The first half of this post was written a couple of weeks ago. I just wrote the rest today. But I thought that they sort of went together, so I combined them. Thanks for reading.
There is so much going in the world and I am overwhelmed by it. I sometimes think that my life would be so much easier if I just did not know about all of the atrocities that are going on. In the past week, we learned about the nightmare in Nigeria when in April, over 200 girls were taken by a militant group from their school, their families, their community. And I am so very happy that the story is being covered and that there is momentum around recovering those children. I have followed the story, and I have watched the social media adopt this as the cause of the week. This is not a criticism, but it has encouraged me to think a bit more critically about where we really are.
We need a cause, and it helps if it comes in nice tidy chunks, if we can make a sound byte out of it, if we can #hashtag it, and even sometimes if we can address it at arm's length. The experience of those children in Nigeria is heartwrenching, and watching their mothers plead for help and awareness tears me to pieces. But what happens if they are not found? What happens if they are found? What happens next? I would predict that no matter what happens, in a month we will have forgotten about it and we will have moved on. That's just the habit that we have gotten into, and I think that we can do better.
The bottom line is that while hundreds of missing girls in one Nigerian community is an atrocity, it is only a snapshot, of a much larger problem in that country, on that continent, and around the world. There are children abducted and abused and exploited in every corner of this planet. Human trafficking is a business fueled by the fact that there is a demand (apparently a growing demand) for it. Let us make no mistake, this is not something that is only happening across the ocean, it is rampant in our own country as well. But we largely ignore it. And we ignore it not because we do not care, but because individually we feel powerless to do anything about it.
We have been lulled into complacency by news networks that focus more on the minutiae of the lives of celebrities and politicians, on petty arguments about whether or not climate change is "real", and by a complete lack of hardcore journalism. And we could blame them and stop there, but they are certainly catering to the demand, so we are all complicit in this degradation of the information that we do get.
Continued a couple of weeks later...
Since starting to write this post, and stashing it in my drafts folder, there has been a mass shooting by a coward who felt bad for himself because for some reason women were not attracted to him, and he was jealous of the men around him who were dating women so he stabbed and shot a bunch of people. In response to that, the internet has blown up with speculation about why he did what he did, and women have rallied around an idea on twitter to get together to talk about their shared experiences. And I cannot stop watching it. I am not going to mention the hashtag because the woman who started it is receiving death and rape threats (which speaks volumes to the problem at hand), but most of you reading this will know what I am talking about.
I am continuing the blog post here because it goes right along with it. I was leading up to the fact that we live in a world where everything is consumable, and this is especially true of women. Pornography, the sex trade, ads, rape and prostitution all exist because somewhere someone is paying for it. Young brides are the norm in other countries, and in this country children are exploited sexually in a number of ways. It's disgraceful. I have followed the hashtag, and it is heartwrenching to hear the stories of women from all walks of life, and to see the negative responses that some of them are getting. I have shared some of my own stories. Some of them personal, and some that I know from being a social worker for so many years. In fact, reading and connecting with these other women has caused me to remember some things that I think that I had forgotten on purpose.
There have been over one million tweets to date using that tag and it has been less than a week. It seems silly and useless to some, but it feels a bit different from some of the other things that people tweet about. It has been powerful to say the least. The media response has been interesting, and I have been especially intrigued by other women who are attacking women who are speaking up. Yes, we live in a country with many freedoms, and due to the women who have come before us, we have more rights than we once did. However, it is obvious that there is still a long journey ahead of us. We should not expect any less in our demand for equality due to the fact that at least we do not have it as bad as _____. It is not a contest. Every woman should have equal rights, and the right to feel safe wherever they live, but I should not feel guilty for telling my truth because someone else has it worse.
It is my hope that women can find a way to harness some of this energy and momentum to change the world. I am raising a little boy, and I want for him to grow up in a world where women are not objectified, attacked and exploited. He will learn to respect women in our home, but he at this point will be bombarded by messages that he is less than if he shows respect for and stands up for women. And that is a shame.
