There’s an active debate going on about the ‘gender gap’ and how it should be narrowed to provide equal opportunities for all sexes. At first I thought the phrase was a modernised version of the feminist movement and the proverbial glass ceiling. But the gender gap is not just about males or females but also includes those who are not sure who they are and regardless of their age or race.

It covers job roles and salaries, social issues and basically how children are raised and educated.

From a very early age parents unwittingly treated their boy and girl child differently from one another. Whereas boys were brought up with GI Joe dolls, Tonka trunks and tool boxes, girls were brought up holding Barbie dolls, hair and makeup kits, dustpans and brushes and cookware. It’s not that parents wanted to compartmentalise their boy and girl child in these roles on purpose. They did so because that’s the only way they knew how to bring up boys and girls; it is the way they themselves were brought up. Also, a lot of this form of upbringing was by parents born in the 40s and 50s. Although things have changed somewhat, the divide is still very much a part of the gender gap, especially in some developing countries.

In many countries of the subcontinent, girls especially are hammered with the notion that education is useless for them because their job is to marry, have children and look after their home while their husband went out to earn a living. If they didn’t have the chance to marry then their role was, again, to stay home and help around the house.

However, if they do venture out into the workplace, there were only a small number of roles they could fill. I was watching the British movie, ‘The Imitation Game’, set during World War 2 and based on a true story. There’s a scene in which a young girl arrives late for a written examination at a top secret government facility whose role was to crack encrypted codes to aid with the war effort. When she explained the reason for her lateness one of the invigilators assumed she was in the wrong place and directed her to the secretarial pool. The invitation to sit the exam was contingent upon the candidate completing a crossword puzzle and the invigilator questioned whether she really did complete it all on her own, implying she was a girl and could not have had the brain capacity.

Even today some professions continue to be dominated by certain sexes. If you think about it, most famous chefs are males. Most famous CEOs are males. The construction industry is comprised mostly of males and if a female exceeds anyone’s expectations in the industry, she becomes a talking point and an example for other females in the same industry. Most world leaders are males. Most footballers are males. Most famous golfers are males. And most famous boxers are males.

That being said, there are some professions that are female dominated but only because society, and certain cultures, consider it inappropriate or demeaning for a male to occupy those roles. For example, females are expected to become nurses and midwives. Dental hygienists are almost always females as are nursery school and kindergarten teachers. In fact, there are so few, if any, males in these professions that Hollywood ends up making movies about a male lead and his experience in such roles.

Not only is there a gender gap in the roles that sexes fill, there is also a disparity in remuneration and promotions. For example, many females report that they are paid less for doing the same role as a man under the same job title. What is that about?!

Even the movie and entertainment industry has a gender gap. Most ‘cool’ roles are male and the female role tends to be secondary or a romantic interest, or not there at all. There are plenty of movies with little or no prominent females cast at all. Think about Die Hard, A Few Good Men (in which Demi Moore’s role was so second rate), Rocky, John Wick, Reacher, Top Gun, The Great Escape, Where Eagles Dare, The Eagle Has Landed, The Wild Geese and countless Westerns from the 70s.

That being said, you really have to hand it to Stan Lee and the team at Marvel Studios for doing all they can to narrow the gender gap. Whilst most of us are familiar with Batman, Superman, Iron Man and the Hulk, Marvel brought to life some of the lesser known, if known at all, female superheroes who appeared only in the original comics. Characters like Wonder Woman, Agent Carter of SHIELD, Scarlett Witch, Black Widow, The Wasp, Storm, Okeye and Spectrum. Aside from Wonder Woman, who ever heard of the others until the Avengers franchise appeared on the big screen?