(no subject)
Alright, I am jumping on the boat for once.
Feminism is not something new to discuss for me. My school was pre-rad feminist for the most part. From Jane Eyre to Music Clips to Shakespeare. They looked at the feminist discourses in The Bible. Yes, The Bible. Pointing out the roles of Miriam, Judith, Ruth and Esther. Shit, I can't even remember how many times The Da Vinci Code was brought up and Mary Magdeline. It was brought up more often then Joseph, Moses and even Jesus at times.Heck, they even applied it to Adam and Eve, which is ya know, that little story which allowed men to surpress women for the next few hundred thousand years (YOU CREATED ORIGINAL SIN, THEREFORE YOU MUST BE SURPESSED SO THAT YOU DON'T RUN EVIL ALL OVER THE WORLD!). :F Yeah, we went there. Lulz.
Of course, I can't pretend to have process all of this, I was 12 to 17 and still in the "I hate school" phase, which I've only just ended, now that I have actually left the place.
We studied more upper-middle class topics. It was a upper middle class school, teachers have a hard enough tiime as it is keeping our attention with things that affected us as young white women then trying to make us lean about things that we deemed to have little or no affect on us. Sad, but probably true for most highschool students.
And thats not say that the issues we studied are no less important, because yeah it really is an issue about the over sexualising of women in Media. Because if this like this and this (and this!) is what is getting into the brains of young and impressionable girls? We have a problem, especially if it runs around unchecked and unchallenged. Problems arent fixed by shutting up and twidding our thumbs and hope it will all go away.
I can safely say the one thing that school has been impressed upon me, that is the definition of my Values, Attitudes and Beliefs. In defining ourselves helps others influence defining themselves. On a larger scale, we of the western world, do sit currently as the world power, and you can see it, in little ways, that things are changing because of the actions being commited here.
Feminism has gone far, very far, not as far as it could, but considerable progress has been made.
Now white women of western societies no longer have to be shoved into the Madonna or the Whore sterotype, only options for carrier being Motherhood, Nurse or Teacher. No one can say anthing less then it being brillant because well, I take a twisted pride in being labelled a Whiny Upper Middle Class Feminist, because so much as been done, that sterotype now exists. For something that took its first big step in New Zealand, I am really really proud of it.
Not only are we empowered in helping ourselves, we are now empowered to help others.
If we lived in a perfect world, all aspects of Feminism would of moved forward like a large unstoppable army all at once, however, its sparodic, and happens to move in Gorilla like patterns of hit and run. We have reached a point that is stabilised, now the task is to keep it like that.
But that is a side issue, things still have to be done in India, Asia, Japan, Africa, parts of Europe and how many other places? Currently in India, Doctors refuse to give a ultrasound anymore, because if a expecting mother finds out its a girl, she asks for a abortion. If you read here you can see the issues in Japan. You could make a list of all the issues that have yet to be addressed.
So in part, I do agree with this comment, but that is only if we stop at Naruto. The fact that Naruto is almost feminist in comparison to some other manga, is really... wrong. It needs to be challenged. It all needs to be challenged. We cannot just stop at one, that would be fitting in the Upper-Middle Class sterotype of bitching and not doing anything. Smoke, but no Fire.
And it doesnt have to be running off to Suadi Arabia and protesting in the streets. (That might just get you shot and ultimately useless). It is looking at what is being put in front of us and being told to accept as normal and objecting to it, in whatever medium is avalible to us. Whether that be blogging, giving speeches, heck, as I did once, scribbling it all over my arms and neck and whatever was visible from under my school dress. Where once we could not even have a bank account under our own names, women of the western world now can own our own opinions. We can voice opinions! Better yet, we can do this on the internet, which other people can read and process and pass on, and maybe the message can reach to whomever needs to hear it that things do not have to be this way.
.... And that is probably my stongest view of Feminism, that we must utilize all tools which are avalible to us. Women are equal to men, but now this much has been done for one part of the world, there is still so much more to be done. This world is a big, stubborn sometimes ugly place, especially when you are talking about deeply entrenched views not only in men but women as well. But it should not be given up on as some passe issue, as I've seen it called, not even for others good, but for ours, because if we don't object, how can we pretend to deserve what we have already?
Feminism is not something new to discuss for me. My school was pre-rad feminist for the most part. From Jane Eyre to Music Clips to Shakespeare. They looked at the feminist discourses in The Bible. Yes, The Bible. Pointing out the roles of Miriam, Judith, Ruth and Esther. Shit, I can't even remember how many times The Da Vinci Code was brought up and Mary Magdeline. It was brought up more often then Joseph, Moses and even Jesus at times.Heck, they even applied it to Adam and Eve, which is ya know, that little story which allowed men to surpress women for the next few hundred thousand years (YOU CREATED ORIGINAL SIN, THEREFORE YOU MUST BE SURPESSED SO THAT YOU DON'T RUN EVIL ALL OVER THE WORLD!). :F Yeah, we went there. Lulz.
Of course, I can't pretend to have process all of this, I was 12 to 17 and still in the "I hate school" phase, which I've only just ended, now that I have actually left the place.
We studied more upper-middle class topics. It was a upper middle class school, teachers have a hard enough tiime as it is keeping our attention with things that affected us as young white women then trying to make us lean about things that we deemed to have little or no affect on us. Sad, but probably true for most highschool students.
And thats not say that the issues we studied are no less important, because yeah it really is an issue about the over sexualising of women in Media. Because if this like this and this (and this!) is what is getting into the brains of young and impressionable girls? We have a problem, especially if it runs around unchecked and unchallenged. Problems arent fixed by shutting up and twidding our thumbs and hope it will all go away.
I can safely say the one thing that school has been impressed upon me, that is the definition of my Values, Attitudes and Beliefs. In defining ourselves helps others influence defining themselves. On a larger scale, we of the western world, do sit currently as the world power, and you can see it, in little ways, that things are changing because of the actions being commited here.
Feminism has gone far, very far, not as far as it could, but considerable progress has been made.
Now white women of western societies no longer have to be shoved into the Madonna or the Whore sterotype, only options for carrier being Motherhood, Nurse or Teacher. No one can say anthing less then it being brillant because well, I take a twisted pride in being labelled a Whiny Upper Middle Class Feminist, because so much as been done, that sterotype now exists. For something that took its first big step in New Zealand, I am really really proud of it.
Not only are we empowered in helping ourselves, we are now empowered to help others.
If we lived in a perfect world, all aspects of Feminism would of moved forward like a large unstoppable army all at once, however, its sparodic, and happens to move in Gorilla like patterns of hit and run. We have reached a point that is stabilised, now the task is to keep it like that.
But that is a side issue, things still have to be done in India, Asia, Japan, Africa, parts of Europe and how many other places? Currently in India, Doctors refuse to give a ultrasound anymore, because if a expecting mother finds out its a girl, she asks for a abortion. If you read here you can see the issues in Japan. You could make a list of all the issues that have yet to be addressed.
So in part, I do agree with this comment, but that is only if we stop at Naruto. The fact that Naruto is almost feminist in comparison to some other manga, is really... wrong. It needs to be challenged. It all needs to be challenged. We cannot just stop at one, that would be fitting in the Upper-Middle Class sterotype of bitching and not doing anything. Smoke, but no Fire.
And it doesnt have to be running off to Suadi Arabia and protesting in the streets. (That might just get you shot and ultimately useless). It is looking at what is being put in front of us and being told to accept as normal and objecting to it, in whatever medium is avalible to us. Whether that be blogging, giving speeches, heck, as I did once, scribbling it all over my arms and neck and whatever was visible from under my school dress. Where once we could not even have a bank account under our own names, women of the western world now can own our own opinions. We can voice opinions! Better yet, we can do this on the internet, which other people can read and process and pass on, and maybe the message can reach to whomever needs to hear it that things do not have to be this way.
.... And that is probably my stongest view of Feminism, that we must utilize all tools which are avalible to us. Women are equal to men, but now this much has been done for one part of the world, there is still so much more to be done. This world is a big, stubborn sometimes ugly place, especially when you are talking about deeply entrenched views not only in men but women as well. But it should not be given up on as some passe issue, as I've seen it called, not even for others good, but for ours, because if we don't object, how can we pretend to deserve what we have already?