Quote:
Originally Posted by evolveme
While a certain contingent holds that Western interference in, for example, the genital mutilation of girls taking place in certain African nations is misplaced and "elitist," I disagree. I believe that our global citizenship is more important than our ethnocentricies would have us believe, and that while we need always be mindful of other regions' cultures and perspectives, whenever and wherever a woman or girl is being harmed in the name of social ideology, I say down with that social ideology. But that's me, just one of the 'elite.'
Women and girls all over the world are harmed and, in fact, killed because of a lack of access to contraception, no access to safe and legal abortion, and forced social ideologies which impress upon them a standard which says 'no' to education but 'must' to childbirth as soon as their bodies are capable and until their bodies are no longer able. I do not and cannot see how this way of life is acceptable for any of my sisters. I'm just that arrogant.
|
I'm one of the people who says that country/nation/people need to do it for themselves, and that it's not the west place to place our standards on any other country but our own..
Not as a cop out.. not because I don't hate what is happening to women/children around the world..
But simply because... The center doesn't hold.
When you try to force your way of thinking on a people who think another way.. It doesn't work.. Because you are going to have to police those people.. Make them live by your laws... Watch them... Make them dependent on someone else to enforce the laws..
It's only when the people of that country/nation/culture stand up for them selves and so.. HELL NO!!!!!! That true change in a positive way is possible... When people are ready and willing to die for that freedom, that change happens...
I come from a very long line of men abusing their women... It was a way of life.. No one thought twice about back handing their wife is she got smart with them...
My mom tells the story of the first time my dad went to swing at her.. She told him, that he had better kill her with that first blow, because she wasn't going to be hit and if that meant she had to kill him first, then that was alright with her.. (paraphrase)
My parents have been married 45 yrs in September and he has never laid a hand on her... Some of her sisters weren't so lucky.... Some of my cousins... But some were.. and from my mother generation, the cycle has been broken for them and their daughters... It spreads out like a wave...
I have never been hit by a lover, partner, or boyfriend... Because of my mother.. Because i say.. you better kill me.. because I'm NOT being hit.. It's something I am willing to die over...
In my mind it's always like an abused person... You can remove them, you can councile them, but until they are ready, change is not happening..
We can offer resorces, support, money.. But they have to do the work...