The First Of Many

Women's equality is something that is associated with third world countries seeped in religious and social tradition.  It is something that many believe to be irrelevant in today's modern, Westernized society.  I never even gave it a second thought.  Why should I?  I live in America, of all places, and have every opportunity known to our species.  But something made me care.  Maybe it was my history classes, with all those badly behaved, outspoken women.  Maybe it was the media.  Whatever the cause, I am gripped with the acute need to read about women who fought for others, exceptional women, in history and in modern culture.

Over the centuries, the oppressed sex hasn't been exactly quiet.  The feminist literature pool is enormous, which is quite contradictory to the idea that women before the twentieth century were quiet, uneducated housewives.  I have a lofty goal of reading many of these important publications and writing about them here, because they don't just apply to the time they were written.  Many times, their ideas are extremely relevant in the here and now.

All over the world, cultures have held women in bondage for centuries.  It is especially fascinating to study the modern cultures of the world and their effect on the women of their societies.  There has been everything from warrior queens to veiled, subservient wives.  However, in every place, there has been exceptional women who have influenced their societies, no matter the circumstance, and these women continue to emerge around the world.

Even in America, where a woman doesn't have to be limited to a career of housewifery, there are issues.  Pop culture has changed how women are viewed and view themselves in the last fifty years.  Magazines, commercials, and role models all contribute to the image that every woman faces from her childhood to the end of her life.  Why do we go to such extremes to fit the beauty mold?  What on earth have the airbrushed pictures of girls on magazines done to us?  This issue is very real, and it is embedded into the subconsciousness of every female in Westernized society.

Books, amazing women in the face of adversity, and pop culture's women.  No revolution is intended, no stir meant to be felt.  The emotions aren't in these words, and they certainly aren't in any idea that can ever be presented.  Emotions come from you, Reader.  Your experiences, your beliefs, and your feelings are the only ones that can make a difference.  No word from any one person can change the world.  It's already been tried.  The only option left to us is to forget libral and conservative, atheist and religious, ethnicity and race, remembering that every last one of us is human.  All the extra aside, it's time now to look to a cause that has been conveniently forgotten.  We have to remember that however far things have come from the Dark Ages, we still have to fight the good fight, and win.