Surely, people the world over are aware of the current emergency situation in Japan. The tsunami and subsequent earthquakes were devastating and awesome, in the true meaning of the word. No doubt, the situation is deserving of attention. The problem though with disasters such as these is the sensationalism of the event, and the ability of natural disasters to overtake all forms of media, resources, and attention. Human lives are human lives, and are intrinsically equally valuable and deserving of the compassion and help of other humans. However, we must consider that for each natural disaster that kills hundreds, or regretably, even thousands of people, there is ongoing war, poverty, disease, and strife, killing hundreds of thousands of people daily.
This is a grim realization. If there is anything that can make someone feel more helpless, insignificant, and irrelevant, it's thinking that for every aid dollar we give, someone else is in need of it. For every doctor or nurse or engineer we send abroad, another community somewhere else (perhaps even closer to home) is equally deserving. The point is not to be full of despair or hopelessness. The point is to be cognizant of what we are spending our efforts on. For instance, the earthquake in Japan is currently getting an enormous amount of media airtime and government international aid. While Canada so far hasn't promised any funds, they are ready to deploy military aid as well as technical and logistical assistance. Other countries have responded in similar manners, with the US making promises of grandiose proportions.
However, if we look back to the earthquake in Haiti, January 12, 2010, we saw an earthquake equally devastating, taking enormous numbers of lives and wreaking havoc upon an already destitute, struggling country. But one year later, despite the aid efforts at the time, the country is not even close to recovering. For instance, there are estimates that up to 800,000 people may be infected with cholera. But before the earthquake, the incidence of cholera in Haiti was close to zero. Indeed, the earthquake in Haiti pushed one of poorest countries in the world into a disaster situation that one speculates could never resolve itself. Not only is cholera spiralling out of control, Haiti's already morbid HIV/AIDS prevalence is increasing, as is the number of orphans, the amount of violent crime and rioting, and economic instability.
Natural disasters are devastating, and they exact remarkable human, enivronmental, and economic costs. But what about those disasters that are induced by humans, onto other humans or the environment. There are hundreds of oil spills we could talk about, and the human and environmental impacts they've had. But even aside from the oil spills, the nuclear disasters, or the overharvesting of fish, forests, or water, there is ongoing strife that humans inflict upon other humans. Why then, are these not responded to in the same manner as earthquakes or tsunamis? The conflict in Darfur has not ebbed, but it seemingly has lost any impact on the wider global community. Over 300,000 people have died in the conflict, and 2.7 million people have been forced out of their homes by the violence.
Of course, U2 and Rihanna have feverishly been working on songs to feature on an aid album for Japan efforts. And this is why Japan will recover: natural disasters are sexy and sensational, and the political and economic relationship of Japan with the west is a very deferent and friendly one. It's easy to wrap up a natural disaster in a fashionable way, to sell it and package it. Wars, genocide, famine, poverty, and diseases on the other hand, are reminders of our human capacity for evil, and we don't like to be reminded of that. We do not like the fact that manmade disasters such as these are preventable - and if not preventable, at least remediable - yet we haven't fixed any of the problems.
While my heart and sympathies and compassion goes to the people of Japan, and all those helping with aid efforts, my attention to Japan's crisis does not come at the expense of holding in my heart and mind the plight of the people of Haiti, Darfur, Libya, Congo, the people living in the slums of Kibera and the pavelas of Rio. I think that every new natural disaster that occurs, we need to respond in a timely and compassionate manner, but we need to ask ourselves what we do every day to help those who live in constant crisis and unending endangerment.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Tuesday, March 08, 2011
100th International Women's Day
March 8, 2011 marks the centenary of International Women's Day. All over the world, women and men are celebrating the achievements and progress women have made in social, political, and economic spheres in the past century. Additionally, people are calling for attention to be paid to the areas in which gender equality is still lacking, has stagnated, or has been outright ignored. The concept of International Women's Day however, is NOT based out of feminism, and it's important to keep this in mind. In fact, maybe capital-F Feminism is what's holding women back.
The idea of IWD was based out of a Socialist political demonstration, beginning in Germany. In 1911, Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland were the first countries to commemorate the day, which at the time was meant to draw attention to the sad state of labour and working conditions in increasingly industrialized societies, still undergoing the growing pains as seen with any societal advancement. In Russia circa 1917, protests by women demanding bread and peace sparked the October Revolution. Even up to 100 years ago, women have been standing up, making their demands heard, and affecting change when faced with a seemingly unresponsive, apathetic political and social hegemony.
Through the years since, we've seen first, second, and third wave feminism. Feminism as a concept is nebulous and vague at best, with some deriding it, some subscribing to it, and some doing everything short of tattooing the word on their forehead in the name of the ideology. However, we've reached a juncture in time that maybe it's time to throw out ideology, rhetoric, and the lofty and often exclusivist tenets of Feminism.
Often when the word is heard, it's met with groans, smirks, the rolling of eyes, or on the other hand, a self-righteous smirk akin to football players slapping each other's buttocks after a great play. The ideas that feminism is supposed to represent - equality, choice, and freedom - have become distorted into a sort of 'us and them' battle. I know from personal experience the feeling of being 'written off' after self-identifying as a Feminist.
I think for the sake of achieving goals that are ever more pressing in the world at present, we need to critically examine the state of our society, and our global village as a whole. The problems lay not in the oppression of women by men. Rather, the problems lie in social and political structures that allow both men and women to keep the have-nots of our society from accessing their own liberation. It is these structures that we need to audaciously and actively address. Let's put aside the never-ending debates about femininity and masculinity for a moment. We've reached a point where we need to very jubilantly and proudly celebrate the achievements of women thus far. Using these achievements as our ammunition, we need to consider and pursue what worked well. Generally, the greatest gains were spearheaded by women, but women eagerly sought the support of like-minded, progressive men. And children. It seems that many a Feminist today sees Feminism itself as a sort of sacrosanct, clandestine society of women. An example of this is Edmonton's own Take Back the Night march, which disallowed men from participating in the actual march portion of the event. These exclusionary tendencies are not doing women any favours. While it's important for women to have a safe space, we need to acknowledge that it's both men AND women who make the world safe (or unsafe) in the first place.
Our first question with the dawn of feminism was 'how can you exclude an entire gender - half the population of the world - and expect progress, stability, and sustainability?' Now, we have to ask that question again. We cannot make gains by ostracizing men, or by painting all women with the same brush. We can't ignore the women in positions of power who do nothing for women's rights and who do not support women's causes. Just because a human being happens to be born a female, this does not indefinitely predetermine her to be the same as every other female counterpart, with the same goals, ambitions, and motivations. This is brutally apparent when we look at debates surrounding abortion, birth control, and sexuality in general.
Further, we can't ignore the plights of impoverished and vulnerable men and boys all over the world. When thinking about International Women's Day, it would serve us well to think also of the gay rights movement, and the struggle that millions of gay men and women fight daily. We need to remember that regardless of gender, 1.4 billion people live below $1.25 USD a day (a conservative estimate surely, coming from the World Bank). This degree of extreme poverty is abhorrent regardless of gender. Of course, we need to identify the social determinants, such as gender, that prevent upward mobility, but at the same time, we need to address the problems affecting humanity at a human rights level - not a gender rights level.
Perhaps it's time to throw away capital-F Feminism and instead focus more on a return to idealism and bright-eyed optimism. We need to address the issues of our modern world with a compassionate heart that works to promote equality and justice, for everyone. Surely our discourse will be nuanced by gender, but it should be no more or less nuanced by gender than it should by race, religion, culture, or sexual orientation. And by no means should our discourse exclude anyone based on the arrangement of a couple lousy chromosomes.
The idea of IWD was based out of a Socialist political demonstration, beginning in Germany. In 1911, Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland were the first countries to commemorate the day, which at the time was meant to draw attention to the sad state of labour and working conditions in increasingly industrialized societies, still undergoing the growing pains as seen with any societal advancement. In Russia circa 1917, protests by women demanding bread and peace sparked the October Revolution. Even up to 100 years ago, women have been standing up, making their demands heard, and affecting change when faced with a seemingly unresponsive, apathetic political and social hegemony.
Through the years since, we've seen first, second, and third wave feminism. Feminism as a concept is nebulous and vague at best, with some deriding it, some subscribing to it, and some doing everything short of tattooing the word on their forehead in the name of the ideology. However, we've reached a juncture in time that maybe it's time to throw out ideology, rhetoric, and the lofty and often exclusivist tenets of Feminism.
Often when the word is heard, it's met with groans, smirks, the rolling of eyes, or on the other hand, a self-righteous smirk akin to football players slapping each other's buttocks after a great play. The ideas that feminism is supposed to represent - equality, choice, and freedom - have become distorted into a sort of 'us and them' battle. I know from personal experience the feeling of being 'written off' after self-identifying as a Feminist.
I think for the sake of achieving goals that are ever more pressing in the world at present, we need to critically examine the state of our society, and our global village as a whole. The problems lay not in the oppression of women by men. Rather, the problems lie in social and political structures that allow both men and women to keep the have-nots of our society from accessing their own liberation. It is these structures that we need to audaciously and actively address. Let's put aside the never-ending debates about femininity and masculinity for a moment. We've reached a point where we need to very jubilantly and proudly celebrate the achievements of women thus far. Using these achievements as our ammunition, we need to consider and pursue what worked well. Generally, the greatest gains were spearheaded by women, but women eagerly sought the support of like-minded, progressive men. And children. It seems that many a Feminist today sees Feminism itself as a sort of sacrosanct, clandestine society of women. An example of this is Edmonton's own Take Back the Night march, which disallowed men from participating in the actual march portion of the event. These exclusionary tendencies are not doing women any favours. While it's important for women to have a safe space, we need to acknowledge that it's both men AND women who make the world safe (or unsafe) in the first place.
Our first question with the dawn of feminism was 'how can you exclude an entire gender - half the population of the world - and expect progress, stability, and sustainability?' Now, we have to ask that question again. We cannot make gains by ostracizing men, or by painting all women with the same brush. We can't ignore the women in positions of power who do nothing for women's rights and who do not support women's causes. Just because a human being happens to be born a female, this does not indefinitely predetermine her to be the same as every other female counterpart, with the same goals, ambitions, and motivations. This is brutally apparent when we look at debates surrounding abortion, birth control, and sexuality in general.
Further, we can't ignore the plights of impoverished and vulnerable men and boys all over the world. When thinking about International Women's Day, it would serve us well to think also of the gay rights movement, and the struggle that millions of gay men and women fight daily. We need to remember that regardless of gender, 1.4 billion people live below $1.25 USD a day (a conservative estimate surely, coming from the World Bank). This degree of extreme poverty is abhorrent regardless of gender. Of course, we need to identify the social determinants, such as gender, that prevent upward mobility, but at the same time, we need to address the problems affecting humanity at a human rights level - not a gender rights level.
Perhaps it's time to throw away capital-F Feminism and instead focus more on a return to idealism and bright-eyed optimism. We need to address the issues of our modern world with a compassionate heart that works to promote equality and justice, for everyone. Surely our discourse will be nuanced by gender, but it should be no more or less nuanced by gender than it should by race, religion, culture, or sexual orientation. And by no means should our discourse exclude anyone based on the arrangement of a couple lousy chromosomes.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)