Of All Things Man is the Measure

Of all things man is the measure. Protagoras said that. Actually, he said, “Of all things the measure is Man,” but you know, samesies. 

Protagoras is correct. Men are the yardstick by which we measure all things. This is pretty profound. Men are not even the thing measured. They are the thing that does the measuring. The implement. The standard by which everything else is assessed and found either satisfactory or wanting. 

In feminist theory, this idea is called “male as norm.” To be a man is to be the norm and to be other than a man is a deviation. We also see this concept in race theory: whiteness is the norm so much so that it is often invisible in its taken-for-grantedness as the center of all experiences and expectations. 

You may say, “well, the thing is the term ‘man’ is a linguistic container for all sexes. ‘Man’ equals human.” I, in turn, would respond, “stop talking like that, it's embarrassing.” 

No matter your rationale, women are left out by being rendered invisible. Either this is done intentionally due to lingering sentiments about women’s inferiority or it’s done unintentionally because of a failure to recognize the true experiences of women. And either way is effed up. 

Because here is the thing: women are not men. And that is ok. Difference does not equal deficiency. We need to embrace both of those axioms and shout them from the rooftops before we can begin to create an economy that truly serves women. 

When we see women’s experiences as the same as men we do not serve women. We fail to create systems of support for them and we fail to recognize their lived experiences. When we see women only as a deviation from the male standard we assign a value to women as less than and again, neglect to provide true systems of support. Instead we ask women to figure it out because their inability to measure up to the norm means they are not worth our investment.

Protagoras made his declaration of man’s value over 2,400 years ago. And for millennia women have survived in conditions not designed for them and certainly not conducive to their success. It’s the same today. The economic system women operate in is not built for them. It’s an inhospitable environment. Sure, women manage to thrive in it, but often at great cost. And any success women do have begs the question: If women can succeed in spite of systems not designed or built for them, what could they achieve within systems that actually see and value their lives and experiences?