There is a post being shared around social media about not
supporting the Women’s March, and how we don’t have anything to complain about
as women in the United States right now.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you can read it here:
I agree with much of it.
I can vote. I can have a job, and
I have a pretty good one. I can
drive. I can speak my mind, which I’m
doing right now. I don’t blame anyone
else for things in my life or consider myself a victim of anything. Rather, I take responsibilities for my
actions, learn from those circumstances where bad things out of my control have
occurred, and don’t consider myself any kind of victim (and I believe being a
victim is more of a choice, you can choose to be an overcomer). I believe that there are much worse
conditions that women endure in other countries, and that we should put a lot
more focus on that.
However, I think that women in this country do often lack
something that they should have, and that something is respect. Respect as a human being, not respect as
someone who looks good in a bikini or has a pretty face. I want respect for my intelligence, my
emotional strength, my kindness, my ability to do my job, my talents, my
thoughts, my personhood. While we have
come a very long way in American society, and I do get that kind of respect
from most people, there has still been a bias about women in my adulthood.
I experienced when I went to an Armed Forces recruiter and
was told they didn’t want me, though the paper laying on his desk in my view
clearly showed I scored the highest in my school on the ASVAB.
I experienced it when an employer eluded, after I worked
there a while, that he gave me my job because I was pretty.
I have experienced it when I go to Home Depot to get something
for a home repair, and when asked what I am looking for, I get 5000
condescending questions about what I’m doing before the inevitable, “Ok, you
have the right thing.”
I’ve experienced it when I walked around a car dealership
with my child for an hour and could not find a salesperson to help me, and when
I finally did, test drove, and went to buy the car, was told, exact words, “Wow,
you actually can afford this and you have good credit.”
I experience it daily when I see posts online that say
things like “She just thinks that because she is ugly.”
I experience it when I turn on a movie, and the male lead is
a 70 year old past-his-prime man and the female lead playing his wife or love
interest is a 25 year old attractive woman with fake breasts.
I experience it when I read that a man that commits rape is
given a light sentence and excused as just a “boy being a boy.”
I experience when I am told I’m a “bitch” for doing or
saying the exact same thing that would be esteemed in a man.
I experience it when I’m told that saying “I can grab a
woman by her *private parts*” is just something all men say and there should be
no concern about that, because that’s just normal.
Yes, I have a job with a good income, I have earned respect
at work for my abilities, I can run my household, express my voice, vote, have
served on the board of an athletic league, have been an athlete myself, have
control over my medical care (after figuring out what insurance companies try
to not have available to you), I can handle my own finances, I can stand up for
myself, can support myself, can take care of myself, can feel comfortable in my
own aging skin and weight-gaining body.
Yes, I am a strong woman. No, I
am not a victim. I have a good life,
with a great husband who does respect me and a son that has been taught to do
the same. Yes, we are equal on paper, but sometimes in actual life, it really
doesn’t feel that way.
Respect. That is what
every human being wants. That is what some
women speak up for, march for. And no, men are not all, or completely, to
blame. We women can be our own worst
enemies sometimes, as often all the concentration is on abortion rights (which,
by the way, not all women support) or birth control, or dressing up like sexual
parts, and there are those who try to find their respect by conceding to the
sexual object persona which seems to be desired. However, saying everything is OK, everyone is
considered equal, everyone is respected is a lie. Just like it is a lie when we say that about
equality of races or sexual preference.
Everyone deserves respect.
The main rule my child has is “You don’t have to like everyone, but you
have to treat everyone with respect.” He’s
learned it well. Can’t we all?
That’s why they have wine.
