I was in an online discussion today that actually saddened me a little with regards of the state of humanity in this country right now. The topic was....people who are saying that we need a heterosexual "pride" day.
My stance is this, no, we do NOT need a heterosexual pride day! The whole thing feels to me like "they got one, I want one, too"! The people calling for this do not understand...the day/month is NOT about the LGBT community saying, "Hey...look at me...I'm proud to be gay" or whatever. No!! The whole purpose of gay pride is to celebrate the obstacles that the LGBT community have conquered, while at the same time bringing to attention that there is still a very long way to go! I mean seriously...same-sex marriage is now legal in this country; however, there are still states passing local laws that continue to allow discrimination against LGBT. Texas, for example, passed a bill that will all a same-sex couple to be discriminated against when trying to adopt a child SIMPLY for being gay! Yes...this is a real thing! Sure, the bill also allows for discrimination in adoptions if you are Muslim or Atheist. Yeah...way to go, Texas!! I pointed this out, and well, as one would expect, there are people out there who really seemed to be offended by it.
The discussion took so many directions with regards to oppressed and persecuted groups. I can't tell you how many times I heard today about how Christian, white, straight males are persecuted! Let's see...heterosexuals have ALWAYS been persecuted was one argument. I had to point out that I did not know of any laws against being heterosexual, though there are still many countries where being LGBT is illegal, and some where you are killed for such. Also, pointed out how historically, no matter where you look, it has always been stressed that it was wrong or evil to be gay (even the Bible says that if a man lays with another man, they are to be stoned to death).
Oh, and there is always those anti-feminists that pop up!!! Yeah, I had those guys try to say that I'm not denied anything simply because I'm a woman. I had to go into how I was passed over for a promotion at one point to a man who I was more qualified than. Oh, and how if the ACA is repealed (because, sadly enough it was happening before the ACA, so they had to specifically put a provision in there for it), I can be charged higher rates on my health insurance...simply for being a woman! I had to point out that outside of bearing a child (which is simply just the choice of biology, but that men do have a part in said pregnancy, too), woman really don't have any more health issues than men. We can both get breast cancer, just so happens that more of us women get it, because more of us have actual breasts. We can both get reproductive cancers...testicular and uterine or ovarian cancer is just as deadly. So why should I pay more for my insurance when I hardly require medical care just because I'm a woman, when a man who has chronic medical issues pays less? We should pay the same regardless! Oh...and I also had to bring up that society in general still obviously does not see men and women as equals, as I can promise you if I walk into a car dealership with my boyfriend to buy a car with MY money, and I try to initiate a conversation or a deal with the sales guy, he will still direct my boyfriend over me when talking about the car features and what not. What? Because I'm a woman, I'm not supposed to know about cars?! I know more than my boyfriend does!
I've had to pull out all the stops today to teach these youngsters...yes, many of them were easily under 30 when I looked up their FB profiles. Seriously, what are they teaching in school these days?! I pointed out that women didn't get to vote until 1920, while men have been voting since the founding of our country. Not to mention, men of color got to vote in the late 1800's, way before any woman could vote!! Desegregation didn't happen until the 1960's, and up to that point, white males were seen as the most prominent demographic, seeing as women were just starting to emerge into the work force in fields that weren't secretaries or in the service industry, such as maids and waitresses. I was born in the 1970's, and women were at the height of their struggle in the work place in male dominated fields! I still felt some of it when I went into the job market in the 1990's. When I was in high school, there was still so much racism, that if something went missing in the school...like money out of someone's locker or something...you can BET that a person of color was blamed before anyone else...even if the actual thief was white! And when the actual thief was finally caught, there were no apologies to the one falsely accused. And let's not forget that all the girls in my school had to take typing and home economics! Yeah, we were all filtered through those two classes, regardless of what we signed up to take. I knew then I wanted a career in computers, and I had to actually change schools to a more progressive one to get the classes I wanted. See, I think the problems with the younger generation is that they only know what they have seen in their time. Mom and dad always worked, so mom must not have had any issues in the workplace. No, mom just didn't have any that you knew about, because she never said anything. See, that is what we often did...we didn't say anything, just got a job elsewhere. There was no guarantee you could win your complaint, and if you did or didn't, you could get labeled a trouble-maker and that would affect the rest of your career! Kids in their high school were openly gay, while when I was in high school...yeah, I knew about a few of my friends, but it was NEVER something you ever talked about! Oh no! Without seeing how things were before the little bit of progress we have made, this generation has a hard time grasping that anything is really all that wrong. On the other hand, those of us who have been there are picking up on those little hints that things are taking a shift backwards, and we are trying to so hard to keep moving forward with the progress we have made thus far!
We are in such a sad state of misinformation, media overload, and closed-mindedness that...I don't know! Some days I feel helpless, and others it angers me into wanting to do so much more!