It has been reported one in three women worldwide will experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime, usually from a male partner.
Recently, an aid agency, CARE Norway, posted a video titled #DearDaddy to promote issues of domestic violence and sexism in our culture as an attempt to improve the awareness of the concern we must have for women’s health and safety. After a few weeks online, the video already has close to six million views on YouTube and continues to become viral.
The video is told through a letter from an unborn baby girl to her father beginning with the phrase, “Dear daddy.” In a series of flashbacks and flash-forwards, the narrator explores the future experiences she will face someday. She discusses topics of name-calling, rape, and other mistreatment towards women and the results if these issues are not to be recognized and confronted.
#DearDaddy is incredibly powerful and moving. The scenes are graphic, heartbreaking, and worth watching because the reaction the aid agency is trying send is working. Society fails to recognize that being a girl in today’s world can make you vulnerable and an “easy target.”
“Boys will be boys” is not an excuse for disrespecting women.
“Just something boys do” is not an excuse either.
We should teach boys and men on how to properly treat women however, I do not believe this is the video to do so.
Besides the strong emotional appeal of imagery and raw dialect, #DearDaddy gives the one-sided of fair of domestic violence which is towards women. While in reality females experience more issues of this in comparison to men, regardless, both sides are victims.
CARE Norway gave the intention to be biased in their video, which explains the mixed reactions from audiences. YouTube comments include:
“This video is problematic because it perpetuates the damsel trope…”
“Isn’t this just feminist propaganda?”
“Just f*** you. Males aren’t monsters.”
It’s true, males aren’t monsters…yet the video portrays that they almost are.
I believe that women are strong, powerful, independent creatures who want to empower one another and take on the world. I believe men are the same. However, the video fails to send that message.
If we want to teach boys how to properly treat women, we don’t need to tell them they must put us on a pedestal, but treat us as equals.
We can all be victims, we can all be culprits, and we can all be held responsible in some way. But in order for us to treat each other equally, we have to acknowledge that we have the same worth.
Maybe this video is sexist. Maybe women do play the victim card too much. But take away from #DearDaddy that issues of name-calling, rape, and domestic violence are experienced everywhere, and we need to do something about it. We need to talk about it. We need to make a change.
