Head of the House

No matter what is said, women still do not have social equality with men. It's quite interesting to see how we pretend that there is no discrimination of any kind, and yet there are a number of gender-related behaviours that are very easy to spot in everyday situations. For example, in my house, and in the house of most people that I know, the male head of the household sits at the end of the table when eating meals. This is especially true when guests are over, and so the seating arrangement has 6 or maybe 8 people. If there are two couples, the men will usually sit opposite each other at the ends of the table.

Whether this is all a conscious decision remains unclear to me. I would in fact be quite interested to find out what the thought process behind all this is. Why do women put up with this chauvinism? They are always subjugated to the supporting role of assistant, sitting at the side of their husband as an adviser of sorts, but never taking the lead. If you look at seating arrangements in business meetings, the person with most seniority will usually sit at the end of the table as a position of honour and distinction. Who decided that this was the standard seating position at home? I look forward to seeing a day when two women will sit at the table ends just to throw things off. Ironically enough, that would take great balls, as they say.