Another Inspiring, Must-Watch Speech from Emma Watson

Emma Watson is honestly making me love her so much. This is her speech for HeForShe IMPACT 10x10x10 Program at the World Economic Forum 2015

   

She makes a small joke about it in this speech, but she truly writes such great speeches and delivers them in such a passionate, moving way. 

For those of you who are regular readers of my blog: first thank you, it's really cool that you would take your time to read the stuff I write about. Second, the end of the semester has kept me uber busy, so sorry about putting zero things up. And I know this isn't very much either, but it's (sort of?) something to tide you over right? 

Rest assured I have a lot of things planned, I just don't really have the time right now. 

Look out for something on Tuesday though! I'll be finished my exams and should have a lot more time. 

Stay Awesome!

- Maggs :)

You Don't Agree with Someone? That's Totally Fine, but Here's What to NOT do About it

I thought this was an appropriate post to put up today considering everything that's been happening in France, primarily Paris, lately.

The world is outraged, horrified, and saddened by these tragic events, and before I go into the main idea of this post I thought I'd do my part in stopping the spread of Islamophobia in it's tracks. 

The actions of these extremists SHOULD NOT IN ANY WAY be taken to reflect the beliefs and ideologies of all Muslims. These individuals are extremists, they, quite frankly, use religion as an excuse to do awful things. (Or at least delude themselves into thinking what they're doing is right because of religion). It is illogical and unfair to tie the general Muslim population to extremists. 

Ahmed Merabet, The Muslim police officer that was killed

In fact, one of the officers killed on Wednesday was Muslim, he died protecting Charlie Hebdo's right to free speech. If you haven't already, I encourage you to look deeper into the double standards, and additional perspectives that mainstream media might not be providing.

Onto the body of the post:

Originally, this post was to come right after the Good Drowned out by Bad Post (And it'd still probably be of use to read that one before reading this one), but things changed. 

Let me begin by saying that people deciding it's okay to threaten somebody over exercising their right to freedom of expression is something that bothers me to no end. 

First off, it's seriously not cool to threaten someone period. 

Second, there is a person on the receiving end, a person who has feelings just like you, and your threat, whether you meant it or not, can make them feel unsafe, and EVERYONE is entitled to feeling safe.

It just makes absolutely makes no sense. Somebody expresses themselves, and maybe it hurt your pride, maybe it offended you, but are those grounds to threaten that person's well-being? 

To me at least, it seems like doing so is just WAY overcompensating for the harm that was inflicted on you. 

Because it's not like it's threats such as "I will slap you" It's things like "I'll kill you", "I'll rape you" (particularly common when directed at a woman) and "I hope you get Ebola". 

For me, this seems to show either calculated malice, or ignorant insensitivity (or both). 

And I've seen all of these threats made myself. The Ebola one was during a time where the Ebola outbreak was a really big thing, and it was directed toward Taylor Swift on a commercial she'd done for Diet Coke. 


The person said they hated Taylor, and wished the disease upon her. First off, how do you hate someone you have likely never met? Why would you bother to hate someone you don't know?

Second, I think it's a pretty good example of a very troubling trend with these threats. 

There will always be the generic "I will kill you", but it's things like "I will rape you" and "I will post personal photos of you" that really bother me, because regardless if they are empty threats, it displays a level of thought and deliberation on how to violate the person so that they feel as awful as possible.

Morals should not end up like this monitor

We need to move away from that, we need to stop being so negative and hateful. Yeah people's opinions can be misinformed and awful, yeah they can mean change and that can be scary, but we shouldn't be willing to throw morals out the window because somebody said something. 

And even if the person making the threat doesn't mean to go through with it, it could inspire somebody that would go through with it. 
  
Words might not be able to do much by themselves, but they can serve as ignition for scary things - after all, it was words that started and allowed some of the worst events in human history to happen.

"Yes we all have the right to an opinion, and freedom of expression and they're great things, but we don't always have to use them."

  
Many of those threats are made thoughtlessly on the internet, and that's one sucky thing about the web, what happens there seems less "real", so doing something online doesn't seem like a big deal. (rhyming unintended ;))

But the fact of the matter is that it is. It means

people feel the need to leave their homes, and if people go through with the threats, it means people are hurt. 

There are appropriate ways to express dissatisfaction with an opinion, and threatening the person that holds that opinion is NOT on of them. 

So people if we could all please just take a moment and consider what we're doing before we say/post/tweet/text etc. something? And this I mean to apply to all scenarios. Because so many hurt feelings and hurt feelings that lead to awful events can so easily be avoided. 

And this is not to say I'm cool with people expressing harmful, violent opinions. Yes we all have the right to an opinion, and freedom of expression and they're great things, but we don't always have to use them. Nobody is forcing you to speak your opinions, and if it's not going to do any good expressing it, then maybe you should consider not expressing it at all.

At the end of the day, we need to make sure it's our moral compass that guides us, not anything else, because only then can everyone live a better life. 

If you liked this post, please hit that g+1 button at the bottom. If you like my blog in general, please hit that g+1 button at the very top of the page. 

I'd love to hear what you people think, so share your opinions with me in the comments! :) 

Just a heads up, exams are coming up and I'm not going to be able to guarantee the usual post a week for the next bit. I might share some pictures or songs or something, but legit blog-y posts might take a while. 

Until next time!
- Maggs :)
  

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.