Can anyone please tell me what is the difference between discriminate someone because of the color of the skin and to discriminate someone because of the gender?? Because... call me crazy but I think the difference is: NONE at all. To be racist is as bad as to be sexist. Let's see if we can finally fix this in our society's minds.
Most of you probably have heard about the controversial image of the clothing store H&M appearing in its online store that showed a black kid model wearing a sweatshirt with the message: "Coolest Monkey in the Jungle". The image has been widely criticized online (obviously) and the clothes' company removed the image and apologized saying: “We are deeply sorry that the picture was taken, and we also regret the actual print.” ...yes, very nice, but... Why media and people in internet don't make the same 'noise' for the sexist clothes?? Why clothing stores are not also forced to apologize and remove their clothes with sexist messages too?? Because I can see that EVERYDAY in EVERY clothing store. Why gender discrimination is not treated as any other kind of discrimination?? This is why feminism nowadays is still so necessary (even if I wouldn't like it to be)
So, this controversial about the sweatshirt image and the black kid, reminded me this video I watched last year of a little 8 years old girl explaining why she 'doesn't get' some messages written in the girls' t-shirts of a clothing store. After all the H&M controversial, I felt the need to remember and share this video:
Transcription:
Mom - Okay Daisy, here we're in Tesco's, what do you think of the clothes on offer today?
Lil Girl - Well, the girls clothes say: "hey!", "beautiful", "I feel fabulous". The boys: "Desert adventure awaits", "Think outside the box", "Hero!".
Mom - And what do you think about that?
Lil Girl - It's unfair because everyone thinks girls should just be pretty and boys should just be adventurous.
Mom - What do you think about that?
Lil Girl - I think that's wrong because... why should boys and girls clothes even be separated? because we're just gonna see each other...
(...)
Lil Girl - (pointing out boys' t-shirts) - "Think outside the box", what does this mean? It means: Go on your adventures, let nothing stop you, go for your own dreams and... (pointing out girls' t-shirts) "hey!": What is that even supposed to mean??...
Mom - I don't know... it would inspire you to say: "hey"... Don't you find that inspiring?
Lil Girl - I don't find that inspiring.
---
I've also shared this song here before: it's a song by John Lennon titled "Woman is the Nigger of the World", where he defends women's rights. He wrote this song in the '70's. Almost 50 years later, and this song still talks about a problem of our present days... This should make us think about it.
Thanks for reading and watching.
Comments
Estanis, yes very deep inside... as deep as almost reaching the Earth's core :P
A video from the channel 'Intereconomía'?? Really?? You wanna make me puke, right? ¬¬ Sigh.... Okay, your example is that one of people pretending to be whiter than white. I mentioned it in my comment. But we should ignore that kind of people when talkin' about the issue. Otherwise we turn the topic into a freak show that makes us wander from the real point (something that 'Intereconomía's news are glad to do btw)
C'mon Mary...!! Deep inside I believe we could make a good couple, something like ying and yang, right ? :D
O.k. Let's take another instance... sometimes we want to be sooo fashionable, sooo cool and sooo modern that we make an ASS of ourselves, all for avoiding to be blamed by the evil word; sexist.
Please, take a look at this video Mary. (First I apologise to moderators and members since it's not in English but this is a reply concerning this topic)
https://youtu.be/ggaSVka6q90
...we can hear these 'inclusive language' or what I call talk rubbishes from our politicians or in any public speech every day. Supongo que vende mucho o al menos da votos pero para mí excede lo absurdo y ridículo. Is this called defending the equality? Hmm.. just hope I'm wrong again and this is not a feminist cause :)
Ohh.. for sure I only blame the rotten chickpeas and not the whole stew.
Estanis, you're looking for me to scold you, right? :D
It might "sound like trending topic" 'cause, as I said in my comment to Luci, we are a Consumer Society who are already getting used to 'consume' news as if it was products or 'trending topic' things, as you say. This 'fight' has always been there, unfortunatelly is not something 'new'; but now we just have more opportunities to raise our voice.
"there's no need of making a big fuss about anything we think that slightly smells to sexism"(~Estanis)... Well, is easy to say that when you belong to the genre that has always been favored throughout history of mankind :D I know when you say that, you've in mind some kind of people who is taking advantage of a good cause to promote themselves, or who pretend to be whiter than white ( =más papista que el Papa) or people who shares the message like 'giving lessons' instead of just educating without the need of 'scolding' people for not having the right info. I agree not everybody knows how to "spread the message" and they do a disservice to the cause instead. But Estanis... No es bueno tirar todo el cocido porque haya algunos garbanzos malos ;)
" female gender has advantages before the law for issues such as divorce, custody of children, apportionment of the property..."(~Estanis) Well, that was also a sexist thought and it comes from the times (I'm sure you'll remember) when it was a very popular thought that women's role was only to take care of the kids while men's role was to work and maintain the family. But here I feel also that you 'misunderstand' what is the feminist cause: Feminism is not to defend women's right, or asking for 'advantages', it's about to defend equality. So here, feminism defends that guys can raise kids alone as good as any woman.
"Let's men behave like men so as women behave like women. If female like dressing in pink or playing with dolls whenever we don't force them and males like playing with toy guns what's the problem?" (~Estanis) ...Erm... ofc there's not any problem. My niece loves pink clothes and I'm ok with that. It would be ridiculous 'forcing' her to like other less 'girly' color or whatever... and that's why your comment makes me think that you are blaming the cause only 'cause of these 'bad chickpeas' in the stew. Estanis, the feminism, as I understand it, it doesn't want little girls not wearing pink t-shirts or t-shirts with the message 'you're fabulous'. It wants clothing stores giving same options to both genres and make them have pink and 'you're fabulous' t-shirts in boys' section as well ;)
To me it's sort of trending topic nowadays and hope you don't make me wrong but it seems that one have to be sooooo careful when speaking or interacting since you can be stoned for life.
All and every sexual harassment or abuse must be always punished so as any gender discrimination should be reported but there's no need of making a big fuss about anything we think that slightly smells to sexism. Some women could also have an hypocritical and ridiculous behaviour but poor the man who dares to report it haha...
Again, don't make me wrong, I know what I'm saying for near experience too. At the end (in our society) female gender has advantages before the law for issues such as divorce, custody of children, apportionment of the property...
Let's men behave like men so as women behave like women. If female like dressing in pink or playing with dolls whenever we don't force them and males like playing with toy guns what's the problem? Let's them be, in general terms it's our nature.
In any case I agree that we have work already to do to get a fair equity in all fields.
Thanks Roman,
The thing is that, in this particular case, this problem could be fixed very easily if they just print same messages for both genres... or simply not to print any message at all. Looking at the level of stupidity of the messages/sentences they print, I rather if they pick the second option.
Thanks for dropping by!
Luci, I understand your feeling of 'confusion' haha... Yeah, i totally get it. Our society is reaching very high levels of stupidity :P We are a Consumer Society and we're getting used to consume news as if we were consuming any other 'product'. That's why today people make lot of noise for a stupid Clothing advertising campaign (anybody remember how were the Benetton's advertising campaigns? Seems not) while anybody seems to remember the refugees' issue. But tomorrow we'll forget again how much we 'care' the racist problem 'cause we'll have another news to 'consume'.
In any case, I do think it was a very stupid and clumsy thing what the clothing company did... but probably they didn't even think about it. A funny thing is that I like to call my niece 'little monkey' or 'mokey face' and, several months ago, my bro asked me not to call her like that 'cause there were Moroccan kids in the kindergarten and my brother was afraid my niece could repeat that to them. You can imagine my "WTF?!" face hahaha XD I was like: "Are you serious? ...Monkey's faces aren't cute? We don't believe in Darwin's theory anymore? hahaha... So yeah... I could neither relate the word 'monkey' to a racist term because I'm really bad trying to guess what can be in a stupid racist mind, but well... Good thing I don't have a huge clothing company to write stupid messages.
Rosemary, yes, that lil girl is really mature :)
Thanks for dropping by!
Thanks for sharing dear Mary . However , I was happy when I saw the awareness of the little child and her refusal to accept the stereotype sentences on girls T shirts.
Behind this girl is a great mother showing her the right way to cross :) :) :)
Anyway as for this video I watched it too when it was viral and I felt also dissapointed and sad like this girl... Let's firstly focus on gender discrimination instead of fighting against some monkeys like insane...
Hi MARY! I am 100% against any kind of discrimination, especially against women.
If I were that girl, I would also be disappointed by that.
Clothes inprints, it looks like a small and petty thing, but it carries important information. It is like in a fight against a dangerous virus or infection, even the smallest amount of it can kill...