I have an idea. I
know it isn’t going to be a popular idea, but hear me out anyway. I think we
should stop blaming women.
I know right now
you’re saying “for what?” but my answer to that is simple: for everything. We should stop blaming women
for everything. Oh, I know there are plenty of things we blame on the gays and
the Mexicans and the blacks and the Asians (did you know “Asian” isn’t really a
nationality? Asia isn’t a country.) and the immigrants and the “kids these
days” and we should stop blaming them too, but since I have neither infinite
time nor infinite words let’s just talk about the women for right now.
Can we not blame
women who step out of their so-called “rightful place” in the home to earn
money to support their families for “tearing apart marriages and wrecking
families”? Yes, I’m looking at you, Fox News panel of middle-aged men. That
video clip is absolutely sickening. If marriages are being torn apart and
families are being wrecked, that’s happening on a couple-by-couple basis. Every
couple has their own unique problems and arguments and struggles, and to
suggest that those problems would be solved if women just stayed home is
simplistic and disgusting. Also, those men seem to be saying that dads can’t
care for their own children, which is a whole different (though still awful) gender
stereotype.
Can we stop blaming
women for abortion? Let’s be honest, women can’t get pregnant by themselves.
Whatever your views on abortion, you cannot logically say that a woman can get
into a situation where abortion is even a possibility without a man, yet women
alone bear the guilt, shame, sorrow, and pain of abortion. What if we put the
responsibility on everyone? What if we taught teenagers of both genders that
sex exists, that it isn’t evil, that they will almost definitely do it someday,
and that when that day comes there are things they need to know about birth
control, STDs, and consent? What if we made birth control readily available to
everyone so unwanted pregnancies were less common? Abortion isn’t women’s fault
– it’s society’s.
On a related note,
can we stop blaming women for rape? If no one drank alcohol, there would still
be rape. If no one wore clothes that were even remotely revealing, there would
still be rape. If no one went out alone, there would still be rape. If women
literally stayed home all the time, there would still be rape. Honestly, if
there were no WOMEN, there would still be rape. (This really applies to any
gender of rape victim – knock off the victim blaming, society.)
I understand that
the world is a scary place. Even in the 22 years I’ve been alive a lot of
things have changed and a lot of terrible things have happened, and it seems
like someone must be to blame. It’s too scary to think that some things are
just random, that maybe everything doesn’t happen for a reason.
Here’s the problem
with that: the world isn’t a blockbuster
movie or a bestselling novel. Everything isn’t moving neatly from plot point to
plot point with an obvious good guy and bad guy. The world isn’t telling a
story. The world just… is. Bad things happen and good things happen and maybe
no one is to blame, or maybe everyone is. I can tell you one thing though –
there is no one group of people, be it straight white males, Americans,
conservatives, or women, that is exempt from blame, just as there is no one
group responsible.
So… that raises
more questions than it answers.
