Disclaimer: If you're sick of feminist pieces, stop reading now.
For the last couple weeks, I've been told that feminist issues aren't real. That women's rights are not being compromised. That women marched to kill babies. How much do you really know about feminism? Do you know that it's a movement all around the world? You think women marched so we can kill babies. You think we're just complaining. But let me tell you why I marched. . .
There's a thing in some other cultures called son preference. This means families prefer to have a son over a daughter. This can be for numerous reasons, but it is primarily because sons can carry on the family name, and perform hard labor. When a woman has a son, he is often celebrated with a big party. The girls are often abandoned or neglected. Many girls die between the ages of 1 and 5 because they starve. If they aren't neglected, they are often traded into marriage, or even sold into human trafficking. Girls are property. In some nations, when women find out they are having a girl, the girl is aborted. According to Women Across Cultures, In India, about 700,000 girls are aborted annually. Just because they are GIRLS. Tell me there's not inequality between men and women. Tell me how you think liberal women want to abort their babies.Tell me which you think is more humane: birthing a girl into a world where she is neglected and passed along like cattle, or preventing her from living a life like that? All I want as a woman and as a feminist is to know women EVERYWHERE have a choice about their body, contraceptives, access to healthcare, and equal pay.
The women in India who are shamed because they can't produce a boy should be able to raise their baby girl if they want, and women in the United States who are raped or know their pregnancy will endanger their life should have the choice to terminate it. So before you point fingers and assume all women are marching for pro-abortion, think about the women in other cultures. Think about their little girls, and the vicious cycle many of them are born into. Feminism is for everybody, in every country, and I march for them.
