Gender Equality
We desperately need gender equality.
At an anti-slavery event I went to today I found out that their are over 27 million slaves. Of these 80% are women that’s 17.6 million women. Out of these women the sample that the speaker had talked to (which would of been hundreds at least), all had been used as sex slaves. This is simply unacceptable.
We need to change this world. We need to change the way men look at women. How is it that we somehow have developed a norm that sexual exploitation is acceptable. Now I know it is not only one way, and I know that some males face sexual exploitation from both men and women. The majority of the abuse seems to be of women by men though so that is why I am focusing there.
I don’t know how exactly we work on such a huge issue. I imagine that the place to start is to refuse to be part of exploitation and degradation of women. Some of it is very subtle, some less so.
As an Australian male I have heard far too many degrading remarks about women. I have been silent and even participated in too many of these conversations. I wonder if I would have the guts to walk away from such conversations or speak up. I know that as of today I haven’t got a good record. I want to fix that.
The next big topic in this area is sex. With my Christian upbringing I find it a little difficult to talk about sex openly. I feel like there is so much judgement attached to it, and guilt as well. I think I need to dedicate more time if I am going to blog properly about it. It’s a cope out I know, but don’t want get judgemental, and I don’t want google to index me saying something stupid on this topic. So stay tuned. If you really want a big post on sex and gender equality comment here and I will do it.