The PINK epidemic

Recently, I was in a zoom call with an interesting bunch of people. We came together online, to discuss the challenges faced by women in day to day life. The group included people from Australia, Philippines, Qatar, India and so on.

The disappointing fact that came out of this meeting was that discrimination based on gender was a global phenomenon. Even in a developed nation like Australia, the girl shared that a couple of times when she was alone at night, going home from party, she was conscious of the fact that she was vulnerable and had to take decisions accordingly.

During the meeting, I shared a couple of researches relevant to this topic.

Firstly, there was a research recently (most probably in USA) in which the researcher asked a group of men, "to list the situations in which they worry about avoiding sexual assault?". The response was in one line--- "never". The same question was asked to a group of women and they had an endless list of times in which they thought about avoiding sexual violence. For e.g. before getting on to a lift full of men, walking alone at night, etc. Worrying about sexual violence of any kind and any degree is a part of being a woman, all over the world! It's a freaking epidemic!

While discussing discrimination against women, we came to the topic of having to change your sir name after marriage. This is the most ridiculous "matter of fact" rule for women. We have to change our names that we grew up with and God forbid if we end up divorced, the man walks away with nothing but the woman walks away with his name stuck with her! The basic idea behind this is that from being the property of your father you then become the property of your husband after marriage. This researcher suggested that why not we do away with the whole concept of a "sir name" in the first place! Women get to keep their names forever and they aren't traded like a property through the contract of marriage?!!

Thirdly, during the meeting, a woman from Phillippines shared a study that was conducted

on the streets of New York City, one of the most advance cities of the world. In this experiment, a woman dressed in normal (not very revealing) clothes, walked around New York City in broad daylight. The results were shocking. The amount of catcalling she experienced throughout the day was astonishing, to say the least! If this is how things are in the most advanced cities of the world, just imagine the state of affairs in the rest of the world!

As they say, you don't just rape by physical act only i.e. through forced intercourse. A woman feels raped by the certain way a man would stare at her, or if he touched her the wrong way. Rape is the idea of inappropriate and unwanted sexual advances. We, humans, have evolved to the extent of reaching the moon, but when it comes to a man's relation vis a vis the female kind, we haven't evolved very much. We have invented cars and planes but nothing that will make rape and sexual violence nonexistent. Why? Because it's a "girl problem"?

And of course, the issues of girls are irrelevant, stupid and "Pink" like their pretty colour! I mean, it's our job to look pretty to please the male kind and shut up about everything else. pff...

Have you seen the skewed population in the world of technology? Either women are too stupid to be a part of this amazing phase of human evolution or even if some women make it in this world, they are too nerdy or un-sexy for the male liking... huh??... I've said enough.

ToOdLeS