A Post in Post-Convo
Apr. 6th, 2006 12:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eumeliaThis post was inspired in part by this conversation with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
schniff in regards to this post... thank you Noa for inspiring me, much love and smoochies :)
We live in a "Post" society... or at least that is what the media (as in television, movies, books, newspapers, etc.) is presenting us with. Post-Modernism states that nothing is important, because basically nothing we do will make a difference (this at least, how I have come to understand post-modernism), it's easy to see this trend in the fatalistic attitude so many of the people I am acquainted with and even some of my friends, who if they care about something, it is in the big picture "we have to look at the big picture, because there isn't much we can do anyway".
The big picture is made out of little details that are inter-connected, every issue touches another, from the Tsunami that wrecked havoc over the entire Indian Ocean, to the fact there is still genocide going on in central Africa, but no one cares, because it isn't publicized in a way that makes your heart and mind bend over in agony for the people that are dying there because the people in charge just don't give a fuck.
Does anyone that whales are still being hunted for "Research" by the people of Japan and Finland?
Does anyone care that in Bolivia the biggest financial income comes from trafficking cocaine?
Does anyone care that on the border between Sinai and Gaza there is trafficking in human lives, that women and children of all ages are exploited and that to the people using and abusing them they are worth less than a sheep!?
Lots of people care.
They just don't give a fuck, because it doesn't concern them on the personal level.
In Israel a woman is raped every five minutes.
In the USA it's every four minutes.
I cannot even fathom what happens in "uncivilized countries" like South Africa, Ecuador etc.
Am I just "talking, talking, talking" here?
Maybe.
Ask me what I plan to do about all this...
My answer, I don't know...
Because I don't know enough about the issues.
One thing I do know... all the issues are, as I have said, connected with each other.
One cannot be an environmentalist, without also being a humanist. One cannot care about one thing and disregard the other.
Yes, the main issue I am most concerned with and will probably put most of my efforts will probably be women's issues and queer rights, that doesn't mean I don't care about the other issues, or what to know less about them.
The night I left Israel and had a send off, the conversation, inevitably turned to politics, as it will happen with a bunch of twenty somethings Israeli people, we were talking about the elections, which have since come and gone.
We also spoke about Social Issues and one of my friends said "Women were manipulative bitches", I was not concerned that she said this, I was concerned that she said it with such conviction and such belief, I couldn't believe it, I wanted to argue with her about it, but we past that point during the conversation, but it stuck with me.
It makes me angry and sad, that this very beautiful, very smart, very intelligent, very astute and very self aware human being, a woman, would make such a blatant misogynistic statement. Maybe I took too seriously, but it affected me and still affects me. It saddens me that this courageous young woman has internalized everything society has said about women who are more than doormats!
Feminism is not about finding the wrongs of the world and blaming it on men! It is not about equality either! Because to be an equalist you first need some fucking equality and freedom of opportunities and until that happens Feminism is very much needed, same goes to Environmentalism! Same goes to any progressive ism out there that's main focus is CHANGE! The breaking of the Status-Quo! The realization that at the moment we are NOT in Homeo-Stasis... we are just in Stasis and that only leads to death... and I mean that is every sense of the word.
I am not out to get "the Man" in order to progress "the Woman".
I believe that the minute, the second, humans cease to believe in their superiority over this planet there will be change, I believe that when the Western World gets off it's fat ass and stops "trying to help" actually put money where it's big, fat mouth is, there will be change.
And I firmly believe, that as soon as women stop regarding each other as objects and competitors in a race track built by men and for men, the way men have for thousands of years and realize we have all been subjected to oppression and suppression of our spirit there will be change.
As soon as people stop being White and "everything else" there will be change!
As soon as religion is taken away and the excuse returns to be what it always was - "land, property and money" - concrete terms which cannot be manipulated as easily as the word of a deity, there will be change.
I started writing this at 11:00 it is now 12:15.
schniff in regards to this post... thank you Noa for inspiring me, much love and smoochies :)We live in a "Post" society... or at least that is what the media (as in television, movies, books, newspapers, etc.) is presenting us with. Post-Modernism states that nothing is important, because basically nothing we do will make a difference (this at least, how I have come to understand post-modernism), it's easy to see this trend in the fatalistic attitude so many of the people I am acquainted with and even some of my friends, who if they care about something, it is in the big picture "we have to look at the big picture, because there isn't much we can do anyway".
The big picture is made out of little details that are inter-connected, every issue touches another, from the Tsunami that wrecked havoc over the entire Indian Ocean, to the fact there is still genocide going on in central Africa, but no one cares, because it isn't publicized in a way that makes your heart and mind bend over in agony for the people that are dying there because the people in charge just don't give a fuck.
Does anyone that whales are still being hunted for "Research" by the people of Japan and Finland?
Does anyone care that in Bolivia the biggest financial income comes from trafficking cocaine?
Does anyone care that on the border between Sinai and Gaza there is trafficking in human lives, that women and children of all ages are exploited and that to the people using and abusing them they are worth less than a sheep!?
Lots of people care.
They just don't give a fuck, because it doesn't concern them on the personal level.
In Israel a woman is raped every five minutes.
In the USA it's every four minutes.
I cannot even fathom what happens in "uncivilized countries" like South Africa, Ecuador etc.
Am I just "talking, talking, talking" here?
Maybe.
Ask me what I plan to do about all this...
My answer, I don't know...
Because I don't know enough about the issues.
One thing I do know... all the issues are, as I have said, connected with each other.
One cannot be an environmentalist, without also being a humanist. One cannot care about one thing and disregard the other.
Yes, the main issue I am most concerned with and will probably put most of my efforts will probably be women's issues and queer rights, that doesn't mean I don't care about the other issues, or what to know less about them.
The night I left Israel and had a send off, the conversation, inevitably turned to politics, as it will happen with a bunch of twenty somethings Israeli people, we were talking about the elections, which have since come and gone.
We also spoke about Social Issues and one of my friends said "Women were manipulative bitches", I was not concerned that she said this, I was concerned that she said it with such conviction and such belief, I couldn't believe it, I wanted to argue with her about it, but we past that point during the conversation, but it stuck with me.
It makes me angry and sad, that this very beautiful, very smart, very intelligent, very astute and very self aware human being, a woman, would make such a blatant misogynistic statement. Maybe I took too seriously, but it affected me and still affects me. It saddens me that this courageous young woman has internalized everything society has said about women who are more than doormats!
Feminism is not about finding the wrongs of the world and blaming it on men! It is not about equality either! Because to be an equalist you first need some fucking equality and freedom of opportunities and until that happens Feminism is very much needed, same goes to Environmentalism! Same goes to any progressive ism out there that's main focus is CHANGE! The breaking of the Status-Quo! The realization that at the moment we are NOT in Homeo-Stasis... we are just in Stasis and that only leads to death... and I mean that is every sense of the word.
I am not out to get "the Man" in order to progress "the Woman".
I believe that the minute, the second, humans cease to believe in their superiority over this planet there will be change, I believe that when the Western World gets off it's fat ass and stops "trying to help" actually put money where it's big, fat mouth is, there will be change.
And I firmly believe, that as soon as women stop regarding each other as objects and competitors in a race track built by men and for men, the way men have for thousands of years and realize we have all been subjected to oppression and suppression of our spirit there will be change.
As soon as people stop being White and "everything else" there will be change!
As soon as religion is taken away and the excuse returns to be what it always was - "land, property and money" - concrete terms which cannot be manipulated as easily as the word of a deity, there will be change.
I started writing this at 11:00 it is now 12:15.
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no subject
Date: 2006-04-06 05:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-06 05:32 pm (UTC)To me being age is really of little conseqeunce when the people talkning are open minded enough to listen to each other. Being 20, I probably have a false sense of self-importance and come off as a little know-it-all, but I love, love absoloutly love talking to people who are older than I, because they have so much more experience than me.
People taking what I write seriously is a great compliment to me, so again thank you.
I can't get into every important issue but I can support those who do
This is true and I accept that, it's a fact and at this time cannot be changed, but everyone must be aware that the issues are connected and not seperate.
religion is not going away but we need to support liberal religion rather than literal religion
What traditional religion needs to do, IMO, is to just accept change and change along with it, yes, yes, that's my naivite talking again, but I know from personal experience that ancient religion can accomodate progressive thought. The synagouge I go to (when I go) has a very high percentage of women who wear Tallits and Yarmulkah's and there is no seperation between the sexes.
But we pray the same prayers and speak the same language my great-grandparents spoke in prayer. Now the interprtation is different, just like the attitude of the people.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-06 09:06 pm (UTC)