On a crisp Sunday morning when outdoors is not too inviting...
This morning I was searching my own blog for photos and a reference to pass on to documentary film folk heading this way. In the process I found this reference, "Sharpening up for War", and am inspired by it all over again.
I tried to follow the artist's blog to see where it was heading now. It doesn't appear to have been updated since Remembrance Day, 2007.
In the course of the search I somehow ended up reading this article on feminism. I have never seen myself as a feminist, but increasingly I believe that women are the greatest untapped resource in the world, and that a real education for a culture of peace must start in the home with whichever parent it is who sets the tone for the family environment.
But for now, and for the future, I am grateful that the world has people like Richard Johnston in it. In this digital age where we are bombarded with photographic and video images it takes a pencil image to slow us down, to make us think.
Today I am grateful for people who "follow through".
A New Season Begins – March 2024
8 months ago
11 comments:
The most sensible and liberal woman of Caprile doubt on her Girlpower??
:-)
There are so many reasons to be a feminist still!
Domestic violence, restricted educational and financial opportunities, lack of voting rights, female circumcision, honour killings, female infanticide, trafficking and sexual exploitation, all these things and more still exist in so many countries around the world, including developed nations.
I will never understand how the term "feminist" has come to have negative connotations, or how people can believe for a moment that there is no longer a need for such a movement.
I think it was probably before you were born, when feminism was almost akin to anti-male, which of course it isn't. For some of us I guess that stigma still lingers.
I am reading a disturbingly important book at the moment, "Half the Sky" sub titled "How to Change the World" by Nicholas D Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn. It affirms everything you say about the needs.
PS I really don't mean to be hijacking your comments section, but here's a quote I rather like, from comedian Maria Bamford:
"I can't stand makeup commercials. 'Do you need lipstick that keeps your lips kissable?' No, I need lipstick that gets me equal pay for equal work. How about eye shadow that makes me stop thinking I'm too fat?"
Aren't we mixing up feminism with human rights here?
With any 'label' there are extremists who turn people off. Like the vegetarians who scream badly about meat eaters, the Christians who don't act Christian at all, and the feminists who appear to be 'anti-men'. I understand how it has negative connotations, though this is sad. It is an important (strike through) necessary action which has been slaughtered by some power hungry man haters.
Due to some crazies I know, 'feminism' still causes a small groan from me.
To the world in general; Can't we just PLAY NICE?!
@ Jack: It could be that to ensure that human rights are addressed we need to mobilise the feminist "army"...
I'll lend you the book I mentioned if you like, and yes, one of the authors is male.
Thanks Kay,
I think that book would be interesting and I like to read it.
We need to mobilise the "mothers army" or "feminine army" more than the so called "feminist army".
I don't have negative feelings about Feminism (next Tuesday we celebrate "La FESTA Della donna". Hurray ) but I think that the things Teacake wrote about domestic violence, female circumcision etc. Is more a matter of human rights than it is about Feminism.
The best comment I read for years was Sarah's : Can't we just PLAY NICE?!
Just adding in my own definition here, for clarity.
Women's rights are human rights. I think feminism as an attitude or movement is needed when the rights of women are routinely denied, whether within a family or community, or at a government level.
Similarly, the rights of children are a part of the whole of human rights.
From Taliban-controlled provinces to the political arenas of western nations, and in many families and communities in between, women are customarily denied basic human rights.
Where men and women are denied the same rights, then I guess we're no longer talking feminism but human rights as a whole.
PS To the wise and wonderful Sarah: I am a Christian, vegetarian feminist, and you are 100% right about labels!
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