Sorry for the delay (and no promises on the next installment!) – I haven’t felt much like writing…. for the past 6 months (if we’re not counting the haiku). This is not a fuzzy post about how great Peace Corps is, nor is it a rant against Peace Corps. But it is a dissatisfaction with the land I represent in Colombia.
Additional apologies if certain words don’t mesh well. As my Spanish has improved it seems my English has begun to falter.
Disclaimer: My intention in writing this is in no way an attempt to diminish the experiences of women.
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#yesallwomen
Though I may be a bit out of the loop on US current events and cultural trends, a few things have still managed to find their way into my awareness. Hashtags being one such thing. Even though I haven’t logged into my twitter account in over a year, hashtags are still used on Facebook (no idea why…) by many friends and #yesallwomen among others have rolled through my newsfeed from time to time in the past months.
In a political philosophy course in college, I wrote a final about… ultimately a jumble of things. Mostly because it was still such a fresh idea in my head and I was getting lost in all of the related issues. It’s still a half-assed idea in my mind. But the main source of my internal conflict surrounded the issue of charitable giving and short-term aid. I’ve always been upset that people needed a reason to help others less fortunate and furthermore, that so many seem only to do things because it’s the easy road to writing it off. Celebrities take a ‘trip’ to Africa and come back to their excessive lifestyles with gusto. The average man or woman writes a check. Or, increasingly, writes a tweets or posts a new status. Ta-da! Look how much I care! Look how much hard work we’ve done in the name of justice and equality!
I didn’t bother to try and count the number of tweets with the hashtag #yesallwomen. #sitodaslasmujeres has a whopping thirteen tweets. You read that correctly! Thirteen – the big 1-3!
So maybe not all women then. #نعم جميع النساء had one tweet and#ouitouteslesfemmes had none. A small sampling of women.
When I come home I have two choices of where to get off my bus. Option 1 is a moderately well-lit, two block stretch which passes two tiendas, where 9/10 times men are passing the time with cervezas. Option 2 is just around the corner and is a poorly-lit, one block stretch that is quite desolate after dark. During the day, I feel only the mildest of discomforts taking either option. In the dark (after 6pm), my though processes change.
I wore a dress out to watch a movie with a couple of friends this evening. As my bus started to approach my neighborhood, I started to think about these options. I knew there would be comments if I got off at the tienda. I knew there would be the hissing, the “hermosa”s, “mi reina”s, and possibly the types of phrases that make me wish my Spanish wasn’t improving. Being verbally harassed every time I leave my home is part of life. Which made me realize that I always choose Option 1 after dark is because Option 2 contains the potential of a much more physical harassment.
This is part of life here, unfortunately. It really makes no difference if you’re black or white or trigueña. If you’re a member of the ‘fairer’ sex, aren’t visibly elderly, and have hit puberty, chances are, you’ve been piropo-ed (hit on/cat called) going about your daily business.
I get it. You’re all trying to make a difference from your hand-held device of choice. You think some smart comment with a #yesallwomen is real work. Unfortunately, it’s not and the only thing you’ve actually managed is to exempt yourself from actually having to do anything substantial. To the women and men who make issues of inequality and injustice their life’s work, please, continue to tweet away. You’ve earned it. Though chances are you already know the real work is a bit more than 140 characters.
The rest of you, open your eyes and look around. You think you’re changing the world – by starting a movement that doesn’t extend beyond your own borders. My girls have never heard of #yesallwomen and they never will. The majority of whom are encompassed in ‘all women’ will never know about your ‘movement’ to empower them because all you’ve done is fed into a cycle of compassion fatigue and removed yourself from feeling any responsibility to do something to actually improve the situation from your position of power (oh yeah, rest assured you have oodles of privilege over the women I interact with, hope my saying that doesn’t set your teeth on edge!).
And sadly, because you’ve removed yourself from having to take any further action, you will likely never have even the remotest idea of what women actually go through in the real world.
I hope (as my Spanish improves) to have a girls group in my school to discuss these issues of self-esteem – to empower them beyond finding their value in the number of piropos received in a day. It’s not much, but when I think of women’s empowerment, changing the world for a better place… well, change requires action, not words.
From Colombia with Love
From Colombia with Love 