It's a Man's World…?

We sometimes hear the phrase spoken offhand, that “It’s a man’s world after all.” And there are still a good many men who believe it, and the practice of many centuries would almost seem to make it so. But fortunately we have come upon a day when it is also a woman’s world. There are few professions or activities now barred to women; the legal restrictions which discriminate against them are constantly falling into discard, but in spite of all the progress we have made in the so-called modern emancipation of woman, there are still some traditional masculine attitudes which cause us to expect more of women in some respects than we do of men ⎯ or perhaps we should more properly say, which cause us to expect less from men than we do from women. There is, for example, the purely masculine attitude of mind which causes some men to behave differently toward their own mothers and sisters from that behavior which they are willing to show toward other people’s mothers and sisters. There is a certain well-known type of individual who assumes the role of gentleman and protector among women at home where he is known, but who feels away from home, or outside his own family and social circle, that a different code of conduct is legitimate. Of course, there is no justification in fact for such attitudes. They are fundamentally wrong. There is only one standard of morality at home or away from home ⎯ both where we are known and where we are not known, and it applies to men as well as to women. The laws and commandments pertaining to morality and personal conduct are not restricted to men or to women, but apply to all mankind, as do all the other commandments and rules of life, and no group of men can long remain better than the women they associate with, and so it is with women also. As between men and women the Lord God has given only one set of rules, only one standard of morality, only one code of conduct, and that deference and protection we expect for the mothers and sisters we know at home, we must likewise be prepared to give the mothers and sisters of others whom we find away from home.