Here’s the thing: why do we even have to talk about feminism? Why is it actually a thing that someone who identifies as female has to fight for equal rights?
There are cultures where women still get treated like an object that someone owns. Imagine you just buy a new boyfriend, because the other one seems a bit outdated or got delivered with the wrong shirt. Ridiculous? Of course!
So why is it not ridiculous the other way round? I wonder where in history we went down a path where this absurd behaviour started. Just because someone chooses to be at home and serve the family with food, it doesn’t mean they are servers.
Feminism isn’t just about looking at my own situation and seeing what’s going wrong in my first-world country. It should be way more than that. I want to stand up for all the young girls who seem to not have a chance to get out of the cultural prison they were born in.
When radical groups drop a bomb near a girls’ school to make them scared to go there, and therefore not learn to read and write and actually accelerate a life of their own, how far have we really come?
It breaks my heart that a young girl in her teens can’t even dream of being a doctor or a writer or a mechanic just because of where she was born. Don’t all of us around this planet have the same rights to education, to feel safe, to decide for ourselves what we want to give back to our society?
It just doesn’t seem so. And this is why we have to talk about this. We no longer can close our eyes and pretend that we are living in a place where most things are okay. Because they aren’t. And it’s the decision of every single one of us to make a step toward equality and fight the abuse of young women and girls.
This can start with you donating to help schools be put up in third-world countries. This can start by going through your neighbourhood and teaching a refugee the language or simply by not buying cheap clothes that have been manufactured by children. Just spend the extra money and buy less clothing.
It also starts with us understanding that only united can we make a difference. The ones that are already at the end of the social chain can’t do much about their situation, but it’s the obligation of those of us that are actually wealthy enough to do something about it to stand up and lend a voice to those who are not heard.
I’m still hopeful that one day we can look back and see a world that was turned around, where people finally understand that it’s not about power over another—it’s about finding the best in each and every one of us and using that to make this world a better place.