Gender inequity
why are people so negative it is soo annoying.
i actively don't watch the news, i dont have social media. because why do i need to know about a random homocide across the country or whatever trump is up to this week? if something is important enough to impact me it will be talked about when i see people in person.
today in hpe at school we talked about domestic violence... wow some people have some very strong opinions about this. i know 2 dv victims, 1 i wont name because they are still going through it, and another from where i used to live, my old best friend who's mother beat her when she wanted to go on a date with some boy.
2, out of the easily 200 people i have met properly in my lifetime.
1 in 100.. not, 1 in 3. the teacher said 1 in 3 people will be victims to domestic asault. and that 1 person a week is murdered by someone they have trusted a long time.
1 person a week in australia. so 1 in 28 million. 300 people each year are murdered in australia. so 52 of those are homocides from someone the victim was in a relationship with.
the us sees 22000 homocides per year. or 8 in 100k. australia is only 2 in 100k.
statistics are a funny thing because well... its pretty easy to call a taxi instead of walking through the sketchy neighbourhood at night?
and in class today, i was very uncomfortable because the teacher was giving statistics in an acusing way. '1 in 9 men will rape someone oneday'. she then counted all the boys in the class 'oneday that will be one of you.. might' she corrected herself.
or, another statistic she through around. 'only 18% of women will be a boss in a workplace ever. but 100% of men do' fuck no what are you on about?! that is not how statistics work, 100% is not something you can ever say because there are always outliers. always. and even 90% thats too high no. 90% of men will not be a boss in a workplace one day.
she also said women get paid less than men. no, in every case i have seen or witnessed they get paid the same. teachers, grocery store workers. my dad used to do payroll at a place that made pallets where we used to live, everyone got paid the minimum wage for the award or something whatever it was 35 dollars an hour for a grown adult? I work at an iga, no litterally everyone gets paid the minimum for their award except store managers who negotiate a salary with the conglomerate that owns the store. my mother works at the local celebrations, she gets paid the minimum wage for a level 2 retail worker or whatever class she is. as does everyone else in the store? the store manager at the celebrations is a female so i dont know what all this inequality is about.
and that pissed me off and made me really anxious. that we spent a lesson listening to our teacher ramble on about things, acusing people of things based of statistics and their gender.
and one of my close friends also got really overwhelmed. it took me a bit to realise why and i origionall started our group discussions in opposition 'well no, i havent seen anyone get assaulted at all for a solid 2 years'.
but then i let myself think. i have a weird way of aproaching problems. actually no its a detailed way of aproaching problems. abstract it. outside the context of the class i do think that assault and domestic vioelence and inequality are bad things. why did the class make me feel overwise? well it was the context, the person informing me did a bad job at it. instead of thinking 'women getting sexually assaulted' i thought 'women are not unlikely to be assault victims'. even just generaly people are not unlikely to be assault victims from a statistical standpoint. this is clearly a cultural problem with people thinking they can do whatever they want to others and get away with it. its a verys similar thing to a company pumping a water reservoir dry in africa and selling it in disposable bottles in a far away country. people being taken advantage of.
the second group discussion is what can you do to help change this. most peoples answers were call the police when you see it and don't do sexual assault. thats too easy and obvious, not a good enough answer in my opinion. and then i started my thinking process. abstract it. well its a culture problem. there is a culture in the world that people can just take what they want and abuse others and other peoples rights. this ties into something else i am - i wouldnt say pationate, but engage by - privacy online, and capitalism is just plain old stupid, and fuck big coorporations. so analougise this into saftey on the streets, masculinity is just plain old stupid, and fuck people that dont consider others.
so how do we 'solve' gender inequality and assault. I don't know. But I do know the first few steps.
look at the good things happening around you. there is more to the situation than just the bad stuff.
and abstract the large problem into something more managable. do not lower the scope, we are not optimising for a single person to accomplish something efficiently.
if you want to change culture... well ive already talked about changing culture in a previous blog post, i dont remember the name. Infiltrate what is already there, find a weak point and just point it out. people react to the judgement of the people they do care about. make 'being tough' and having more stuff than others the uncool thing. and make equity the cool thing.