Feminism --awareness in young women & bridging the schism

[shootingstar]

I like Caitlin Moran, and I especially like her take that it's about being a good and decent and respected human being. I think my personal brand of feminism (in my lucky position in a very egalitarian country) is trying to always think of people as people first, gender second, myself included. Not genderless, but not defined by their gender first. And secondly being aware that everyone, me too, is a product of more than just "free will". That we are all heavily influenced in our choices and preferences by our upbringing, friends, family and society, and that if we want true free will we need to challenge our own assumptions of what we (think we) like and what we (think we) are good at.

We most definitely are a product of our upbringing, family, friends and society...so "free will" is a slight misnomer. It requires making a conscious decision to challenge ourselves, our own limits of understanding, our own tiny worldview.

I just finished interviewing an East Indian woman doctor (psychiatrist), mother of 2 ...who happens to bicycle several times per month where she lives in southern India. It's for my blog later. Here is an excerpt of what she said:

"“Regarding children cycling, it would possibly surprise you to know that cycles are so popular here ( among children), that the Government of Karnataka gives out free bicycles to girls from economically disabled backgrounds, so that they will not drop out of school! Each school has about a minimum of hundred to two hundred kids cycling to and from it. With the advent of school buses in the bigger cities, the numbers who cycle is slowly dropping!”

If we feel great strides of advancement in North America, elsewhere...

I do have a cousin in mainland China who is a welder. I bet she didn't think she was doing anything radical..probably wanted a decent job.