Editorial: Be careful what you wish for ...

Mark Dawson, Editor of Wanganui Chronicle

A British friend living in New Zealand for many years has married a Kiwi girl ...

The lucky lass - as the wife of a Brit, she automatically qualifies for a British passport.

He, however, as the husband of a Kiwi, qualifies for nothing.

If he wants a New Zealand passport, there are strict residency requirements and other bureaucratic hoops to jump through - and almost $1000 in costs.

I wasn't sure if this was an example of gender inequality or racial bias - probably the latter.

However, gender inequality has been much on the radar of late, mainly in the context of women being treated as "second-class citizens", particularly in the workforce.

In Britain, a new political party has formed - the Women's Equality Party (I think men may be allowed to join) - and, led by television presenter Sandi Toksvig and Prince Charles biographer Catherine Mayer, it is to be taken seriously.

Among its policies are to scrap the married couples' tax allowance, and to stop sanitary products being taxed as "luxury items" - something we could all get behind.

Could such a women's party form here in New Zealand, rightly lauded as the first country to give women the vote?

You would not rule it out.

Issues of gender equality can often leave men a bit baffled, and I have scratched my head over of few of them.

I work in an office where people get paid the same rate for the same job, their gender being immaterial, and one might assume - with the country's employment laws - that that is the case everywhere.

The topic is a little more complex than that, however.

One could not begrudge women getting the same pay as men, nor them aspiring to the top jobs, whether it be in politics, the judiciary or the boardroom.

With an education system slanted towards female learning processes meaning women are now better educated than men, it might seem inevitable.

And yet females are under-represented in these top positions.

Which makes me wonder: Do they intuitively sense how miserable, vicious, demeaning and demanding these roles can be, and think better of it?

It should be noted that men die younger than women and are more likely to commit suicide, and their work (or lack of it) probably has something to do with those statistics.

So to womankind I say: Be careful what you wish for.