Just a warning to start with, this
won’t be as cheerful or witty as most of my other posts.
So here we are again, another
International Women’s Day. I mistakenly thought it was yesterday, (yes I know
it is hard to believe but I am fallible), and wished a friend of mine a Happy
International Women’s Day (yes I do, do that, what can I say I’m an eccentric,
yet strangely adorable person), she (my friend) corrected me on my blunder and
also remarked that, it was a shame that we still needed a day to be reminded to
appreciate the great work women have done and currently do, and the effect they
have had on, are currently having on our world and on our individual lives. Now
of course she is right, she is super smart, much smarter than me, though obviously
I’m no slouch in the thinking department.
This last year the world seems to
have made some strides towards a fairer world for women, starting with the
downfall of that colossal asshole (I would uses a much stronger word, however I
am try hard to cut out my use of it) Harvey Weinstein, followed by similar
exorcising of other power men (assholes), in Hollywood, in the media in general,
in sports, in the business world and in politics. We have seen many; many women
(and men) come out bravely and share their stories of abuse in solidarity
together with the Me Too movement, some of these being women, who I naively
would have thought were too powerful or well known to have had to face anything
like the crap they have gone through. Finally there seems to be a real hunger
for change, with the traditional old boys club finally being called out on
their bullshit, and some at least being made to face the consequences of their
despicable actions, some of which have being going on for decades.
However, as heart-warming and
fantastic as the start of this long overdue process is, we mustn’t ignore the
large orange walrus in the oval room, the current President of the United
State, amongst his multitude of other shortcomings, has multiple allegations of
sexual misconduct hanging over his head, and is yet to face any sort of consequences
for them, he also openly supported for a Senate seat, an alleged child predator
who for years allegedly stalked and assaulted a number of young girls while
already in a position of power . A Senate seat I must add that the alleged
child predator shockingly only lost by 1.63% of the vote. So obviously there
are a lot more assholes out there that need to be bought to task over their pervious
action. Added to this madness we have also seen the rise of the Men’s Right
movement, a strange phenomenon that first came to my attention during the
production of the Ghostbusters remake, (Yes
remember that). These, I suppose I will have to
call them people (the movement also includes women (Yay?)), think that there is
a vast feminist conspiracy against men. They seem to perceive any steps towards
equality for women as taking something away from men, mainly generations of privilege
that has been afforded to the men before them, which they now want, believe is
their right and see slipping away from them. I’m going to be honest with you, I
have just done the very briefest of brief research on the Men’s Rights movement,
this being primarily because they have some really reprehensible views on
topics like, a women’s place/job in the home, on what constitutes rape and who
should be blamed for it, amongst an array of others awful views, and there is
only so much throwing up a person should in one life time. If you are
interested to research more, and I really hope not because you are thinking “Wow
those guys might have a point”, then I’m sure you will find many, many, (too many)
websites dedicated to their bile.
So where does this leave us, as I have
mentioned the world seems to have made some strides towards a fairer world for
women, but this is a marathon not a sprint, so there is so much further to go.
Almost every woman you will meet has had to work twice as hard as a man in the
same position, as well as put up with a hell of a lot more crap than their male
counterparts, sometimes of the most heinous kind. However let’s not end this on
a depressing note, remember we have started making strides towards something
better, we should all work hard to make sure it carries on, I will try my best,
in the hopes my young niece will grow up to live in a much fairer world for her
and others, (by making sure I don’t do stupid things like perpetuate idiotic
stereotypes, such as only using the colour pink for them, you know for
everything including well meant confectioneries. There are other colours people!) and that my friend gets her wish and someday International Women’s
Day will become irrelevant.
Until then, Happy International
Women’s Day everybody.
