I’ve been getting a lot of feminism is αμερικανιά lately. A lot of μιά χάρα είμαστε εμείς οι γυναίκες, άλλα προβλήματα έχουμε. Some of δεν θέλω να έχω σχέση με το Women’s March, δεν με αναφορά η Χίλαρι, ούτε η αμερική. Ελλάδα είμαστε εδώ.
Hillary Clinton, I agree, is nobody’s concern anymore. What happened to her, on a level, is. Feminism is not an American construct. Feminism is not an extremist movement. If you are born a female, you are by default a feminist, unless you grow up to consider yourself an inferior being to men. It simply means that you believe that you have equal rights. It doesn’t mean that you are running naked through forests with unshaved legs burning your bras. And believing that you as a woman should have equal opportunity, equal wages, the right to safety, is simple human logic. It’s innate. Have you ever seen a two-year-old girl believe that she can’t do or can’t want anything her twin brother does?
The Women’s March next Sunday, is not about America. It’s not about Hillary. It’s not even about American midterm elections, because no Greek knows or cares about them. What it is about, people of Greece, is about your lives. Changing.
I’m no expert. I’m no sociologist. I did not do research to throw numbers and percentages at you in this post. But I am a woman who has lived in this country for 35 years. I have a Greek passport. I pay taxes. I walk the streets. I work. I’m as Greek as any one of you, save the blood running through my veins, which is Russian, if you consider blood a decisive factor of identity.
Until recently, I didn’t know that walking down a street didn’t have to be a festival of whistles, crude comments, or fear, if it’s dark. When I was younger, I didn’t know that it was illegal for men to masturbate behind trees, or in their cars, in public spaces. But I knew that if a husband was beating his wife, she couldn’t prove it in court unless a non-related third person witnessed it and testified. I knew that girls in their 20s would jump at the opportunity of sleeping with a low grade politician to secure themselves a spot in the δημόσιο. I knew that the word γυναίκα could be used in a sentence and carry a negative connotation. I know 15-year-olds who are flattered when someone to refers to them as καλό μουνάκι. I know that a stadium full of people can watch a man slap his wife in the middle of a concert, and think nothing of it. So whoever thinks that women have equal rights, well, we’re not even close. We, let alone our kids, have little idea what our lives should be like. Because we are used to what is obviously the norm.
Greece is a country of demonstrations, of unions, of demanding and fighting for what we believe is rightfully ours. Especially over the past ten years. I’ve been to dozens of these demonstrations. I know I’ve seen many of you there. I’ve hid in cafeteria basements around Syntagma, to avoid the teargas and molotov cocktails. We protested again and again. Achieved little. For most of these issues were beyond our control, even beyond our governments’ control. The decisions had been made behind closed doors that we didn’t have keys to.
This is different. This is about us. Us as humans, not only here in Athens, but throughout the country, throughout the world. From Zambia, to New Zealand, to yes, the United States, that quiet unfortunately at this point, digs and paves the road that most of the world drives down. Lets not get stuck in that traffic. Lets pave our own roads, roads that lead to open doors, doors, the keys to which we leave in our children’s pockets.
Join us here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/566539853531218/events/
One comment
beautifully said.