I’ve re-titled this blog to reflect some of my focuses for this coming year. They’re both things I think a lot about: food and feminism.
My thoughts here are about feminism and the fact that I feel like 2014 had some real watershed moments for women. It was a year where the conversation started to change in the media, and I can’t wait to see how it continues to develop.
The Jian Ghomeshi scandal broke at the CBC. I was so disappointed to learn that a man who portrayed himself on radio as a advocate for equity did not ‘practice what he preached’ – quite the opposite. The Bill Cosby story re-broke. Dalhousie dentistry’s rape culture Facebook group was brought to light. Nobel Laureate, Jimmy Carter wrote a book called ‘Call to Action’ to highlight the systemic violence against women existing in our world. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
I personally believe it’s important to bring these issues to light and to talk about them so that we bring the aspects of our culture that marginalizes women into light. So that we have the words to talk about it.
This year, I’m going to keep track of the things I hear people say that continue to marginalize women. For the most part, I believe that these are things said by people who just haven’t talked much about women’s issues and who generally don’t realize that talking this way contribute to the problem. I don’t think they are bad people. But I do hope that by highlighting these seemingly innocuous words will help add to the conversation designed to bring about a better future.
To date this year, I have heard:
At frisbee practice, to a man on the field: ‘Stop running like a girl’.
In discussing literature: ‘I don’t like women authors’. (You’ve read them all?)
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