Editor,

RE: "Davos 2018: Gender parity is about men and women, not women alone” (The New Times, February 15). It’s indeed crucial that the male counterparts take it upon themselves for the desired gender equality impact to be felt. However, I have often found this gender parity drive a very intriguing one. The principle seems to make sense in theoretical terms but rather difficult in practice.

It seems like the creator of humans intended that male and female were to play complementary roles rather than identical ones. Males were to hunt and gather supplies for their homes, while females were to mother children and be home maintainers. The formula to make a female assume the male endowed roles is not easy. It has often compelled the female to compromise their own naturally endowed roles, like bringing forth human life and nursing it.

In practice, women are under a very heavy burden, because they are often seen to act two-in-one — a man and woman, which is very tough — while men are not and cannot. When it comes to child bearing and nursing, no man can. In other words, whereas a woman can double task, men are always mono task. So, because women can, there is always pressure on them, both from themselves and society expecting them to hunt/gather supplies and continue to be home maintainers too.

In my opinion, the principle of gender parity should be such that no restrictions should be placed before women; women should enjoy equal rights as men in all respects. But there should be the understanding that women should do more of women roles and less of men roles, and to achieve this, governments would avail means to women during their child expecting and nursing periods to supplement their husbands’ incomes, to lessen pressure and stress off women.

Since this would be a huge responsibility on the side of the governments, perhaps there would be a mothering fund to which everybody would contribute, to lessen the need for a mothering woman to hunt and gather supplies during the young children upbringing years.

Donart