would argue). There are many situations in which age could become important in our society, but these are the ones I thought of first.

Gender, however, is harder to overlook, since it is a very important way in which our society is divided. I must say that I think that it is a natural division to the extent that the women give birth to the children and are, of natural causes, staying at home with the infants. But besides that, a gender neutral society would probably look pretty much the same, but the pornography industry would probably die out (since pornography often disrespects women). Men and women would, naturally, be equal when it comes to salaries and similar to a greater extent than they are today. But the natural differences are hard to overlook, and I honestly doubt that a gender neutral society could work.