So, I watched another video by Factual Feminist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O47bXIznf-E&list=PLytTJqkSQqtr7BqC1Jf4nv3g2yDfu7Xmd&index=13 and it relates to some of the things I’ve been thinking about Feminism lately, and I hinted to in my last post. I think that Feminism in America, arguably it’s birth place of true social change (but then again maybe other countries like Canada and Britain were way liberated before us, I don’t know, that was kind of an ignorant statement to make without the necessary research, but this is an example of my next point, God this is a run on sentence), has become horribly ignorant of the outside world. Women in the Middle East, in India, in China, maybe even in parts of Europe, certainly in many regions of Africa, are facing horrible crises revolving around gender. Yet instead of focusing on aiding their struggle and lifting them up to our relative level of gender freedom, we’re focusing on our own, relatively petty issues. There are problems in America still, especially rape, child trafficking, domestic abuse, and the struggles of the working class woman, but focusing on nitpicky issues is extreme. I found an article to highlight this belief in a way I couldn’t put into words: http://thefederalist.com/2014/04/23/who-has-it-worse-women-in-america-or-elsewhere/. She lists the horrors of the world compared to our problems of gendered toys, boys attempts at flirting and objectification due to immaturity as damaging sexual harrassment (something all girls of all generations have to face, and will continue to do so, because most boys are immature, and a lot of girls are too), banning the word bossy, and other such trivial things compared to the mass kidnappings, rapes, back-alley abortions, and denial of basic human rights women have to face in other countries.
I think I realized this as I was finding pictures of rallies from the 60’s and 70’s. I don’t know about you, but to me there seemed to be a rally on everything – and very important issues too! Stopping the war in Vietnam, ending apartheid in Africa (although that was somewhat later), even some of the greatest women’s rights movement, that actually had tangible goals and meaning. But now I feel like we have a generation that doesn’t really stand for anything besides themselves. Yet, I want to go out on a limb and say that our ignorance isn’t our fault.
We have ALL this information we could ever ask for literally at our fingertips, yet very few seek it out. I know I haven’t until recently, and I’ve barely dipped my toe in the water. I’m just another cog in the machine. Instead American culture creates smoke and mirrors to focus our attention on other things, on lesser problems, to ignore the man behind the curtain, the other people suffering in Oz (no, not Australia).
I think about how back in the 60’s and 70’s the media grew as a more active component of informing the people and allowing them to make their own choices. But now I feel like media coverage is very select and nuanced nowadays, directing people’s vision, narrowing it, instead of expanding it.
I think this sort of siphoning of information has bred young feminists who are ignorant, narrow-minded, and short-sighted. While I believe first-world problems are real too, I don’t think that should be all that people focus on. Thinking things like, “Well, what happens overseas is out of my hands,” is wrong! If people start to care more, corresponding politicians start to care more, and change can happen.
Yet I think we’re blinded on purpose, focusing on minor problems compared to the real dangers women of the world face. And it’s really sad…