Reaching this part of my thought
process on why I am writing about women’s legacy I realize that I not only want
to express the outrage I feel about what is happening in the world today, to
women but I also want to motivate other women to see the injustices we face
every day of our lives. I want to MENTOR.
I am not here to create a crowd
of activists (although it would be wonderful if that happened) but I do want to
make women (and men) aware that there is an imbalance in how women are
perceived and treated not just in the workplace but everywhere. For too long we
have simply accepted that this “is the way it is” and have sucked it up. Sure,
many of us have pushed back when it came to inappropriate touching but at the
same time we have allowed men to speak to us in a demeaning sort of way by
letting them say “girlie”, “dear”, “love” and other things of that nature. When
men became hostile to the women’s movement they didn’t change their style in the
work place when it came to language, ignoring raised hands, allowing men to
interrupt but not women and yet they went out of their way to be ignorant in
ungentlemanly ways such as not holding the door for women, closing elevator
doors in women’s faces and other defiant acts by excusing them as being against
the trend of women acting like men. Oh yes, what woman hasn’t had that happen
to them time and time again. Courtesy is courtesy and has nothing to do with
feminism. That’s just men being assholes.
Women are expected to take the
higher road but this only causes them to appear weaker and less serious about
their goals and right to be at the table. An elevated or forceful voice is
hysterical if you are a woman but powerful if you are a man (despite using
exactly the same words!) I have never seen a more hysterical performance than
that of Brett Kavanagh during his hearing but you didn’t hear that once on the
media analysis!
I want to tell women that they
should not be fooled by Hollywood and the powerful, respected characters on
various shows. That’s Hollywood showing us the good life but it is not real and
there is no better proof than the MeToo movement. In addition, as I have
written in the past, I was terribly shocked to start seeing the American news
reports of all the black men in America who were being shot to death, DAILY,
for no apparent reason (this started for me around 2012 with the Trayvon Martin
killing). For years I had been led to believe that integration was successful,
happy, and DONE by watching American shows that had interracial marriages and
friendships; there were many non-white news anchors and television hosts, role
models like Oprah Winfrey and Whoopi Goldberg. Since then I have been appalled
to learn at how un-integrated the USA is and it is only getting worse.
Women need to be informed in a
very meaningful way about important issues of the day. It behooves them to be
educated in this way and not to think they can sit at home, live their family
life and not be affected by what is happening outside their front door. They
are affected every single day and so are their children. You cannot live in a
bubble of denial and it is incumbent upon every single woman to take note,
educate their children (boys and girls) about what is right in society, what is
right as a civilization and how we treat each other (male and female) in an
equal, respectful way.
We don’t have to be militant
about it nor do we need to hammer anyone on the head even though sometimes that
is a really powerful urge (I say with a smile but still mean it) but we can
push back and we should.
"Feminism isn't about making women strong.
Women are already strong. It's about changing the way the world perceives that
strength." —G.D. Anderson
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