Most people take it for granted that women and men should be treated equally, receive the same education and have equal opportunities - for example in as far as appointments, rates of pay and promotions are concerned. .
It was only in 1994 that South Africa welcomed a democratic government and constitution. Together with the liberalisation and equalisation of people of all races, gender equalisation also received a boost It is for this very reason that one is astounded at the realisation of exactly how unequal women were until quite recently .
According to the proponents of the "nature concept", the distribution of work along gender lines commonly found all over the world can be explained on the basis of the biological differences between men and woman.
Everywhere it is women who nurture the children, not men, though they both constitute their parents. Worldwide it is women rather than men who gather and prepare the food, run the household and tend to life on a physical level, including looking after the sick, the aged and the children.
Since women provide in these basic, universal human needs, men are exonerated to do income-generating work outside of the home, take part in politics, make war and so forth.
It is clear that in this scenario men are regarded as the norm or standard women had to live up to. Men's privileged position was seen as the standard women had to attain and which they would (finally) be able to make their own. In this scenario equalisation is strongly associated with similarity. .
By the mid-twentieth century womens in most Western democracies had been fully enfranchised and the focus of the Feminist Movement started shifting. This shift gathered impetus through the havoc wreaked by the two World Wars. The second Feminist Movement focused on ways in which womens differed from men, but now (for the first time) the differences were seen as positive elements.
For instance, it was argued that women were more peace loving, patient, caring, more accommodating and diplomatic, less aggressive and less selfish than men.
