It has not all settled
down yet, the ongoing turmoil around the Eurovision winner, mostly
that particular gender expression of hers, when this Friday
schoolboys in Nantes (Western France) have attended their studies in
skirts. What's even more noteworthy here is that it was a campaign
for challenging sexism.
Now, had it happened in my
country that is struggling to made its way to the EU (it's Ukraine, in case you didn't know)...the thing is that it would have never happened here. The mere
suggestion would outrage all of the devil's BFFs – far-right wing
and religious freaks, as it did in France, actually. Malheureusement, they
would surely outnumber the French.
In case you are still
whining about the situation with the the gender equality and
discrimination in your country (and I'm not mocking it), you should
really know that anti-discriminatory law has only been passed few
days ago. Furthermore, it does not say a word about the
discrimination based on sexual orientation and is generally quite
ambiguous, which is totally intolerable for a legislation of any sort.
Surprisingly how, even
when integrated into Western world to some considerable extent
through my current job, media and pop culture products consummation,
living here forces me to get amazed when my fellow student makes a
speech on gender inequality at our Rhetoric class. And it does amaze everyone else.
The aforementioned
schoolboys have faces a crowd of angry opposition. Yet, it failed to
stop them. Neither did it stop vast majority of EU citizens from
believing sexism and stereotyping based on gender to be rather
disturbing.
It is essential, however,
that you don't get the wrong impression here. I do not think the war
is over in the West in terms of reaching social equality. Still, I
can't stop wondering what could have possibly prevented us from
getting same rates so far. Perhaps, it is about time and we will get
to that point eventually, but for now what is left for us to do is
keep bringing these issues up whenever we can for them to begin at
least sound commonplace.
