I can't stop asking myself this question. I truly feel like feminism is an onion -- one belief in gender equality wrapped within so many layers of social injustice. And it all stinks. Where do I start? Where do I start?
Do I start with child brides? Do I start with child marriage and how insane and disgusting that is?
That girls as young as 8 or 9 are married off to older men like merchandise sold at the store? They are sent away from their family. They never get to go to school to get even a basic education. They're forced to have sex, without protection, where, for example in sub-Saharan Africa, girls 15-19 are 2-6 times more likely to contract HIV than boys their same age. The International Center for Research on Women reports that girls younger than 15 are five times more likely to die in childbirth than women in their 20s. Pregnancy is consistently among the leading causes of death for girls ages 15 to 19 worldwide. You can check out all the figures here.
What about female genital mutilation? Yikes!!!! Ugh, just the thought people, just the thought! Sometimes they take young girls and tell them it's their "Woman's Day" or something like that. It's sometimes even a celebration. Then they lay these young girls down, many times in unsterilized places, and saw off their clitoris, sometimes the inner lips too, sometimes the outer lips too. Sometimes with dirty razors. And no anesthesia. No pain killers. Maybe some "warm milk" as a reward. Why? Because "it is necessary to control women's sexual urges. They must be chaste to preserve their beauty." PEOPLE, should we start with this madness???
The list goes on. And on. And on.
But in my day to day life, I'm not seeing these atrocities. I don't live in that world. And while I do care and want to help them and fight for them, I am still in the confines of a first world reality, where there are also very serious and concerning problems here. So.... I've spent a year learning about issues all over the world, now how do I find the layers that I can personally fight in my day-to-day life?
Then my friend posted this picture on facebook.
Finally. Some direction.
So I started thinking about it...
I believe in challenging ablism by rethinking our understanding of disability, disorder and disease.
I believe that we need to broaden our definition of beauty to include all body types and colors. This notion that only white girls with blonde hair and blue eyes are beautiful is outdated and racist. It perpetuates the idea that only whiteness (and the oppression that comes with it; think: colonizers, slave owners, etc) is beautiful, righteous, and pure while and anything else (i.e. blackness, people of color, "the heathens", "the savages") is dirty, impure, and lascivious. Not only is that an oppressive narrative and a disgusting idea, it's fucking bullshit (Beyonce, I'm looking at you).
I believe that sexuality is a spectrum. We are all just humans and without learning any of these sexual structures, we would probably see this more clearly and without so much opposition to it. I personally blame religion, but while that's working itself out, I'm going to be one of the people to say it first: I accept you for who you are, and I don't care who you love as long as it's consensual. Period.
Transgender people exist all over the world, but I've never seen such positive visibility to them as I saw with the "ladyboys" in Thailand. They're beautiful. They're funny. They're people! And they were accepted as just that. I'd like to see that attitude all over the world.
But ultimately, what I want to fight for is a world that's anti-racist, pro-choice, and against classism.
I've had experiences directly related to the lack of these things in our society. I empathize with those who suffer in a system that does not favor them, sometimes doesn't even acknowledge them, and often times actively oppresses them.
I am not saying that I feel personally oppressed. While I am a brown, and a woman I also have a lot of privilege. I'm half white. My family is well off. I'm pretty. I'm thin. I'm able-bodied. My mind is healthy.
And as one of the people with so much privilege, I need to use that power to show solidarity with those still struggling, and to challenge the social constructs that still cast shadow on my own humanity. So that's my feminism.
What's yours?
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