On Feminism, Social Media and The Reality Inbetween.


  The ideology of feminism can be traced as far back as the 1840's but that's a whole history course. basically, the ideology is older than most of its faithful loyalists. what's my point? Feminism did not start today.
The movement in a nutshell sought to bring about a sense of equal treatment of the sexes, this was due to the fact that in early times, practically everything in the society was controlled by one gender.. the male folk.
The movement was mostly centered around generating policies and laws that allowed women to participate in the different spheres of life as individuals, without the constant consultation of or interference by men in affairs that mostly concerned women.
   

   It was this movement that allowed women to own property and not be seen as property, to participate in political processes and also have representatives in places of influence. Of course there were many other things this movement has been able to achieve and is still achieving but as every other ideology in the politics of life, there have been detours that need to be adressed regardless of how sensitive the topic is considered to be.

    The feminist movement of the 21st century breeds allot of contempt especially between the Average African male and feminist female. The cause the woman stands for is not an evil one as her passion is fueled by the injustice she sees in society and though He can see that there is indeed injustice in the society, he would rather focus on the manner in which she presents her case, simply because it is wrong for a woman to want 'gender equality,' because ' it simply isn't done,' and 'a woman can never be equal with a man,' because ' that is how she has been created, to be below the man'. lolz
He has never seen it this way before. In his mind, The woman should be calm and quiet, she should never show aggression, the woman must stay peaceful, she must smile and say thank you, she must bow low and serve, the woman must submit! and leave the barking to the men. lolz
like I said, He has never seen it this way before.
        

       The woman on the other hand is excited about her new found freedom. She infact will fight tooth and nail to see that nobody takes it away from her. When she has the opportunity, she will thump away on keypads making elaborate points on social media and lashing out at anyone who tries to oppose her opinions. Because of the reality of the pains women have experienced, she, whether or not she has experienced this pain first hand will passionately take up the mantle of ' women and girl child rights ' advocacy, ' gender equality' ( which seems allot like gender supremacy so it never quite sits well in the hearts of people, men especially and of course women with very traditional core beliefs) and a voice for the voiceless.

    Now, despite the enormity of the issues arising, no matter how true they are, there are underlying truths that should not be ignored. One of such truths is that society is inevitably evolving, now more than ever, men and women alike are rising above the shackles of head strong tradition and one sided religion that so subtly and surely brought in many of the menacing ideologies that are being corrected today. In my opinion, the rate at which the feminist movement is bent on being a mighty association with the slogan ' pepper them' boldly written on their flags has in fact come a tard bit too late. Why? Because now more than ever, we get it.
    So as long as there are constant fights full of hate speech springing up on social media because of something that time is changing then the feminist movement will always be seen as a threat and it will constantly raise eye brows.
Bringing my point home can never happen without adequately looking at the reality in between. First of all,  a person who has experienced pain, violence, abuse is one who has first hand experience, the ability of such a person to heal everyday amidst the guilt, memories, depression, anger, hurt and all the toxic components of a tortured mind is strength in itself, this person can honestly say that acting from a place of pain has never done anyone any good. Such a person would have hurt long enough to understand that beyond the pain, what we all need is a solution. 

In dealing with sensitive issues, it is important to put away all forms of bias and sentiment that one may feel and focus squarely on how best we can pick up the pieces and decide weather to mend broken things or start afresh to create new ones.

This step is unavoidable because one gender will not pack their belongings inside ' bag co bag' and leave the earth so we must work together to achieve said goals.

    That's one, number two,we must consider the fact that people are different, backgrounds, upbringing and belief systems are vast and the hardest part of learning is unlearning what you have grown up learning all your life.
Imagine a man who was raised in a home where the females did all the domestic work, and so it was never an issue until he is ready to marry and a lady flashes the #wifeNotcook tag in his face. The truth is, it will be unwise to expect maximum support from such a person and to argue with him is to make yourself of all feminists the most miserable, because the more you shine your new found light on his face, the more he stumbles and clutching  unto his beliefs for dear life,he will harden his stance.
The first step is to see things differently. Get healed as a woman/ man and if you are still hurting begin a healing process why? Because you cannot give what you do not have. Rhetoric only causes problems, raises questions and hardens hearts, but a proved life draws people closer. We must learn to love one another afresh, genuinely and without conditions.
We must never complain about what we permit.
We must make up our minds not to allow our children make the same mistakes we have made, we must raise children with respect, values, parity and discipline and we can never do that if we are fierce hypocrites on social media and cowering lions in real life.


Comments

Popular Posts