Trinbago Come Good

“When I had crossed that line, I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything.” Harriet Tubman, freedom fighter, writer

Not about women on top, but women & men side by side

JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT loves women.

The actor proclaimed himself a feminist. His definition, and my interpretation, of feminist both boil down to: someone who loves women and men, and thinks that they should all enjoy the same inalienable rights.

Which is not to say they all have to do the same things. Just, if a person really wants to try to achieve something, they should not be barred on the grounds of sex, any more than on the basis of race, religion, nationality or sexual orientation.

Liberal feminists are about equality of rights and opportunities for women. What is it about wanting that for women that provokes such venom in people, including other women themselves?

Writing my unprecedented feminist column about 20 years ago, the names I got called! “Man-basher.” “Man-hater.” “Balls-buster.” “Bitch. Bitch. Bitch.” Some things are enduring, it seems.

Gordon-Levitt’s statements came on the heels of anti-feminist comments from teenaged celebrities. I am always intrigued by women who bash feminism, especially publicly. It’s ironic. According to sexist, chauvinist doctrine, ladies should – like children – be seen, not heard. Women daring to express public opinion are bucking that tradition, thus, pushing a feminist head.

Who won the rights?

Many western women of today are so accepting of the rights they enjoy, they’ve forgotten these rights were bought with the trials, tears and toil of feminists before them. So comfortable in this place other women earned for them, some modern gals see no reason to understand what past freedom-fighters really stood for, truly did and actually wanted for women and men. They wanted more respectful interaction; more practical and productive working relationships; more sensible, stronger support systems for societies, in which all people would be given equal opportunity to craft industrious, fulfilled lives that answered to their talents and training.

Having broken free, can we stay the same?

To be female and to be anti-feminist is to support sexism and all it perpetrates. Sexism is terrorism. No? Let’s consider some of what it has birthed (twisted pun.

Witch hunts: a contrivance to kill off mostly female herbal lore healers – homeopathic doctors, effectively.

Too far back for you? The Rape of Nanking during the Second Sino-Japanese war in the 1930’s. Under the Japanese invasion, an estimated 20,000 women were raped in six weeks, be it elder or infant (the very young purportedly cut open to allow rape). Women were often killed afterward, via “explicit mutilation”: bayonets, bamboo poles or sharp sticks shoved into the vagina.

Rape as genocide

Still too far? Consider the Bosnian war’s rape camps, where warfare took “gender specific form.” The Army of Republika Srpska systematically raped Bosnian Muslim females; maybe as many as 50,000. This “genocidal rape” is deemed by the UN as a crime against humanity second only to the war crime of flat-out genocide.

But nearer, even: Boko Haram’s recent abduction of over 200 girls from a secondary school in Borno. The heavily armed guards also killed and damaged villagers for trying to protect their daughters, burning 100 homes as punishment. Boko Haram thinks girls should not be educated.

That’s sexist. All these acts were terrorist. And this is the kind of gender-specific, evil-toned sh*t that is resisted by women who are feminist.

I think people see feminist as a “mere female.” As often happens, a female can easily be misunderstood, misrepresented, harangued, attacked, put in her place by any yahoo with an inclination. However, if people today would become educated about feminism as a movement, feminism as a philosophy, perhaps then they would understand why any decent, considerate human being should support it.

Nothing wrong with wanting joy

Modern women enjoy fruits of feminist philosophy in ways they take for granted. Wanting to be educated is practicing feminist philosophy. Wanting the right to decide what happens to your body; or deferring marriage and child-bearing until after pursuing higher learning, a career or another way of life altogether is practicing feminist philosophy.

Wanting to be a partner with your husband in making decisions about the home you are creating together is practicing feminist philosophy. Wanting equal pay for equal work; wanting to be promoted because you deserve it; wanting to vote is practicing feminist philosophy.

Simply wanting to be treated with the same quality of respect and regard as a man is practicing feminist philosophy.

If you didn’t comprehend before, hope you do now. Take a moment and ask yourself what you’re for, then think “THANK YOU” towards all those bygone feminists who made it possible for us to be the freer, more empowered women – and men – we can be today.

Come Good

(This is a guest feature post written by a young male friend who wishes to remain anonymous)

WE HEAR IT all the time: “Young men are in crisis.”

What we hear far less is the question that should naturally follow: “Which young men?"

A boy needs bearing up right,
even when the world feels upside down

Not all young men are in crisis. There are specific bodies of young men who are in crisis. They may vary in color, religious persuasion and even socio-economic placement. Yet, certain definable factors have prevailed to land them all in the same crisis-boat.

If we could spend a few hours simply, directly, unflinchingly talking to these young men, perhaps we could find out what it feels like to actually be the person under discussion. After all, it must be very different to hear talk of “young men in crisis” as a senior citizen, a middle-aged entrepreneur, a teenage girl, or a male student getting along nicely at university, with the support of a functional family.

Common ground runaround

We could ask the young men themselves how they feel when people assert they are in that crisis-boat simply because they choose to be; then ask how they feel when those self-same people are the ones given responsibility to come up with “solutions” to (not for , mind you) young men in crisis.

We could ask what they think about these “experts.” Do they respect them? Do they trust them? Do they feel there is any common ground? Do they believe a word these experts say? Do they even want to hear to them?

Or do the young men wish there were people among the lot who could actually relate to them, understand their situation; truly empathize with their lives and, as a result, honestly care about their safety and well-being, reconciliation and advancement.

I’m a young man. Most people looking in at me cannot see the crises I’ve faced; how different my life could have been. I, too, could have ended us as one of these labeled young men.

Sometimes that shadowed feeling

But then crises never completely leave you. Sometimes it is terrifying to be exposed to just how far you have not come. As cancer patients are always at risk of a recurrence, just so young men who have come out of crises are always at risk.
I am still at risk: in my love-life, work-life, social interaction, ambition, and the rest.

My life involves constant vigilance, self-exploration, fortitude, patience, many, many deep breaths and more to stay on the non-crisis path. Is it that I heed the voice of reason? No. The voice of care is what makes the difference.

There is that voice that tells me to continue to care when other voices, internal and external, push me to not care at all, ever again.

I think we all need to hear a voice of care speaking to us. For some there is a need to hear that voice from outside until it learns to be able to speak clearly enough from within.

That’s why I try for my voice to be one of care to all the brothers out there in whose shoes I have walked. And still walk.

My voice reaches out, as well, to every soul alive who reads this. I invite you to also walk in the shoes of these young men. My hope is that perhaps you, too, will hear the voice of care inside yourself and speak in that voice to them … until they can speak with it, too.

When we all can hear that voice, together we will take anyone, everyone out of crisis.

I believe.

What hath hands wroth?

Highlight Topic Pages

Who won the rights?

Rape as genocide

Come Good