As feminists, we can get pretty angry at men. Men, who still dictate a great deal of what makes up our everyday world. Sometimes, I feel we focus too much on being angry at those who won’t change, and instead should focus on those who must bring about change. Girls. Our girls.
The likes of Trump and Korwin-Mikke (the Polish politician who had an anti-women rant in the EU parliament recently) will not change, the system protects them too much. Of course it is important to stand up against them, but society will not outlaw their practices, no matter how many women’s marches there are. We cannot change these men. But as women, we can change the society. We are the ones who give birth, and in most countries we take over much of the education and upbringing of the next generation.
Chimamanda Adichie gives brilliant advice on how to raise feminist daughters. But can that be all? Of course not. We also have to raise feminist boys, feminist children in general. In order to do that, we have to step back a bit, and assess where anti-feminism starts in the first place. It starts where we meet the small, derogative, sexist, mean remarks, which are so much more numerous than badly made laws or femicide. The subtle ways we allow our own experiences to shade our children’s understandings. To fell the tree, we have to make the root rot away first. It may seem like not much of a battle, but it is tackling the problem at the core. It is our job (collectively) to raise our sons NOT to become like these men. We have that¬†power.¬†Let us raise our girls and boys to rise against the unjust treatment of women, and hopefully they will encounter less of what we endure today in the future.
-Kristina Kraemer
Junior Editor
Girl News International