Racism And Gender Roles in our Everyday Lives + Reasons for Being a Bystander (Crazy Bus Story Part II)

So this (very late) post (I'm sorry!) is going to explore motivations and influences - what may have influenced each person who was involved in the fight, what influenced me etc. (This is part II of Crazy Bus Story, find part I here )

Please note, I know very little about the people involved, there are so many factors that I have no access too - maybe "Bob" was having a bad day and would have reacted differently on another day etc.. So this is a look at things without the full picture. 

Race: 

When I talked to people about what had happened, some people were certain race played a role. I also definitively feel it was a factor. 

Would Bob have treated Bluebag with more courtesy had he been white? Would Bob have been made as angry by a white kid spitting in his direction? And here's something to ponder, what might the situation have turned into had BlueBag been Eastern Asian? 

Gender Roles:

I have to say that fight was some of the most stereotypical male behaviour I have ever come across. So I mention gender roles because I couldn't help but wonder if things would have ended up differently if there aren't so many voices telling males, especially young males, to be macho and violent. 

And really, the fact that "Bob" was the one that started the fight really surprised me. And I can't say if it was just him or if he wouldn't have acted so violently if gender roles weren't so big. 

I don't know if you noticed, but no women were

involved at all. The bus driver was male, Bluebag and Bob were male, the person that ended up stepping in was male. And it's not like there weren't many women on the bus, I'd say it was about half-half, there might even have been more women than men.

With gender roles we question what came first? Did how men and women act precede the expectation of how men and women act, or do men and women act the way they are expected to?

Is the difference between the way men and women act due to nature, or do we conform because that's what we're taught to be and we believe that's how we naturally are? 
  
As A Bystander: 

I can't speak for everyone who didn't act, but here were my reasons. I did absolutely nothing, and I felt awful about it, I'm taking a course called genocide and the whole thing is about "You gotta do something, you gotta do something" Yet I still didn't do a thing. 

Why was that?

Well... I was definitely afraid for myself, BlueBag was oozing aggression and this... sort of flippant disregard for others and for himself for that matter. So yeah there was some fear of him, of maybe becoming the focus of aggression if I did something. 

Though I want to be very clear I was NEVER fearful for my personal safety, never thought I'd be hurt. Me being the shy person I am, I did feel anxiety at the idea of speaking up - I guess that's another factor, the person's personality. 

Second, there was the fear of exacerbating the situation. Especially at the beginning, it didn't seem like it would be a big deal, and maybe it just seemed like the risk of making things worse was greater than the chance of making things better. 

Looking back on the situation that fear seems pretty legitimate. if several people had intervened, if I had been in BlueBag's shoes, I'd have felt ganged up on and that's never a good situation to create. 

I think the biggest thing that kept me from acting though, and this ties in with sexism and the Kyriarchy, was that I didn't feel like they'd listen to me. 

As a teenaged, Asian, female, I didn't feel like

Powerless ;)

these two men would take me seriously. In this case, I don't think the fact that I'm Asian would have played a big role. Mostly I thought they'd look at me and think "Pff, what does this kid know? Why should we listen to her?" paired with a "I don't take women seriously" sentiment as that's a pretty big thing in our society. 

While it was happening I felt very acutely how (and maybe this is just a perception of mine) women and young people's opinions aren't really valued, and that really weighed me down. 

Additional Points of View on Reasons For Being a Bystander: 

• When I discussed what happened with the friend that had witnessed the event with me, she expressed another sentiment that was probably widely held by the people on the bus: "You didn't feel like it was your place to intervene".
• Talking to another friend about what had happened, when I mentioned how I hadn't done anything, her reaction was "You don't want to get involved". This kind of ties in with my first point, there's chance that intervening would come back to bite you in the butt. 

Yelling to the Bus Driver: 

Authority Figure

The last thing I want to discuss is the way both Bluebag and Bob were yelling at the bus driver to control the other person.

I don't know how well I can describe why, but I just find the scenario really... curious. 

I guess it's just something about how they were both grown men, very capable of making their own decisions and resolving their own disputes, but the first thing they do is try to get someone else to make the other behave. It was just very reminiscent of children on the playground needing a teacher to settle the dispute

I guess since it happened on the bus, the bus driver counts as an authority figure, and if you've ever heard about The Milgram Experiment people are very inclined to obey an authority figure. 

This was kind of seeing that in action, not of how people tend to listen to an authority figure, but how people naturally default to an authority figure to try to make someone else listen. I think it's really interesting that it happens that way, not only do we tend to be obedient to authority, but we also know that people tend to listen to authority, without necessarily explicitly being told about it.

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I Couldn't Help but Wonder What Role Race had to Play + The Bystander Effect in Action (Crazy Bus Story Part I)

So this is an absolutely true story - it literally happened on Friday around 1:30 pm.

Me and a friend had gotten on the bus, happy to be done with school for a bit, excited to go home and not have to do anything.

A couple of stops in we realize the bus driver was arguing with some guy that just got on, I'll Call him BlueBag, and I remember being curious about what happened, but then the guy walked into the bus, and though he muttered something along the lines of  "shut the fu** up" it seemed like the thing would just blow over.

About a minute later we find out what BlueBag and the bus driver had likely been arguing about - he'd just spit on the bus.

So another guy, I'll call him Bob, who was sitting pretty close to where BlueBag was standing starts talking to him, none too nicely, might I add. Bob was saying things like "Stop it. You're fu**ing ignorant, you're so fu**ing ignorant". In return BlueBag answered with things like "I don't fu**ing care. Why don't you make me [stop spitting]?". BlueBag was being aggressive about it, walking over to Bob's seat, and because of the way the seat is placed and how he angled himself Bob was pretty much cornered in.

I didn't quite see what exactly happened, but then BlueBag was saying things like "You put your hands on me? Don't put your hands on me. Do it again and I'll take care of you." so I assume Bob had pushed him away or put his hands on BlueBag's shoulders/arms.

Bob yells to the bus driver about telling BlueBag to stop spitting, Bluebag starts yelling at the bus driver to tell Bob to not touch him. (And I find this part very interesting, I'll elaborate later, so keep it in mind)

So the bus stops and the Driver asks Bob whether he feels like a call should be made (I'm not quite sure to what, but I assume to some sort of security enforcement or even the police). And Bob goes "No, no whatever"

And once again I thought things were going to be fine.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

The bus driver was getting ready to continue driving, but then BlueBag, turns toward Bob and if he didn't legitimately send his saliva in Bob's direction, then he made the gesture.

After that it got crazy.

Bob was absolutely enraged by the gesture. He

surged up from his seat like a tidal wave or tsunami or something and just bashed Bluebag, without holding back. Then he got up from his seat and the two men were full on fighting. 

They were punching each other, throwing themselves at the other guy etc. At one point one guy overshot where he'd meant to throw himself and ended up flipping.

They traveled a good 3 meters from where they were standing up toward the front of the bus, and somehow Bluebag got shoved off the bus (the bus' front doors had been open). 

Right after that, is one of those moments of solid clarity that you get sometimes, Bob had been wearing earphones, the earphones caught on something and I just remember Bob yanking them back toward him abruptly and angrily, they snapped back toward him, the two earpieces flying apart before coming back together.

All I could think was "Oh my God, somebody could have choked."

At this point a third man steps in, putting himself in the doorway of the bus' front doors, I couldn't hear what he said, but he seemed to be trying to placate the two. He even got off the bus and seemed to be planning to accompany BlueBag somewhere, or maybe he was trying to make sure BlueBag stayed put.

Nothing happened for a bit, and then everyone was told to get off the bus and get on the next one. As we were getting off, we noticed that out of nowhere some sort of vehicle right in front of the bus - it was striped like a police car, but had no lights at the top.

So where does Race come in? Well what if I told

you Bluebag was a Person of Colour - a young man that was maybe 20. Bob, was a white fellow, probably in his fourties - his hair was grey. And the good Samaritan that intervened was another white man - maybe 25.

And I know the chance of these actual men seeing this is slim to none, but this also goes out to anyone who can relate.

First off: Bluebag I understand. Life is tough, yours is probably tougher than a lot of other people's and you're angry about it. And I really hate that life would make it so you are that angry, but spitting in the bus, antagonizing people and being rude is not an acceptable way to deal with anger.

Bob: Thank you for trying to do a good thing by trying to keep the bus clean, but in truth being condescending and swearing at BlueBag etc was probably the exact wrong thing to do. When someone is doing something you don't like and you want them to stop, usually the best course of action is to be assertive, but polite, for example saying something along the lines of "I don't like that, nobody likes that please stop"

This was the most prominent case of the bystander effect that I have ever experienced. There were maybe 20 people on that bus. We could all tell that BlueBag and Bob were not happy with each other and showing signs of aggression. Nobody really did anything until that third guy stepped in, and even that took a while. 

So to the third guy that decided to intervene: thank you for stepping in and doing something when nobody else did.

Stay tuned, because in the next few days I'll have a post up exploring what happened and factors that may have been involved

You Won't Believe How Great this Advice Is

I wasn't expecting much when I clicked on a link to this - I was curious, nothing else, but as soon as he started answering the first question I knew it was something to share.

The whole thing is pretty great, but the first one really offers up a wonderful analysis and critique of social constructs within society.

*Cough, cough* "Does our society educate boys to be  misogynistic? It probably doesn't value girls and women as it should. And... boys probably see that as a signal that they can get away with things like devaluing women." - Stephen Colbert

So to any young person, young women especially, as the video is directed to young women, I would highly recommend you watch this. And guys, I think it's something worth watching for you too, if for nothing else than to better understand women.

If you don't have time to watch the whole thing, then please, please just watch the first couple of minutes, I PROMISE it it worth it. 

So here is Stephen Colbert offering up some really insightful, heartfelt advice.

Please share this with like everyone you know, it is seriously just SO good. And as a young woman it really brightens my perspective of the world to see that men have view like this and are unafraid to share them. I only hope more guys, share, or at least understand views like this. 

I know I haven't posted in a while - sorry I've just got a lot of stuff to do, but since the holidays are practically here I promise I'll have a new one up in a few days. 

Until next time readers! <3

All too often Good gets Drowned Out by Bad (+ Why We Need to Stop Letting that Happen)

I want to talk about haters. 

More specifically I want to talk about how all to often we let haters drown out the true messages behind things.  

I know this may seem kind of hypocritical to some, as this, too, might seem like hating, but please read this through before judging.  

So as some of you may recall, back at the end of September Emma Watson made a speech at the UN for the HeForShe campaign (If you haven't seen it, I beg you to watch it, I put a link to it on this blog, find that post here).

I really can't say enough good things about it. It was so eloquent, she was so inspiring, the whole thing was just beautifully done.

Unfortunately, the speech also caused a lot of people to direct hate at Ms. Watson, she was threatened with everything from murder, to assault, to leaking personal photos.

First off, that's unacceptable. You're allowed your opinion, but you shouldn't be threatening (seriously or not) other people for having theirs. (I'll discuss this in more detail in a later post)

Second, the way we let negative things take the attention over what should really matter really needs to stop. This happens way too much, and really impedes us as we strive to create a better world.

In the days after Emma Watson made the speech, I'm quite certain I saw more about the negative way some people decided to respond to it, rather than the (amazing) meaning and point of the speech itself. 

And once again society was letting the good get drowned out by the bad. 

Why do we do this? We're giving the haters and the wrongdoers more glory than the victims or the do-gooders. 

Why are we so fascinated by bad deeds, bad things? We're giving the haters more attention than the crusaders for good, and that, is just fundamentally wrong. 

Haters will do and say things that are mean and bad, and yes sometimes it's hard to understand why, but it's also because their actions are despicable that we need to move away from them, they don't need more publicity.  

In the end, the most important thing is the message of those trying to do good, not what the haters are saying/doing in response to it. 

We need to make sure that people that respond negatively/inappropriately don't get to negate all

the potential, all the good intentions, all the efforts of people like Emma Watson, Anita Sarkeesian, and anyone else fighting to change the world for the better are not wasted. 

Anita Sarkeesian

(And yes the two names I explicitly mentioned are female, unfortunately women trying to change the world seem to get the brunt of the hate)

We need to change this system because it almost encourages hate. When you get all this (albeit bad) glory and all this attention for being awful... Well I can see why those who feel antagonized or unimportant/irrelevant in other people's lives would be tempted to commit extreme acts of hate

At the end of the day, we probably don't even need to shun or punish the ones who are negative and disrespectful to an extreme. 

By being awful, in a way, the haters are setting up their own demise - they're proving why there needs to be change. 

And the majority of those that see what the haters say are disgusted by it, and they flock to the side AGAINST the hate and do the opposite of what the haters advocate. 

That doesn't seem like a very great deal for them does it? You get people to dislike you, and they don't do what you want them to. 

Yes we need to call people out when they do things that are unacceptable, but we really need to make sure the original people's good intentions are not overshadowed by those who chose to react negatively. 


And perhaps most important of all: in spreading our well intentioned messages, we need to try and make sure we are not missing the point.

We want this! :D

We don't want this

"Pro-Lifers" Please Please Please Read and Consider This

"People will go all out for the unborn, but couldn't care less about those who draw breath."
- Robin J. Landwehr (in this blog post)

So lately there has been a SLEW of news coming out of the US regarding abortion limiting laws getting, or getting close to being legislated. As a feminist, this abhors me, as a person, this truly, truly distresses me. 

Now I don't live in the States and so those laws probably wouldn't affect me, but this is still my problem, because if they can get abortion bans legislated in one country, the potential for abortion bans to get legislated in other countries increases; if it happens in one place it could happen everywhere. And then it WOULD affect me. 

Many people pushing for these laws limiting abortions are calling themselves pro-lifers, if you are one, or know someone who is I'm pleading you especially to read this and hear me out. 

I respect your point of view, I really do, but it's just not practical, it's not equitable, and yes I will even say it's not ethical for the way the world is right now. 

I get it, you want to save lives and that is a beautiful, good aspiration. But why are you so focused on saving a fetus' life? What about the life of the person that is pregnant? Because even if there are no medical complications that physically endanger the pregnant person, forced parenthood can be truly detrimental to somebody's life.

I recently read this article in which one woman shared her experience with abortion, and this one quote really struck me:

"[Having the abortion] saved my life, not from the pregnancy itself, but from what enforced parenthood would have meant for me holistically in body, mind and spirit as a woman and human being." - Linsey Rosenthal (find that blog post here)

What it all comes down to is this: Once you analyze and dig deeper into it, it becomes a question as to whether anti-abortion is really pro-life at all. 

I saw this comment on facebook, and the woman said it beautifully:

"In an ideal world abortions wouldn't be needed. All pregnancies would be planned and prepared for. Women wouldn't be raped and impregnated. Young girls wouldn't be molested and [made] pregnant. Mothers would never get sick and be at risk having to choose their life or the life of the fetus. [...] [But] that is not the world we live in. The world you are fighting for is one full of unwanted babies, neglected children and orphans.[...]" Her facebook name is 'Andrea E. Polite'.   

And so I have a couple questions for people to consider. I am not accusing anyone of anything, so please don't get defensive. I just want you to read these and reflect on your answers to them.

1) When there are medical complications, is it really pro-life to endanger the mother's life to try and save the fetus?

2) Is it really pro-life to mess up someone else's life, or a couple people's lives to protect the life of someone who has yet to know what it is to live?

3) Is it really pro-life to force a terrible life upon the very children you are trying to protect? 

4) If you are pro-life, pro children's lives what have you been doing for the 153 MILLION orphans worldwide? 

5) If you are pro-life, what do you plan on doing for the unwanted children you fought so hard to give a life to? 

My comments on some of the questions:

1/2) Think about it. A fetus has life and nothing else in their life to lose. Everyone else, be it just the mother, or the mother and the people who would help her with the child, they have lived. They have lived years of their lives and have gained experiences and memories and people they care for. The fetus has a life to lose yes, but the mother has a life, as well as everything she has gained in her life to lose.

3) Okay so the unwanted child is here because abortions are illegal. Now what? Best case scenario they might be adopted/fostered by a loving family, but that's not always going to be the case. Children that would have been aborted could be neglected, and/or abused. Isn't it more ethical to spare them that fate?

People don't make the decision to abort a child lightly. (An exemplary story of that can be found here) And the reality is, if people need something enough they are going to find other ways of doing it, so by restricting abortions all you're doing is taking away a safe place to have them done, only endangering the mother's life further. That doesn't seem very pro-life does it? 

There are already so many ways to be pro-life in this world - you could help those less fortunate than you, you could fight for social justice. When there are so many children in the world who are not cared for, it doesn't make sense to have more unwanted children be brought into the world. We already have so much we could do for children, so much we need to do, why add more to the problems? 

Finally, the world is having a hard enough time sustaining the people already on it in addition to different plants and animals. If the world gets seriously overpopulated, each one of the billions on Earth will suffer. How is that pro-life? 

It's not. 

At best it's pro living thing. At worst tt's pro putting a cluster of cells above the needs of full grown people.  It's pro "I want this and that's what I'm going to get". It's pro not being able to see past your own beliefs. It's pro not having foresight. 

If you are so pro-life why are you not advocating for the lives of people already here? 

Yes a fetus' life is a life, and all life is precious, but we need to focus on protecting and nurturing the lives of those that are already here. 

We should be protecting the lives that have so much more to lose than a growing bundle of cells in the womb. 

We should be allowing the lives that can only nurture and give a good life to a beautiful child when they are ready to the time to get ready, the time to grow. 

We should be affording women the right to choose when her body is going to carry a child or if it will ever carry a child at all. 

We should be working on the lives of those already here, making them as wonderful and fulfilling as they can be. Adding a child to the mix means you don't just have one life to try to make as great as possible, you have (at least) two. 

Life is a beautiful gift, but life is not a good enough by itself to merit "worth living" and forcing that on a mother and a child is not pro-life at all. 

Self Fulfillment in More than Just Body image.

"[... T]o all those who are judged, 

stay beautiful, stay you.

And don’t ever change,

unless you choose to.

You may feel like you’re broken, 

you may feel all alone, 

but you are something greater 

than you have ever known. 

- From "Controlled by What We Can't Control" copyright me.

 

Shout out to Sahar for liking my posts, and for being the first commentor on this blog! I appreciate it, girl! :)

So recently I've done a lot of posts about self fulfillment rather specific to body image. (If you haven't already, please check those blog posts out! Butts Part I, Butts Part II, Butts Part III, Selfish Not Immoral ) Here I want to talk about self fulfillment in more than just body image and why you shouldn't care what general people may think of you when making decisions about your life. 

Gender Roles in General:

Women! Cook clean, take care of the house etc. Men! Work, work, work, be the breadwinner support the family. Sound familiar? Sound as grating against who you are as nails on a chalkboard? Yes I am talking about the truly atrocious gender roles!

There is just so much wrong with them.  

First what they are based on is ridiculous. Gender roles are expected of us based on whether we are born male or female, something we have no control over, why do we think we can tell what a brand new person, a baby, will act like, enjoy, be able to achieve, etc. before we even get a chance to know them as a person?

The very heart of the matter is that Gender Roles limit us.

"Sexism is stupid

gender expectations make us small.
They confine us in a little box, 

and tell us that is all,

all we should be, all we can be,

and that we shouldn’t strive, 

to be more than what we’re told, 

To live, to dream, to thrive." 

- From Controlled by What We Can't Control, copyright me.

We are told what we should be often before being able to discover who we are. And because of that we think we can only be so much, achieve so much, but you can't know what you are capable of unless you try.

They dictate who should be taken seriously in different situations and base things all on what you are, not who. 

- From "You Are More" by Tenth Avenue North

I believe we are more, or can be more than what advantages and disadvantages we are born with. Maybe what you are can hinder or give you advantages, but with hard work and determination you should be able to achieve whatever it is you want. 

But unfortunately, it's not always up to you, because you can't do anything if others don't give you a chance, and it's incredibly unfair if that's based on prejudice, discrimination and stereotypes.

Career Choices:

For this point I'm going to focus on females' experiences, mostly because I don't think I'm qualified to talk about what males go through, but these are by far NOT the extent of what people may experience.

The fact of the matter is you can't win.

Women are often judged negatively no matter what they choose to do - If she wants to stay at home and be with her children she is often judged as "weak" or "lazy". (And might I say that's just ridiculous, housework and taking care of kids is really HARD); 

If she chooses her career over her kids or simply doesn't want kids, she's "selfish". And this one is ridiculous because first off, if we only focus on the next generation, we'd never accomplish anything now. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Brilliance does not care about gender or race.

"There are so many brilliant minds 
That have withered and gone to waste

All because some old idea says 

That because you’re different, brilliance is not your place"

- From Controlled by What we Can't Control, copyright me

Second, I refuse to be only a means to continue the species. Just because we have the biology needed to carry children, that doesn't make it a woman's duty to do so. It might have been important way back when there were very few people on Earth, but right now the Earth has plenty of people, several countries are overpopulated.

The fact of the matter is: Just because you can, doesn't mean you should or have to. (This goes for many situations, ie: freedom of speech; just because you CAN say something doesn't mean you should.) And really, is it wrong for me to want to do something great (that is unrelated to children) with my life?

We don't seem to have any problem with males doing that.

(And before you shout "man hater" I'm not hating on men, I'm hating on the fact that there is a double standard)

As I have discussed, I don't think equality is what we should be aiming for, there are definitely situations where I think equal treatment should apply, but I think the overarching branch we should be aiming for is equal respect, equal value and equity. 

Once you look deep into many (particularly social) issues they tend to come straight back to gender roles, this being no exception.  

I think the major reason women are judged negatively for choosing work over children is because they are being compared to gender roles by a person who holds gender roles as the way things "should be"

This idea that only women are suited to be caregivers is simply archaic, there are plenty of studies that suggest parenthood changes men to be better nurturers. (Two of which can be found here, and here) This still widely held belief harms women who want to do other things and it harms men that wish to be involved in their children's lives.

It's the same thing for the other side, women judged negatively for staying home with the kids are being compared to gender roles by someone who doesn't hold gender roles as the way things should be. 

This too, is a dangerous route because those that choose and want to go along with the traditional gender roles are marginalized. Which is not what we want either, we don't want to stop shaming the non-conformers by shaming the conformers.

All too often people who break away from what is traditional are heralded for doing so, but we should be praising people for daring to be who they are, because otherwise we're sending a message that we think there's something wrong with going along with the gender role, but there isn't.

I want, perhaps more than anything, to achieve a world where everyone can be themselves.

Thank you for reading and I'd love to know what people think so share your opinions with me in the comments. 

*** Also on a side note, if you enjoyed the snippets I posted from my poem, I'm thinking of putting it up as my next post, would anyone be interested if I did?

Please Please Please Don't Listen to Anything Anna Todd's "After" Series Tells You About Life

I found out about this book called "After" by an author named Anna Todd a few days ago and I can't stress what I'm about to say next enough: Please Please do NOT take the themes about relationships from that book and apply them to real life. 

I want to make it clear right here that I am not attacking Ms. Todd, her writing ability, or even her book. I am attacking the themes it presents.

Personally right away when I read the description I knew the book wouldn't be one that, would tell a story I wanted to read/fit my taste, but was curious about the whole "fanfiction" aspect of it and I wanted to know what it was a fanfic of and... two things: Fifty Shades of Grey and One Direction. 

Now I don't know about you, but when "Fifty Shades of Grey" comes up alarm bells start going off in my head. 

Then I read some more and all I can say is that it allegedly (since I haven't read it) portrays a MESSED UP relationship as love. Basically, it follows the story of a woman in her early twenties named Tessa and the relationship she develops with a "Harlin Scott". (Originally this character was named Harry Styles, being a 1D fanfic and all)

In this relationship there are components such as emotional abuse, obsessive-possessive behaviour, and manipulation. 

I just want to make it very clear that components like that in a relationship are NEVER okay, (no matter what may have happened in the person's past) and are NEVER  a part of love. (Or at least not love that's worth sticking around for)

From what I've seen of the series' book synopses, the series wraps up terrible behaviour, even cruelty, (After's book description actually says the word "cruelty" when talking about the characters relationship) and physical attraction and calls it love. 

The book just shoots off unhealthy messages in all directions such as "anything is forgiveable if it's "love"", (It is not, this all depends on how much the person feels right to forgive) that sabotage is okay, and just an unhealthy definition of love in general.

Why does this matter? Well first off the story started off on wattpad, and it's main readers were tween girls and the thing racked up a billion views. No matter what the actual numbers are, that is a LOT of young girls whose definitions of love are influenced by this totally wrong portrayal of it. 

It's already done a lot of damage, all we can do now is try to remedy that and try to keep any more from happening. But undoing damage is always harder than doing it, and just how many will we be able to reach in an attempt to undo the damage?

And things like this do cause damage. 

When people think it's okay for them to be mistreated, in a relationship that involves the word love or not, they're not going to be focusing on reaching their full potential, they are not going to be able to contribute to society to the best of their ability.  

So not only do they suffer, there's the potential for the rest of us to suffer, too. 

It's also important to note what the fact that this story exists alludes to. This book was written by a woman, and if it's presenting this kind of relationship as "love" that means she probably thinks it's okay for men to treat women this way, and if you broaden it some, the book can also be seen to mean that it's okay for people to treat other people this way. 

First, the fact that there is a belief like this out there is a problem.

Second, it gives the message to women that's it's okay for men to treat them badly, it tells men that it's okay to treat women that way, and most worryingly of all it tells men that women think it's okay for them to treat women badly. (But guys is ISN'T, so please don;t listen to that. Abuse is really not cool and never will be) And if people think it's okay, there's a lot less reason to not do it. 

There is nothing wrong with telling/reading whatever story you like, but when you're telling, it's never going to hurt to consider the consequences your story may have on other people, and when you're a reader, ALWAYS evaluate how appropriate things are before you take them into real life, and DON'T let fiction define what you believe to be true about real life. 

Fiction can represent situations in a way that may work in a story, but would not in real life -- that's why it's fiction. And feel free to disagree with me, but I definitely think this "After" series is a prime example of this. 

Read more about this issue here.

I'm not trying to get people mad about the books existence, I just don't want it's existence to affect yours.

(On a side note, if you want to look into a book I think handles an abusive relationship right, may I just recommend "The Taming" by Eric Walters and Teresa Toten? That book was magnificent. Here's a link to the book on Indigo, here's a link for Amazon US)

I'm not going to try to get people to boycott the book or anything, (that's a bit too extreme) but it's safe to say I would choose to cheer #WESSA (aka #Twill) over #Hessa any day.

#TheInfernalDevices #CassandraClare ;)  

Why Selfish is not always the Same as Wrong or Immoral

So in my last couple of posts I talked a lot about how important it is to fulfill the self. (If you haven't read those posts, here are the links Part I, Part II, and Part III) and in this post I'm going to address a question I'm sure came up. "But isn't doing that stuff... selfish?"

When we think of the word "selfishness" we almost have a knee-jerk reaction in associating it with words like bad, or immoral, but how do we know that this is true? There are instances in which I think being selfish is not only moral, but important and too often people overlook them.

I won't deny that together selfishness and fear can create a powerful paralytic - In December of 2012 alone there were two instances of people being pushed onto the subway tracks in New York, possibly because nobody stepped in to help, the victims were killed by the arriving subway train. (Links to articles on those two incidents here and here) 

There's no concrete reason to explain why no one helped, but I would say [the selfish] fear for personal safety was most definitely a factor. (Which is totally fair by the way, everyone has the right to look out for themselves).

"if there were absolutely no pros for you in doing something, would you do it? "

All this seems really negative right? So when can selfishness ever be good? Well, selfishness and fear can also incite action. For example, the desire most people have to matter. To satisfy this, people tend to do great things such as running into burning buildings to save lives. In truth, the motivations behind actions like this aren't always purely going to be "because I want to help" there's probably a part that's motivated because you like it, you like how it makes you feel, and/or because want your life to mean something. That's kind of selfish isn't it? 

And couldn't it be that part of your motivation to do good is due to fearing reaching the end of your life and realizing nothing you did really mattered?

I do believe we are selfish creatures, and if you thing about it, if there were absolutely no pros for you in doing something, would you do it?

The best example I can think of is with suicide. Would someone kill themselves just because? Or is it for personal gain? (Ie: since they don't want to live anymore).

After thinking about the above question, I'd now like to pose this one: if nothing we did could benefit ourselves personally, would we be motivated to do anything?  

"I'm arguing for selfishness, but a certain kind of selfishness"

I would say no, and I know that sounds really negative, but that's what this post is for - shedding light on the positive of being (a good kind of) selfish.

In the movie "Nell" there's this really though provoking line in the beginning where the characters are discussing selfishness and selfish intent and one person says something like "Even Mother Teresa wanted to know her life would help others." it's not wrong to be selfish, even those we put forth as the best of us fall prey to it. (Don't worry, I'm not trying to flip everything you learned in elementary school, I'm arguing for selfishness, but a certain kind of selfishness)

Now here is the big question: do selfish motives undermine any of the good things you may choose to do? I don't think so, I say this because once a good deed is done, the IMPACT is there, and that is what is known, that is what is felt. (great blog on that can be found here) 

So what if you didn't mean for something you said to hurt someone? It still did. 

Similarly, so what if inside you are a terrible person, so long as you do and/or tell others to do good things? No one but you are going to know your thoughts if they are not spoken or acted upon, and so they don't necessarily mean all that much, and they certainly can’t weaken anything you've done.

For example if you give your hot chocolate to a homeless person on a cold day, the kindness you showed them and the warmth the drink would afford them would make their day brighter, no? It doesn't matter if the reason you did it was because you wanted to feel like a good person. Your action still made life better for that person, and on a small scale your action still made the world a better place. Thought/intent does not do anything by itself. It needs to be translated into an action and/or words for it to do something.

Like with me, I try to do my best to advocate for feminism and social justice, but because I am a part of the disfavoured group, are my intentions selfish? 

I'd like to say no, but in reality the answer is probably yes. Does that make it wrong for me to advocate for the equitable treatment of people, women in particular? I think most people would agree with me when I say no, it doesn't. 

It's not wrong for me to not want to have to act differently from who I am just to be taken seriously. It's not wrong for me to want to be judged by my capabilities and if I make morally correct choices rather than the way my body looks, and it's not wrong for me to want this for all women.  

"In a way we need to be selfish, so we can take care of ourselves and be the best people we can be."

The other thing is that you need selfishness for self love. We tend to build ourselves around other people, and if we suffer for them, it's okay so long as it makes them happy right? That's noble to do, but you can't forget about yourself and your own needs. Because at the end of the day, your greatest duty is to yourself.  You might say, “Oh but I have a duty to my loved ones, I feel bad when they feel bad and I want to help them,” you empathize and may sort of feel what they feel, but the only feelings you'll ever feel keenly, in their most raw and pure form will be your own, you are not them, you don’t actually feel what they do. 

Also being willing to do anything for someone can lead to dangerous situations for you. Someone could be abusing you without you realizing it to be abuse. Also, if your whole identity is wrapped around one person, what would happen to you if that person leaves your life? So in a way we need to be selfish, so we can take care of ourselves and be the best people we can be.

It's important to work on yourself because then you can become a person with the capability to do great things, then you can become a great person. We can't have great societies if the building blocks, the people, are not also great (or at least more great than bad). If we don;t ever do anything for ourselves, we would never be able to reach that point.

Though I would never say that selflessness is wrong - there is a female philosopher named Ayn Rand that has a theory called "the Virtue of Selfishness" (read up on that here) where she argues that properly understood self interest is the basis of morality, and selflessness is immoral. 

I wouldn’t go that far, selfless acts like helping others and giving are probably the basis of kindness, but at the same time there needs to be a limit to stop selflessness from becoming self-harm. 

Also, in a way this idea sort of contradicts itself. Selflessness can stem from selfishness as I said above, so calling one moral and one immoral would mean each trait would flip flop around the line of moral and immoral.

So to sum up, selfish isn't bad when it's impact is good, be it self-love, the desire to feel like a good person, etc; Selfish is bad, when it's impact is bad.