"I heard police or ambulancemen, standing in our house, say, “She must have provoked him,” or, “Mrs Stewart, it takes two to make a fight.” They had no idea. The truth is my mother did nothing to deserve the violence she endured. She did not provoke my father, and even if she had, violence is an unacceptable way of dealing with conflict. Violence is a choice a man makes and he alone is responsible for it.”-Patrick Stewart
One thing that I find about as positive as possible are women who fight for other women. Something I find about as disheartening are women who actively combat those women. I see examples of both a lot these days with the election brewing and women's rights and women's health care issues being so prominent in the news. Obviously, having never been a woman, there are things about being a female I could never begin to fathom, and thus, my words should be taken with a grain of salt. But I don't think one has to have been a woman to understand that, historically, women have been treated with what can be accurately described as everything from mere indifference on the low end to outright and utter denigration on the high end.
There are endless examples of how women have been chronically been mistreated, including going back to the proverbial caveman dragging his woman around by the hair like a common object. Women have been bartered and traded like cattle, burned and scorned for being witches and whores, considered to dense to vote or teach or earn equal pay. Women have been deemed as having no skills worth offering society other than cleaning the home, raising the kids, washing her husband's dirty shorts, and having supper on the table promptly when he got home from work.
Sadly, there are still far too many examples of how women are viewed as second-class citizens throughout the world, including young girls trafficked internationally for sex, women physically mutilated in the name of various cultures, women indiscriminately raped and tortured in the name of religious and ethnic cleansing, and more.
Personally, as the father of three daughters, my blood boils when I see women objectified and demeaned. When I see a woman talked down to or having to endure crude comments plainly spoken loud enough so she can hear them, it mystifies me as to how that behavior was ever deemed OK but how it's still considered socially acceptable by the assholes who utter them. Having been in some of the bars I've been in and having watched some of the poor girls who had to walk a gauntlet of leering eyes stuck in the heads of men who felt somehow entitled to act as boorishly as desired, I can't imagine the burden of being a woman in some regards. I can't imagine the constant stream of moronic behavior that must be tolerated simply for being one gender vs. another.
And that's why I admire women who don't tolerate the behavior. I admire the men who don't either. Without question, there are inherit burdens to being born a man that aren't pleasant, but I believe women have it far worse.
I love the photo above and the message that accompanies it. I ran across it today, and it's a good reminder that being born a man doesn't translate to greater intelligence, vision, or rights. It definitely doesn't entitle you to treat women, or anyone else for that matter, in an inferior, harmful manner.
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