"I don't think that being a strong person is about ignoring your emotions and fighting your feelings. Putting on a brave face doesn't mean you're a brave person. That's why everybody in my life knows everything that I'm going through. I can't hide anything from them. People need to realise that being open isn't the same as being weak."

- Taylor Swift

Sunday, October 24, 2010

I don't understand why the moment I open my mouth I am chastized for being to outspoken and rash and offending too many people, yet those 'too many people' - for that is what they are - can say what they like.

My stance against religion has offended many religious people over the years, yet these selfsame people seem to have no qualms in insulting the feminist cause and offending me, a feminist. I don't want to hear from you that feminists are angry man-hater lesbians who will never get married or have babies and want to rule the world. How would you like it if I said that Christians are lunatics who pray to a being who does not exist and murder in the name of a man who seems as loony as I am? But I don't say it - well, I don't say it and mean it, because I can't. I'm not allowed to. I'm silenced because I seem to be alone, in this generation that seems to be dead, at least where I am now.

Just think before you talk. If you think that what I said before about Christians was shocking, then think about what you say to me about feminism hurts me. All I want is for every man and woman to have equal rights and freedom. What is so bad about that? All I want is, one day, that my children will live in a world where man and woman and black and white and young and old are all equal. Don't tell me that's how it is already, because it's not. You say that I ask too much of this world, but I say you ask for too little. I want all I can get and more. Don't tell me Australia is a perfect place, because it's not. It's one of the best places in the world but it can be better, you and I know that, so don't close your eyes and block your ears and sing lalala to drown out and blink away our problems. Don't celebrate a victory that is not yours to claim. Don't think you're protected and I'm not because you have friends and I do not. The tides change. You see a leaf fall and you think you know which way the storm is coming from. Well, there is a storm coming...and it will blow away your pride.

1 comment:

Adelaide Dupont said...

I think before I speak, because I don't regret it afterwards.

(I would have liked a higher and better reason than that).

And, well, it's not exactly a logical argument when you get to personal characteristics of the group in question.

Was watching Big Ideas on Obama and how his religion is considered among the people: whether people think him to be a Christian or a Muslim, and the sheer instrumentality of the attacks.

There's a lot of good and interesting thinking about the nature of equality at the moment.

And God being "loony": is it because we created him in our image, or He created us in His image?

Not even gods or supervenient beings can be purely rational, it seems. There is always that emotional, that offensive, element, which we confront according to the content of our character.

And asking for too little is just as much a risk. I ask for little, but it means a lot.

Great comments/points/rhetoric about storms. The storm is nothing less than chaos and change.