At the end of my last post I mentioned that one of the founding principles of the Empire that I had created was equality. It seems like a simple basis to include but in reality it’s not. That’s because I was very conscious of the various inequalities in Earth’s modern societies as I was writing. And so I ended up trying to make sure that for every strong character of a particular group, that I had a corresponding weak character. It certainly wasn’t easy and perhaps it’s a little artificial, too. Any mathematician will tell you that a truly even distribution is next to impossible. But I tried to maintain a reasonable balance and not fall into any obvious stereotypes.

But how difficult is it to really write about this? Don’t we tend to have the most egalitarian societies in world history right now? Maybe, and that’s the issue, because despite being more even-handed than ever we still have deeply entrenched bias, And despite what people might think, it usually works both ways; something a lot of people choose to ignore when it comes to fighting for equality. For my example, I’m going to look at sexual equality.

In my fictional empire, men and women are both hero’s and villains, rich and poor, weak and strong. All the qualities that you see here on Earth. The difference is that in the Empire that are all treated the same. What’s right for one gender is equally right for another. To me this is the true foundation of equality. Take a situation and apply it to one group and then reverse the roles and apply it to the other group. The attitudes and outcomes should be the same. If not then you don’t have equality. Now I know I don’t need to preach to anyone about how unfairly women are treated even in western societies, They tend to not get equal pay, equal work opportunities, etc, The list is well-known and the fight for women’s rights is well established. But let’s look at the reverse. Are men discriminated against? I can already hear the hoots of derision from feminists, but the fact is that they are and society ignores it.

Let’s take some examples. How often do you see a male shop assistant working the lingerie counter at a department store? If anyone has spotted one then please let me know. Companies claim that being served by a male would make their female customers feel uneasy and so men are denied an employment opportunity. If I go into a department store to buy underwear, the chances of me being served by a woman are fair. Where is the concern for my feelings? Sounds unequal to me.

Next up, and something I touch on in my second book, strip shows. If a man goes to a strip club to watch female dancers, he’s thought of as ‘sleazy’ and ‘a bit of a perv’ by most women. And the view is taken that he is encouraging the exploitation of the dancers. So what about women who go to see male strippers? Well, apparently they’re just having a good time and it’s ‘just a bit of fun’. There’s certainly nothing sleazy about it. Hmmm, having talked to female friends who have attended such events, that’s certainly not the impression I get. In fact it sounds to me as if the women audiences are far less well-behaved, but men are supposed to just shrug this off and not complain? Unlike the way women view men in the reverse situation? I think not. Pot meet kettle.

For my last example, I have something a little more controversial. A 25 year old man is caught in a relationship with a 15 year old girl. The community is outraged and the man arrested. He is labeled a pedophile, a sicko and a pervert. He is accused of ‘grooming’ the girl to satisfy his desires. And so, a 25 year old woman is caught in a relationship with a 15 year old boy. The community is less outraged, fewer people are willing to condemn or label her and the boy is less likely to be considered a victim in all of this, sometimes even being viewed as fortunate to get an education in sex. And when it comes to sentencing? Well, the man is almost certainly going to prison, the woman? Perhaps not. More likely she will receive a lighter sentence, maybe suspended. So where is the protection for our sons? Are they less worthy of such than our daughters?

The truth is that where a group has been guilty of oppressing another then they end up with less protection as we try to balance the scales. Trying to convince people that men are discriminated against is to invite mockery. Likewise with other well-publicized areas such as race. You can’t convince people that Caucasians are racially abused; I mean who ever heard of someone being offended by terms such as ‘whitey’ or ‘snowflake’?. There are examples by the bucket load. We try to remove the discrimination against one group, which i heartily support, but forget to remove the same for the opposite group. Instead we use terms like ‘positive discrimination’, a phrase I abhor. The clue is right there, if you’re positively discriminating for someone then you are actively discriminating against someone else. I saw a wonderful article by a feminist writer, Jane Powell, just last week which described men as moving towards being the new underclass. She cited health care and education as two of the main areas where males are rapidly losing out and suggested that if women really want equality then they should be fighting as hard for men as themselves.

I hope this helps shed some light on why it’s so difficult to write about a culture that has true equality. It’s because we are so used to turning a blind eye against some of the things that are still happening in our own societies today. It’s not the obvious issues that are paraded in front of us, they are known and fought against, it’s those that are pushed to the sidelines and conveniently ignored. And it’s with this in mind that I tried to make my fictional empire truly egalitarian. Did I succeed? I’ll have to leave it to the readers to decide. I’m sure I have my own blind-spots just like everyone else.