My Story / By: Christoffer Nyman

Are males and females really that different, or is it just the human mind that makes everything so much harder, than it really is? As a guy here in the United States, I feel that this question is very important. The discrimination between men and women is way too big and has to be eliminated. I also believe that the tradition that many of us are raised by isn’t exactly in favor for the women. Many people still have the thoughts that women aren’t the same as the men. To some extent, this is true. Women have less muscle strength the men, which gives them a huge disadvantage in some industries. But, in some industries, where they don’t have any disadvantage, they are sometimes not treated as equal to the men. This is wrong. However, we can not forget that the world is changing to the better every day, and some industries are actually a huge majority of women: the fashion industry.

Being a man is both easy and difficult. Just as my sister said: It depends on what age you’re in. When being around thirty, many people start a family, and move into a new house or apartment. At this point, the man a often expected to be the only source of income. The woman stays at home and takes care of the kids and the man goes to work. Is this right or wrong? Who can tell? Someone has to work and someone has to stay with the babies. However, being a man has many positive aspects. Unfortunately, the world has, and still is, very man dominated. The men gets often paid more than women, and it is sometimes easier to get a job as a man. Of course, this is totally wrong, but in some countries, you have to change the religion if the woman should be equally treated. This is very hard, if not almost impossible.

When I first decided to start my own event company, I didn’t see all the obstacles that I would face. As an event planner, I had to make all kinds of events, such as parties, concerts, and fashion shows. When it came to making fashion shows, which later on actually became my main event, I didn’t think so much about what kind of people I would have to work with. In the fashion industry, most of the people that you will work with are women. Not that I have any problem working with women, but being in an industry that actually includes more women then men is very challenging. I am a guy that has been raised with playing soccer and other sport, where the females only stood on the side and watched. I guess that this made me a very “man” guy. We spoke to each other in a very aggressive tone and no one cared. This is not the same with women. I had to start learning to adapt, and know how these women worked, and thought how the work should be done. Sometimes it is actually a big difference. In my opinion, most women are very sensitive, and therefore I couldn’t use my aggressive language with them. I was used to say phrases like: “Stop being such a baby, and start working. NOW!” I could not do this anymore. I had to be very careful, and that made me very frustrated sometimes. However, this period was the best time of my life. I learned a lot about how to behave against different people. Making fashion show became later on, my company’s main event.

Being able to succeed in the new world that is coming, everyone has to understand that both men and women are equal, and should be treated this way. We should all have the same possibilities and salaries. My experience with the event company, made me realize more that even if men and women are different in some ways, we are all the same inside. We just have to act differently when we are talking to a man versus a woman. If everyone would understand this, the world would be a place where everyone is equally treated.