Forced Sacrifices

Yesterday, you walked down the road, you saw a strange young man walk into a bank. Your best friend confessed her deep true love for you. You convinced seven people you know to sign that ever-growing petition. A woman taught her son not to buy dolls. A girl came out to her parents. They all could have been making history. Maybe not world history, maybe they didn't change the course of humanity, but every step they made could have altered their own life, their children's lives, their minds and hearts. History does not happen from a second to the next. World War II did not just suddenly happen in one specific moment on one specific date. Civil Rights Movements did not just suddenly spur up out of nothing. Stereotypes didn't just happen to create themselves one day.

We don't notice it, but we are surrounded by these tiny steps. These footprints which ultimately make up how our world is today.

It's only when we're hit by them like a train on full speed that we abruptly see the inevitable road they've mapped beneath our feet, sticking to us like quick sand.

I was at a summer camp, in a great environment with some of the most incredible people I've ever met, when this train finally came. It was small, didn't carry much cargo, but sped up from out of nowhere.

"You're so lucky your cabin got to go to the pool with the guys' cabin."

"Oh, you guys haven't yet?"

"No, we're not allowed to," she said. "Our counsellor says she's protecting us because it's dangerous to go with them."

Now you may think I'm exaggerating. You may be laughing at me from your screen, wherever you are. You might not see it, you might not notice what lies beyond all this, what hides in between the lines, what this shows about our society.

This is the exact starting point of the trainwreck.

This 20-something year old female counsellor wouldn't let her young teenage girls (not older than 13) go to the pool with the same aged boys cabin at an international summer camp to 'protect' them. I would understand if these were grown men, or perhaps troubled kids, or even showed the minimum signs of inappropriateness. But these kids were angels. First of all, if she truly went as far as to stop her girls from having a fun day at the pool during the summer-time, the problem obviously lies in these boys, and rather than punishing the girls, perhaps the right answer would be to go directly at the roots and prevent these boys from being so 'dangerous'.

Now, taking all this apart and leaving the whole summer-camp setting, I think it'll be easier to understand the truth that lies beneath. Why have we always been taught to sacrifice ourselves? Why does society warn girls on how to dress, rather than boys on how to treat us with respect? In recent news, I'm sure all of us have read on the ridiculous sexist dress codes young girls are subject to especially in the U.S.. Nowadays, it's as if we've returned to the 1800s, where shoulders and perhaps even elbows are considered a scandal. I'm in no way suggesting that girls should show up to school and to work in short little skirts with see-through tank-tops, there is always a time and a place for everything, yet this is more of a form of discrimination, a sacrifice girls must make in order to make sure that boys don't walk into lockers and pay attention in class. The reality of the situation is that it's not even adolescent males which are the problem. Perhaps it's the 60 year old teachers who find a teenage girl's neck distracting. Instead of bringing down female rights and forbidding them to dress and even express who they are, why not teach the males not to rape or disrespect just because a woman's collarbone is visible. The implementation of these sexist dress codes creates a threatening environment where girls are forced to worry about their image constantly and the way it's being reciprocated and if not, live with the fear of guilt and humiliation.