International Women’s Day

Dear blog,

I have not had a very happy day today for personal reasons, and not to mention, it’s probably only going to get worse, as I was really tired from the Daylight Savings today (I hate Daylight Savings, in my opinion, it’s so unnatural to change time and we shouldn’t be allowed to do this) so I took a nap, now it’s almost 5pm and I still have to do a lot of studying for my chemistry exam because I don’t know what’s going on in that chemistry. It seemed like the hardest thing we have learned I got down, but for some reason, in the practice exams, there was simply a lot of material I have never seen in my life and most definitely not in lecture so I have no idea how I’m supposed to know it or what I’m supposed to do about that.

But, it is International Women’s Day, so I still wanted to write a little bit about that.

Especially because I didn’t write anything last year about that, and I feel like I feel most mature and ready to write about it now (I don’t know, something about being a sophomore in university just feels like the perfect time).

Also, it is quite perfect when you think about it, because some of these exact topics, I have written about before, but not recently, that they almost feel lost in the rubble, and I feel like I have to resurface them because it feels like I’ve just been ignoring them and lacking. There are topics that are very important to me, so that is why I feel like I must pay heed and write about them.

International Women’s Day is a celebration of women. On this day we celebrate women. But to celebrate women, I think you have to understand women. What are women, why are they celebrating? What have they gone through? What has happened to them?

Some of these topics that I’m about to write about, I think about them everyday. For better or for worse. In sickness and in health. Whether that is good or not, I can’t help it. They first-hand affect me. They dampen my soul. But I can’t just forget the past and not think about the horrible injustices done and also continuing today and everyday since. Since I think about these things everyday, as a result, I celebrate women everyday. I want to celebrate women everyday.

At least in the way that I think about it, in my head, if International Women’s Day (the way I understand it) is celebrating women and understanding what they have gone through…and I think about what they go through on a daily basis…therefore I celebrate women everyday.

I also genuinely think they should be celebrated in this way everyday. We all should not be forgetting what it’s like, what has happened, the past, what we have gone through to get here. That is not a one day holiday. That is an everyday holiday. I think about it everyday. I’m not saying buy women flowers everyday (though nothing wrong with that haha, but that would be too excessive, maybe every week or two instead) but think everyday. Think about these things and topics. Don’t allow yourself to forget, for for that I think…you would truly be (becoming) a worser person.

Women really have gone through so much. Women have been under oppression for so long. Basically all of time. In all history, there are so many examples. I’m not trying to turn into a history nerd for two seconds here, but I did take AP European History and AP US History, so don’t think that I wouldn’t(maybe that would be a different blogpost), and I hope you know I know what I’m talking about.

But it’s not even about historic examples. I feel like, when you’re a women, you just automatically know all the biggest historic examples, you know what women have gone through, the challenges they have faced, and continue to face everyday.

Obviously, historically, women never had positions of power. Men were always assumed to be in power, and only men were allowed to be. Women were confined to kitchen and childbearing. That was their entire worth. They were told they would never be more. That’s how society entirely framed them. They weren’t even allowed to be educated. They couldn’t go to school.

Even when that changed, and little girls started going to school, or started to be educated (noble families) like in Bridgerton, still, their entire worth was subdued to one moment: marriage prospects.

Always only viewed as objects. Even in modern day, we still have problems with that. Oversexualizaiton in every media possible (movies, shows, magazines, stores, clothes, social media, Instagram, YouTube, you name it). The entire culture is so incredibly used to it. It’s interwoven. But I still think about it. I don’t want to be part of it. And it hurts my soul. Being a girl is so hard and it sucks so much because so often I feel like I can’t and don’t even want to do this anymore. I don’t want to live in this world where other girls are so okay with this crap and I look like just a product and subject of it just by living. Other modern problems is women are still underpaid in so many professions. They are still not viewed as equals.

Another common historical example is the crazy fact that women only got their right to vote in 1920. That’s insane. That’s barely a century old right…out of 1000s of years. And so many countries have it even worse with women oppression. Iran, Saudi Arabia…where they’re so controlled and not allowed anything. By men. Always the perpetrators. America has its own women problems. It tries to hide it in the media but its clear that it still objectifies women it’s just the sad part is that everyone is internalizing it and seems okay with it. But I am not okay.