Blog #7: We Should All Be Feminists
By: Sam Whitty
Although the United Nations, whose goal is to prevent human rights violations across the globe and to keep the peace between countries, was founded about 75 years ago, sex trafficking has never been discussed as a serious issue until recently. Instead, people preferred to write about issues that were perceived as more serious such as nuclear proliferation. The idea that human trafficking is not a serious discussion is blasphemy, and Kristoff is correct in labeling the practice as slavery. There is barely any difference between conditions that victims of sex trafficking are forced to endure and the conditions that slaves were forced to endure in the early years of America. Women are taken from their homes just like Africans were taken from their homeland, bought and sold on a market just like slaves were in the south, and forced to perform services for their master without compensation. If one refuses to submit to their owner, they are beaten until they comply, and they are kept naked to prevent escape. To traffic is to deal or trade in something. Therefore, sex trafficking implies that one is getting something in return for sex, like a prostitute. In reality, victims of sex trafficking are treated like property, and this is one of the biggest human rights violations currently taking place in the world.
As I looked through the PowerPoints on sexual violence, I was particularly struck by the pyramid of rape culture. It perfectly demonstrated the “Kill All Men” (KAM) movement that has been popularized in recent years. At the top of the pyramid was actual rape, but the bottom of the pyramid that supported all of this rape were the normal actions that one sees men partake in every day. While rapists and sex offenders have done terrible things, it is the people that support them and normalize this behavior that are equally wrong. All men that joke about rape or display sexist attitudes need to be held accountable as well as sexual predators. It is very telling that instead of calling out men that display these attitudes, many men responded to this movement by blaming women in the “Rape All Women” movement. This shows that we have a long way to go before we can end sexual violence completely around the world.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie defines a feminist as “a man or a woman who says, ‘yes, there’s a problem with gender as it is today, and we must fix it – we must do better’”. The conventional definition of feminist is “one that advocates for women’s rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes”. The difference between these two definitions is that Adichie’s definition recognizes that there is still a problem with gender in society today, and the conventional definition does not. The conventional definition of feminist only requires one to advocate for women’s rights to be labelled a feminist. One does not need to believe that there is a problem with gender today to advocate for women’s rights if they feel that women are already equal to men in today’s society and should remain equal. Adichie asserts that these types of feminists are the biggest setback for feminism today because they do not recognize that women are treated differently than men in today’s society. She uses her friend as an example. Once when they were together, Adichie tipped a worker, but they thanked her male friend for the tip. Until then, he was blind to the way women were treated, and he did not understand why women pushed for more rights. In modern society, the problem with gender is that people generally accept female equality but are oblivious to how their actions negatively impact the cause. With the help of Adichie, hopefully more people will question their own behavior and more women will be empowered as a result.
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