Happy Thursday all, and happy International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and the beginning of the #16DaysOfActivism Against Gender-Based Violence. Even though ending GBV is long overdue and still a long shot ahead, kudos to all the humans out there working to create safer spaces for girls, more accepting places for women, and a tiny bit more inclusive generation.
We often use #GenerationEquality at work, and it’s a phrase very dear to my heart because I very much believe it. I believe in an equal generation, and I believe in a generation achieving equality, and I believe in generation equality.
Now I can go into the historical details of Generation Equality and the agenda, but later, maybe. You can find all about it here. It’s more of a roadmap to achieving gender equality, a sustainable development goal, and it’s an inspiring frame of work that puts hope in the emerging generations.
From CEDAW to Beijing 1995, to the many significant conferences that helped in setting women’s rights on the map of development, those were all led by academics, scholars, and experts in gender studies and women’s rights. Icons who dedicated their lives to understanding behavioral change and society and the way to move forward with respect to communities. They have pinned down the steps needed to achieve, realistically, equality between women, men, and individuals identified as none.
However, and despite the inspiration they represent, they were all adults, and they were all intellects. This is definitely not a bad thing, and I definitely am not one to have any say in that, but just like law and order, intellects represent the base for any fundamental right, and it is the common people’s duty to execute. I believe that human rights, especially women’s rights, are more born with us than taught to us. Human rights are for all, and not only those who seek education. They are for the youths and the people living in this world and trying to make it a bit happier and safer.
I am talking about us, and particularly Gen Z, the generation that was born between 1997-2012, following millennials. This generation is often criticized to be raised by the social media and the internet, but, tbh, I rather have children raised by social media than a retrograde mentality of older generations.
As I was born in 1997, I cannot say I belong entirely to Gen Z, but I have walked on its surface and have witnessed it emerge, and I am beyond impressed. This generation is fascinating, and I am forever profoundly astonished by how developed, proud, empowered, and feminist it is.
It is mostly all about the trends, I know. However, the limitless online spaces have opened up opportunities for individuals who never had a chance to exist, let alone be accepted, within their communities. Twitter has made it okay for everyone to be who they are, with no filters, and has accepted them not despite their differences but because of their differences.
Tell me now, how else would have the LGBTQAI+ community find its voice in conservative communities if it were not for social media normalizing being you, exquisitely unfiltered, and accepting you solely for that? How else would we have heard of #BLM and supported it? How else would have western communities heard of the Palestinian struggle and marched against apartheid if it were not for the online sphere? How else would we have become comfortable with our body silhouettes, curves, birthmarks, flaws if it were not for posts and stories explaining that flawless beauty in magazines IS NOT real?
I have been working for the most prominent women’s rights organization globally for a year and a half, and I have colleagues who have worked in the feminist field for years, and I have seen Gen Z individuals use pronouns and inoffensive language more effortlessly and correctly than all of us. I have been learning so much from Gen Z youths; their acceptance/endorsement of another, their fight for women and trans individuals and equality, and I am in awe of how ‘woke‘ 16 years olds are, more than I or anyone ever was at that age (or any age).
I know it is not all sugarplum, I am not delusional. I know there is still so, so, much negativity and discrimination and bullying, especially among teens. I know social media has created [new] drastic problems and insecurities for teenagers, and God knows, it had created a few for me and still does, but it is not all bad either. I
t has given a haven for bullied persons to speak up, for lonely teens to find friends, for individuals with mental health disorders to find similar people and relate to them.
I have so many examples of what I am rambling about; I have all the evidence and proofs and stories to back up my argument. But this is already a very long post so I will stop here and continue in a part (2) later.
This is a feminist generation, we know it, we acknowledge it, and we feel it. This is a generation that refused any sort of sexist word, let alone any abuse. This is a generation that stood up against violence and called out the smallest abusive actions for what they really are: violence that needs to stop. This is generation equality, and I am so proud to be a part of it.
