My Final Blog

Part 1: From the beginning of my blog I have been an ethical mind. I am not a political activists out to change the world, but when i first started researching my topic i was baffled. What kind of world do we live in where such inhuman things can happen to half the population but no one cares because of the fact that the victims of such crimes are not men but rather their "unequal" counterparts? I could not get the subject out of my mind and I decided that it was time I actually did something that might get across to people- even if it was only my 10 followers. If the 10 of you do something to address these needs then maybe 10 more people will and then 10 more people, and on and on. We need to publicize the problem in order for Americans and the rest of the world to realize that we actually do in deed have a problem.

Part 2: i think that in blogging, and in life in general, I am a pretty open-minded person. I like to think that I "exhibit respect for other viewpoint"- and if i don't, i apologize. i also think that due to this fact, i am able to see other peoples' "points of view." I do not judge other people for things that they believe. For instance, when researching for my blog, many times the use of contraceptives was mentioned. Me, being a catholic since my first bath in Holy water, do not believe in such methods of birth control. However, from reading and seeing examples of how in some cases they are necessary, I realize that in certain situations they can potentially save lives.

This brings me to my third, "challenge their own beliefs." Did this blog challenge my very close-minded beliefs? Yes. My eyes were open to a whole other world, completely different from the one which I have become accustomed.

Part 3: I realized that when American women were given the right to vote, it was a milestone for us, but only a minor step forward for the women of the world. Men here might still have a little sexism running through their blood, but it is nothing in comparison to the sexist actions that arise from the opposite end of the Earth.

What surprised me most about the technological side of blogging is that it is not all that bad. I am not one for technology, but when you are talking about something in which you are passionate, then it takes the ick factor out- almost.

Be Powerful

I started off my blog with an excerpt from Eve Ensler's I AM AN EMOTIONAL CREATURE, and now I will conclude my blog with another.

MANIFESTA TO YOUNG WOMEN AND GIRLS

HERE'S WHAT YOU WILL BE TOLD:

Find a man

Seek protection

The world is scary

Don’t go out

You are weak

Don’t care so much

They’re only animals

Don’t be so intense

Don’t cry so much

You can’t trust anyone

Don’t talk to strangers

People will take advantage of you

Close your legs

Girls aren’t good with:

Numbers

Fact

Making difficult decisions

Lifting things

Putting things together

International news

Flying planes

Being in charge.

If he rapes you, surrender,

You will get killed trying to defend yourself

Don’t travel alone

You are nothing without a man

Don’t make the first move,

Wait for him to notice you

Don’t be too loud

Follow the crowd

Obey the laws

Don’t know too much

Tone it down

Find someone rich

It’s how you look that matters,

Not what you think.

HERE’S WHAT I AM TELLING YOU:

Everyone’s making everything up

There is no one in charge except for those

Who pretend to be

No one is coming

No one is going to

Rescue you

Mind-read your needs

Know your body better than you

Always fight back

Ask for it

Say you want it

Cherish your solitude

Take trains by yourself to places

You have never been

Sleep out alone under the stars

Learn how to drive a stick shift

Go so far away that you stop being afraid of

Not coming back

So no when you don’t want to do something

Say yes if your instincts are strong

Even if everyone around you disagrees

Decide whether you want to be liked or admired

Decide if fitting in is more important than finding out

What your doing here

Believe in kissing

Fight for tenderness

Care as much as you do

Cry as much as you want

Insist the world be theater

And love the drama

Take your time

Move as fast as you do

As long as it’s your speed.

Ask yourself these questions:

Why am I whispering when I have something to say?

Why am I adding a question mark to the end of all my sentences?

Why am I apologizing every time I express my needs?

Why am I hunching over?

Starving myself when I love food?

Pretending it doesn’t mean that much to me?

Hurting myself when I mean to scream?

Why am I waiting

Whining

Pining

Fitting in?

You know the truth:

Sometimes it does hurt that much

Horses can feel love

Your mother wanted more than that

It’s easier to be mean than smart

But that isn’t who you are.

GIRL FACTS

Here are some startling facts concerning women around the world:

• Your left lung is smaller than your right lung to make room for your heart.
• 730,000 teenage girls will get pregnant this year.
• In Africa, about 3 million girls a year are at risk for genital mutilation- more than 8,000 per day.
• A new report says of the estimated 300,000 child soldiers around the world, about 40 percent of them are girls. The girls are often front-line fighters or used as porters or cooks. Many are sexually abused.
• An estimated 100 million girls are involved in child labor worldwide.
• More than 900 million girls and women are living on less than $1 a day
• In India, says BBC News, “…government statistics show that husbands and in-laws killed nearly 7,000 women in 2001 over inadequate dowry payments.” The practice, named after the murder method used, is known as “bride burning.”
• On Aug. 14, 2008, the CBS program 60 Minutes reported that, “In the last ten years in Congo, hundreds of thousands of women have been raped, most of them gang raped.” Sexual violence has become a war tactic as a way of subduing civilians.
• Writing in The Guardian (May 13, 2002), John Gittings says “An alarming rise in the sex ratio of newborn infants in China suggests that increasing numbers of female fetuses are being aborted by parents intent on having a male child.” Normally, 106 males are born for every 100 females; in China the ratio is 116 to 100. The group Gendercide Watch says there are no reliable statistics on how many girls are killed but “a minimum estimate would place the casualties in the hundreds of thousands.”
• In a broad swath of African countries from Senegal in the west to Tanzania in the east, as many as two million girls suffer genital mutilation every year. The World Health Organization terms the practice a reflection of “deep-rooted inequality between the sexes, and constitutes an extreme form of discrimination against women. It is nearly always carried out on minors and is a violation of the rights of children.”
• iAbolish, an American anti-slavery group states, “Approximately 35,000 individuals live as sex slaves in Thailand today. Sold or lured to big cities, these girls… are forced - under the threat of violence and with no freedom to leave the brothel - to provide sex for any and all paying customers. Sex tourism in Thailand is a growing industry, perpetuating the demand for sex slaves.”
• According to the United Nations the ancient tradition of “compensation marriages” continues today in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and parts of the Middle East. Underage girls are handed over to settle disputes between clans and families. “The number of girls and young women victimized by this custom is not known, but investigators consider it be in the tens of thousands.”
• Oxfam Canada reports that, “Of the 1.3 billion people who live in extreme poverty worldwide, 70 percent are women and girls. Systematic gender discrimination—the denial of women’s basic human rights—is a major cause of poverty.”

Cause: Female Genitalia

What is the BIG difference between men and women, boys and girls, guys and gals, gentlemen and ladies...OK I've gone to far. But anyways, seriously, what is the big deal? Men have a penis and women have a vagina. Men have pectorals, women have breasts. Men think with their (cough) and women use their brains. Besides these well-known differences, I don't get what the huge gape in genders is.
This huge gap is filled with rape, genital mutilation, forced prostitution, child brides, lack in education and health care. When will the world stop and see that this problem is not a question of women gaining their rights per say, but more of humankind becoming, well human. The barbaric acts that occur to these young girls everyday make me sad that human-beings can act so animalistic.
Women in the U.S. of A fight for equal wages, girls of the Western Hemisphere fight for their lives everyday. I complain about having to go to school, when just across the ocean girls are not even given the opportunity because according to their parents, school would be useless for a woman, or because their brother has priority. (I am in no way critisizing women in the United States who are fighting for these things. In fact, I encourage it- We deserve it.)
Once again, when reading the book HALF THE SKY, I was confronted with an interesting aspect. If the same things that were happening to women everyday happened to men, then they would be considered a much bigger deal. However, since these women to not possess a certain member betwixt their legs, they are punished for it.
Here are some startling facts:

• "More girls were killed in the last 50 years, precisely because they were girls, than men killed in all the wars in the 20th century."
• "More girls are killed in this routine gendercide in any one decade than people were slaughtered in all the genocides of the 20th century. "
• "The equivalent of 5 jumbo jets worth of women die in labor each day... life time risk of maternal death is 1,000x higher in a poor country than in the west. That should be an international scandal."

Male Pregnancy Pains?

So the story goes that Eve got Adam to eat the apple and blah blah blah; therefore, women are condemned to the evils of menstruation and childbirth. While men, get what- the pains of working. I don't think so- women do that now all the time. So what's the deal God! Why you being such a sexist? Anyways. In the olden days, when anesthesia was first developed, women were not permitted access to the drug since they were "supposed" to feel that pain. However, the Huichol tribe in Mexico actually had the right idea. It was their belief that the pains of childbirth should be shared- after all, the pleasure of making the baby was shared so why not the pain? In order to ensure that men felt the same pain, they tied a string to the father's testicles. With each contraction that the women felt, she would give the string a nice yank. OUCH! Now that's equality!

A Walk To Beautiful

RAPE-AXE

Due to the growing number of rapes in Africa, a women who goes by the name of Sonette Ehlers, a blood technician in South Africa, decided to invent a little device called the rape-axe, in the hope that it might help to lower the number of rapes. Here is Wikipedias definition:

The Rape-aXe is a latex sheath embedded with shafts of sharp, inward-facing barbs that would be worn by a woman in her vagina like a tampon. If an attacker were to attempt vaginal rape, his penis would enter the latex sheath and be snagged by the barbs, causing the attacker excruciating pain during withdrawal and (ideally) giving the victim time to escape. The condom would remain attached to the attacker's body when he withdrew and could only be removed surgically^[2], which would alert hospital staff and police. Like most condoms, Rape-aXe also usually prevents pregnancy and the transmission of HIV and sexually transmitted Infections.

There are many criticism of the device and to them Ehler says: "As with everything in life there will be negative attitudes and I can't be responsible for people who refuse to educate men and feel the device is medieval," and responds by calling the Rape-aXe "a medieval device for a medieval deed."

Half the Sky

I am in the process of reading a new book entitled, "Half the Sky" by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn.

While carrying this around school, it caught the attention of a few men. After asking the typical question of what is that about, and replying that it is about the oppression of women and girls in the developing world, I was presented with another question. "what is that, another one of your feminist books?" First of all, I am not a feminist nor have I ever read a "feminist" book. If caring about the rights of women makes me a feminist then maybe I am, I guess.

The thing that really irks me about this question is that the men who asked me were so closed minded. First of all, why does it matter if I am reading a feminist book and secondly, they were more concerned with the "feminist" part of the book then the topic. They know nothing about what is going on and when you begin to discuss it they don't want to hear about it.

This isn't just men either. Women too become disgusted with the contents of the book and don't want to hear the troubles that other women face. You would think that being a woman you would feel for other women. I just don't understand how people can hear about these things and not give them a second thought. Just like they say, "out of sight, out of mind." They get disgusted with hearing about the stories yet they fail to realize that for them this may just be a story but that story is based on fact and some women live through them everyday.

Male Overload

By the year 2020, forty million men in China will be without a wife. The reason behind China’s future social dilemma is the “one-child policy.” Due to this rule, many families have chosen to keep only the boys. The girls are “aborted, abandoned, or hidden away.” The families choose to look only at the present rater than the future. What happens when all these chosen boys grow up and have no woman to marry? Their present day overpopulation may soon reverse itself due to the fact that China is fast becoming unisex.

With this future overpopulation of unmarried males, outbreaks of kidnapping and prostitution will become the norm. In fact, in the clip it tells the story of a women who was kidnapped and sold to a man for $435 for the simple fact that he could not find a wife on his own.

When will the world realize that despite what they may think, they do need us. Whether it be now or in the future, they will never be able to fill the void of a world without the female sex.

This clip explores American parents on a journey to meet their adopted Chinese daughters for the 1st time. Through the direction of Lisa Ling, we are taken into China to discover first hand what it is like to be a girl in a country overpopulated with males.

China's Lost Girls - Watch the Documentary Film for Free | Watch Free Documentaries Online | SnagFilms

I AM AN EMOTIONAL CREATURE

Women have come a long way since bra-burning. However, despite the fact that we are now at an "equal" level with men, we are still in need of a good confidence booster every now and then. Despite our graduation from trainer bras to push ups, we still have those insecure days when a good pep talk is in order. Here's to women everywhere.

Dear EMOTIONAL CREATURE:

I believe in you. I believe in your authenticity, your uniqueness, your intensity, your wildness. I love the way you dye your hair purple, or hike up your short skirt, or blare your music while you lip-synch every single memorized lyric. I love your restlessness and your hunger. You possess the energy that, if unleashed, could transform, inspire, and heal the world.

Everyone seems to have a certain way they want you to be- your mother, father, teachers, religious leaders, politicians, boyfriends, fashion gurus, celebrities, girlfriends. in reporting my new book, I learned a very disturbing statistic: 74 percent of young women say they are under pressure to please everyone.

I have done a lot of thinking about what it means to please; to be the wish or will of somebody other than yourself. To please the fashion setters, we starve ourselves. To please men, we push ourselves when we aren't ready. To please our parents, we become insane over-achievers. if you are trying to please, how do you take responsibility for your own needs? How do you even know what your own needs are? The act of pleasing makes everything murky. We lose track of ourselves. WE stop uttering declaratory sentences. We stop directing our lives. We forget what we know. We make everything OK rather than real.

I have had the good fortune to travel around the world. Everywhere I meet teenage girls and women giggling, laughing as they walk country roads or hang out on city streets. Electric girls. I see how their lives get hijacked, how their opinions and desires get denied and undone. So many of the women I have met are still struggling late into their lives to know their desires, to find their way.

Instead of trying to please, this is a challenge to provoke, to dare, to satisfy your own imagination and appetite. To take responsibility for who you are, to engage. Listen to the voice inside you that might want something different. It's a call to your original self, to move at your own speed, to walk with your step, to wear your color.

When I was your age, I didn't know how to live as an emotional creature. I felt like an alien. I still do a lot of the time. I am older now. I finally know the difference between pleasing and loving, obeying and respecting. It has taken me so many years to be OK with being different, with being this alive, this intense. I just don't want you to have to wait that long.

Love,

Eve Ensler

Being different is not the problem, it is the solution. Reading this Introduction to Eve Ensler's I am an Emotional Creature, made me proud to be a women and proud to be my own self. It injects into you a fresh supply of confidence that momentarily makes you feel as though the world is not to far from your grasp.