Happy international women’s day! <3
I was all ready and set to publish something very different today, until I realized that having a blog and considering myself a woman – and a feminist – meant I almost had to honour this occasion. Many of the more known women I admire have been “warming up” to this day all week and I’m a little sad I wasn’t part of it from the beginning. But that doesn’t stop me from getting on board now!
I may not be as clever as to come up with something ground-breaking as the DearMe movement or the HeForShe idea of the lovely Emma Watson, but I can still be part of it. After all, aren’t all us women implicitly part of it? And of course, all you men are more than welcome as well! After all, it’s not like your day gets as much attention, and I’m all about equality!
I have before mentioned I consider myself a feminist. Yes, a feminist. That doesn’t mean I turn my back on anything feminine or that I’m a man-hater. It simply means that I want equality. Equality not meaning that we all are equal (obviously we’re not), but that we all, regardless of gender, sexual orientation or even race or social class deserve equal opportunity. That regardless of how different we are, we all deserve the same chances.
A while ago, I talked to some friends about this issue. How still so many women struggle with different salaries, status in the work place or even with being considered “bossy” when playing a leading role in society. They considered it a minor issue, that “we’ve already come so far” and that “it’s really not that bad anymore, especially compared to other places”. They saw no need for feminism in the modern, “1st” world anymore.
At the time, I wondered whether I had become obsessed, and that maybe people not rooting for feminism anymore meant it wasn’t needed, and that that was a good thing. Then, I took a look at some salary statistics and other numbers of the kind.
Of course, we are no longer as bad as in other parts of the world, and I believe a lot of people have come to share Maisie Williams’ opinion: “A lot of the things (Emma Watson spoke about) I just think “It doesn’t bother me”. I know things aren’t perfect, but there are women in the rest of the world who have it far worse.”
I just can’t help but wonder: does that really mean we should shut up and live with it? Does thousands of people dying of hunger also mean we can’t complain about not having eaten today yet? Does the fact that there are so many homeless now mean we cannot say it’s cold inside? Of course not.
Things aren’t perfect. They aren’t perfect for women here or elsewhere, just as they aren’t perfect for men, for different races or for different social classes, and that’s not okay. For any of them.
I guess what I’m trying to say is: of course we’ve come a long way in the western world, both in gender equality, gender roles and overall equal opportunity, but there’s still so much more that needs to be done. So much more that can be done, regardless of where in the world we are talking about.
So no: never just give up. You’re allowed to make your own situation better, regardless of how bad others have it.
Love,
Naya