Stephanie’s Womanifesto
As defined by a man- A woman is “a beast created by God to induce pain upon man for eternity. Bleeds for seven whole days and does not die. Can suck the life out of a man to create smaller evil beast to defend them in court and steal man's hard earned money” (Urban Dictionary).
Being a woman staples you to the ideology that the only reason you walk this earth is to please or destroy men. Who the hell made this ideology? Why weren’t they killed by an angry mob of women before the rest of civilization could believe in this ridiculous theory? Women have had to put up with more than their fair share of pain, suffering, and sacrifice. It’s time to put an end to the way that women are being treated. I don’t want to have to worry about my daughters and granddaughters going through the pain that my mother, grandmother and I are experiencing. The sheer fact that some women have the mindset that “this isn’t so bad, it’s just how it is” makes me cringe inside. Six months ago, I may have thought the same thing. But today, today I know better. I know what is going on in this world and I know that it is not tolerable anymore. This is something that women (and men) around the world need to confront. Without them, we will have no change. The way I see it, there are five steps needed for change. Without going through the process, no one or group would be able to change the way society treats them.
TOLERANCE. This is the first stage of the process in order to change. Every person has gone through this stage in one situation or another. Many times minorities are seen in this stage. Not every member of the group necessarily passes through this, but most do. Tolerance is the act or capacity of enduring something. In the case of women, we are enduring sexism. However, this can be applied to many situations. There are tolerances to opinions, practices, races, religions, nationalities, etc. A strong example could be applied to slavery. When slaves weren’t rebelling and acting out, it looked as though they were tolerating slavery. This was not always the case, but many did learn to tolerate it; thinking that there was no way out. There are thousands of women today that are tolerating the discrimination and sexism against them. Many without even knowing it. By conforming to what society tells us women are, we are tolerating sexism. Society tells us that we have to be thin, beautiful (or sexy depending on the ad) and straight. However, for most women, many of the things society tells us to be are impossible. Little girls growing up don’t understand that models in Magazines really don’t look like their pictures and they try their hardest to look like them. Girls ages eleven to fourteen see around five-hundred advertisements a day (Bennett). Almost all of these are airbrushed to perfection. Girls’ self-esteems are being lowered each day because of these advertisements. Without anyone telling these girls that it is okay to have flaws and be themselves, they are learning to tolerate the sexism. Before any of the feminist movements started, many women were tolerating the discrimination against them. Not being able to vote, being owned by men, and not being able to work are just some of the things that women were forced to submit to because they had no freedom for themselves.
PAIN. Everybody has pain. Without pain, we wouldn’t know what it’s like to live. However, no one needs to suffer pain from something every single day; like women do. Women have to deal with male privilege every single day of their lives. When reading “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” by Peggy McIntosh, you can relate almost all of her points to male privilege. She even says “I have often noticed men’s unwillingness to grant that they are over privileged, even though they may grant that women are disadvantaged.” Men acknowledge that women are in pain because they are at a disadvantage and yet refuse to admit that they are benefitting from it. At the very least they are noticing that we don’t have it as easy as they do. They can see that there is a problem. Men support the idea to improve women’s status but they won’t support the idea of lessening their status (McIntosh). I am not saying that men deserve to suffer like women have been for decades, but I think it wouldn’t be crazy to ask them to change some of their ways. Actually, I think it is only fair for them to have to bear a burden like we do. Men do not understand what it means to wake up everyday and know that you are insignificant. Knowing that no matter what you do today, men will always overpower you. Men don’t know what it’s like to live in fear. Men don’t know, they never will.
SACRIFICE. A wise woman once told me “without death and sacrifice, there will be no change.” This is true because if the problem is big enough, and people are dying, it becomes too much for people to handle. And when the problem is too much to handle, change happens. Nobody wants to see others die. So, if there is sacrifice, there is change. Women have had to go through many different types of sacrifice and we are still attempting to create change in us and our society. There have been many changes already that have moved women up in society. However, we are still extremely far behind men. One of the sacrifices we are making (not by choice) is occurring daily in homes around the world. Domestic violence kills an average of three women per day (that’s 1,181per year). Domestic violence affects everybody. It is something that needs more media attention. There is a TV commercial made in the United Kingdom starring Keira Knightley that really inspired me. The ad is two minutes long (quite long for a commercial) and shows Knightley coming home to her partner from a hard day at work. Shortly after she is home they begin to argue. He throws a towel in her face and she turns to the camera and says “I’m sorry that wasn’t in the script can we do that again?” However, the man proceeds to punch and kick Knightley. She begins to scream and yell for help but nobody does anything. The camera pans out to show that they are on a filming stage. Then the screen reads “Isn’t it time someone called cut?” This commercial was actually banned for being too graphic. Too graphic?? This is what people need to see! Joe Wright (director of the ad) did an amazing job of portraying the fact that this happens everywhere and we can’t stop it if we do not know it exists! I think that ads like this should be everywhere. Billboards, TV commercials, and movie theatre previews are just a few places I think should have these ads. If people can see what domestic violence is and what it looks like, we have a better stance on how to stop it. If we can stop this, women will have one less way of having to sacrifice and suffer. Change will come; we just have to empower people to want to change now.
STRENGTH. Without strength, we have no power to change anything. We need women around the world to be empowered to change the way that society is today. We deserve equal rights. We deserve to be treated as though we are more than just stay-at-home moms and care-takers. We can prove that we are better than that. However, we need many women to do so. No, we need Bitches. “A Bitch is a threat to the social structures which enslave women and the social values which justify keeping them in their place (Freeman).” We need strong women to come forward and have the motivation to change the world. We need women to strive to be Bitches. “The BITCH Manifesto” clearly states what a Bitch is and for our sake, we need every woman to read this article. Jo Freeman tells us how to overcome our weaknesses and use our strengths to transform society.
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