Feminism, Activism, and Other -Isms (except that's a lie; I only have 2 -isms)

I'm so sorry I missed last week! I left for Science Olympiad in the middle of the school day, and by the time I remembered that I needed to blog, I was already in a hotel across the state from my house. XP

I have a brief comment on the make-up topic. I definitely agree that make-up should be used in moderation. One thing that happened at my school recently is that a friend of mine started an event on Facebook for "No Make-Up Friday". The idea behind it was that although make-up can be fun, girls should be able to feel good about themselves just the way they are and not feel the need to hide behind make-up. I'm not sure how much it really helped any of the girls or whether other people actually participated, but I still really like the idea of it.

Rebecca, that sounds like quite the Facebook conversation! I would also like to commend you on being very eloquent and rational about your opinions. I agree that the image is not too agressive, but perhaps that's just because I'm female too. I feel like although a lot of progress has been made in women's rights, there's still quite a bit of inequality between the genders in our society today. And nothing is going to change if people are going to be passive and not do anything about the problem. I think that all of the things listed in the picture are very real issues, and the only way anything is going to happen about them is if women stand up and fight for what is right, not in a violent way, but in a supporting equality way. It's more like it's saying that even though society tends to put women through more crap just for being women, we're going to be tough, stay strong, and push through.

It seems that some feminists do take it a bit too far; they seem to be trying to make men feel as inferior as possible. I don't think that's what feminism should be about. It should be about striving for equality. We are all human beings, so we should all be treated the same way.

As far as Facebook activism, I agree with what Simone said. In a perfect world, people would be able to discuss politics rationally, even when they have a computer screen between each other. People are very opinionated and very stubborn. Discussions turn into arguments and the arguments never go anywhere because few people are willing to listen to the other side. Another problem with political discussions/arguments is that it always seems to me that nobody actually knows what they're talking about, so the opinions they're so passionate about are often based on misinformation, which doesn't help anyone. I think a lot of those problems with political discussions happen with other touchy subjects, like evolution or feminism or abortion.

So Facebook and other social media sites tend to be pretty bad for discussing social activism. On the other hand, I think it can be very good at spreading the word of problems going on in the world. There are many issues I probably would have never known much about had it not been for activism on social media. Facebook may not be the best place to discuss issues, but it can definitely be beneficial for letting people know about problems in the world and what they can do about them.

My recommendation for this week is Portal and Portal 2. They're both amazing video games. Probably my favorite video games ever. Portal 2 came out on Tuesday and I've been playing it quite a lot. If you haven't played it, I highly suggest you play it ASAP.

Also, for all the Whovians here, I'm pretty pumped for tomorrow. :)