Penny For Your Thoughts

*Disclaimer: All the opinions expressed in this post are mine and mine only. Also, if you are easily offended by anything remotely feminist, or of equality for women, or quite simply if you're a menist or a feminazi, I highly suggest, and mildly request, you stop reading right here. Thank you.*

Hello, lovelies!

I hope your day and your week so far has been absolutely smashing. And if it hasn't been either of those, don't worry; there's still a while to go before the week ends. Keep your chin up, keep holding on, and you will make it no matter what, I'm sure; I believe you will.

My week so far has been a rollercoaster of emotions; then again, I suppose my entire life is one never-ending rollercoaster of emotions. Worth it to mention, I hate rides, and I hate rollercoasters.

But anyway, I digress. My emotions have certainly been all over the place, but I've been talking so much more to my best friend than ever before, so that is one of the good things from this week so far; God knows how drastically I've cut back on social interactions with not only new people and acquaintances, but also with the people I've known for years. Lord knows how much I need to change that.

I've also had to write this extremely long, stuffy research report for one of my classes, and it was through that dragged out, painful research and writing session, that I noticed this one thing; it is going to be the main focus of this post, but we'll get to that in just a bit. Hold on tight if you've read this far down after the disclaimer.

Another good thing from this week has been me achieving another bravery badge on my personal imaginary (possibly crazy?) badge board. About two weeks ago, I willingly volunteered for my name to be put down for this thing that was to happen at university; a meeting with the Higher Education Council (H.E.C) for the accreditation of our university.

They needed names of the people who wouldn't mind being "interviewed", and in a spontaneous burst of bravery, I said sure, why not, I don't mind; put me down as one of those people, please.

So, today we had that meeting. I sat in a room with other people who'd volunteered, and the two members of the H.E.C, and I miraculously did not back out, or stay stuck in my shell, no; I spoke up, and I did so confidently. In my three, soon to be four, years of university, if there's one thing I've learned, it is to fake it till you make it.

The art of bluffing is something I've learned from having a complete personality change since I started university, and I don't know if that's a good thing or bad, but hey, at least I've learned something possibly useful, right?

Apart from this being a personal achievement, it kind of also is a collective achievement, because hopefully when (not if) we get accredited, I will not be the only one benefitting from it; the students coming in after we graduate will also benefit immensely from it.

Someone once made me realize the extreme importance of doing something that not only benefits you but also the people that come in after you; it's been another lesson that I've learned through university. (Thanks, Mr.P!) It genuinely felt good leaving that room, knowing that I've contributed to the betterment of the university, and benefit of other students.

Now, while these things have been feel-good kind of things, there was something else that stuck out, and I'm not sure if it's a good thing at all; my instinct tells me it's not, but I think it can be fixed still. The realization of these things is what compelled me to write this blog post, and I think if we talk about it enough, everybody will definitely be compelled to at least think about it too.

While I was writing my report, I realized, with quite the shock, how much the word "mankind" is used. I realized this as I myself was going to, very casually, write the same word while talking about the history of art and design (trust me, it only sounds interesting. Try writing a 13-page report, and then we'll talk).

The funny thing is, once I realized the enormity of the situation, it was so pathetically difficult to find the right word as a substitute to "mankind". How do you change something whose roots are set so deep into history? Anything I wrote as a substitute just felt wrong, felt out of place; whatever I wrote felt extremely off.

Moving onto today, in the meeting room, while sitting with the other volunteers, and these are all highly educated women, I was shocked, again, by how much the word and pronouns of a male are used and sprinkled throughout our everyday lives; the number of times the students used the pronoun he/him while talking about our professors was astounding to me.

Our university is not limited to just male teachers, we have countless female teachers teaching us in our university; our university aims to empower women, and it was saddening for me to see all these educated, smart women completely gloss over and forget our female professors by forgetting to use the correct pronouns.

I know many of you reading this will probably be thinking so what's the big deal, it's just a measly little pronoun; but that, right there, is where the problem lies. It is a bigger deal than it is made out to be. This isn't just about pronouns; it's about the deep-rooted sense of inferiority of women, the unspoken, underlying implication that men are always more important, higher rated than women.

It's not any one person's fault; as can be seen from my example above, this is something that's been written in history, deeply embedded in it. This post isn't about bashing men and their privileges, even though yes, they do have the upper hand; no, this post is meant to be much more deeper than that.

It's not only the men thinking they're entitled to superiority in everything they do; it is also the women like my fellow students, highly educated, smart, intelligent women, choosing to use males as examples, because it is easier to say "he" than it is to say "she". It is easier to group humans into "mankind", into "the evolution of man", than it is to use the words "human kind".

Are we really divided just because of our genders? When will it be the norm to use gender-neutral pronouns, to remove any and all kinds of inferiority and superiority complexes? Is it really that unchangeable? Will it really take the same amount of time to undo this notion of "mankind" as it took to root and embed it?

My hope and wish, for you, the reader, to take away from this post, is this: Think about it. Really think. Do you wish to live in a world where you will raise your daughters and sons to think exactly like the people did all those years ago?

Or would you want to show them change, a better change, to show them that yes, we as human beings, are not stagnant creatures and that we have evolved and changed over time? Wouldn't you want to tell them that it's okay for them to change; show them that you are capable of embracing change, and so are they?

Think about it with all your mind and heart. You decide what kind of world you want, and then you get to work and help build that world. You are the master of not only your own world and fate, but also of the entire world and your future families; think and build wisely.

It affects us all.