I feel like I should preface this with the statement that I
am human and with that it comes with the stunning surprise that I am not wrong,
ever. And I hope the sarcasm was clear in that statement above. I would also
hope that you don’t hold what I’m about to say against me, I’m going to talk
about my journey into feminism.
I guess a good place to start would be with some
definitions.
Dictionary definition: The Doctrine advocating social political
and all other rights of women equal to those of men.
Definition when I asked a feminist: A movement towards gender equality, but now it's evolved and become intersectional meaning it also includes discussions of race, sexuality, class, etc. Essentially a movementtowards equality of all kinds.
Ignorant definition: Man hating female superiority.
And I won’t lie, I’ve thought each of those definitions were
true at different times in my life. And currently, the feminists’ definition is
the closest to something I believe in.
See, besides the government oppressing people’s rights, I do
see music and other forms of media as one of the biggest blocks to the equality
movement. I mean if you listen to a lot of the quote unquote popular music
women are perceived as being either stupid or only useful for sex, not to
mention how racial stereotypes are perpetuated in all sorts of media. Now I am
not sure if a quote from this person is the best choice but it does fit in
context.
“I feel like hip hop used to be a voice for the voiceless,
and now it’s become at least in the mainstream; A symbol of misogyny, gay
panic, fiscal irresponsibility.” – Bo Burnham
Though is does not provide any usable advice for how we
could change things but it does bring to light one of the many problems that
seems to just go widely accepted in society. Now saying that, there was that
one song by Robin Thicke, which I can’t even quote or even properly use as an
example because I cannot be bothered to listen to or Google the lyrics based on
the unanimous hatred for the song. But eliminating hate speech, and actions in
the media would only do so much. What we really need is a massive change in
peoples thinking. To be precise, we need to change what people joke about,
because I know this is crap, but if something is laughed at it is all people
need to believe that something is acceptable to do. This means no sammich
jokes, wide based generalizations, and even making light or the stereotypical
gender roll definitions. Because it is just as okay for the men to be single or
stay at home parents just as it is for women, there is no job that I can think
of that a man can do better than a woman; I do believe that women can do
anything and everything just as good as a man can. Women can raise children
without there being a man involved just as well as if there was and the same
thing goes for men. And that is the major problem with people making objections
to same sex couples having or adopting children and their objections are
absolutely ridiculous.
So there are a couple
problems with my above statements, which I found while typing this up. One,
being I was using gender binary terms where I did not mean to exclude non
gender binary peoples. Two, I primarily focused on binary gender issues I didn’t
even go too far into issues around race, non-binary genders, and so many more
things that feminism is about. Three, the true problem with people is not their
physical appearance. When the real problems are with people’s personalities, we
need to treat people based on who they are not what they look like or who they
are romantically or sexually interested in.
Okay so society is all about progress right? Living longer,
being better, having a better understanding of the universe. If we didn’t
strive for progress then why are there constantly technological and medical
advancements? Now what we really need to do if we really wish to be a truly
progressive society is one word, Equality. And some people will say that we
already do lie in an equal society, but pardon my French that is Bullshit. The
white man is still figuratively king, women and non-binary gendered people are
not given adequate or even proper recognition, and people with any skin tone besides
white get judged far too often, quickly, and stereotyped even further from
there. Okay and you know what love is? Love is an energy, it cannot be created
or destroyed, and comes in many forms. If more people understood this it wouldn’t
really matter what people looked like, who people were or whomever they liked,
they would treat each other as if they were just people. We all share the same planet
and that should be good enough to treat each other well and properly.
Post Script: I once again need to reiterate that I am no
expert in this field, and I am still learning and going forward in this
journey. Because I cannot change the mind of anyone else until my own mind is
good. I also figured that after a couple posts aside from last weeks on the primary physical, a
deeper post was needed.
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