@2018

by Sydney Oliver

March eighth was women’s day and a lot of strong female activists came to mind, like Emma Watson, Halsey, Oprah, etc. Each of these women have made a difference in 2017 and the beginning of 2018 and continue to inspire women of all ages to have a voice and not to be brought down by anyone.

 Emma Watson launched her “HeForShe” campaign with a really inspiring speech that shut down the suggestion that feminism is the same thing as man hating. “ Fighting for women's rights has too often become synonymous to man-hating. If there is one thing I know for certain, it is that this has to stop.” We want to encourage men to stand up for women rights as well but how can we expect them to collaborate with us and to fight for our rights when feminism is sometimes associated with hating men? 

On women's day, Halsey did a speech about her experience with being raped and abused. It can happen to anyone men or women and her speech brought tear to the entire audience and people listening. Her five minute speech was a poem named A Story Like Mine 

“What do you mean this happen to me, you can’t put your hands on me, you don’t know what my body has been through, i’m supposed to be safe now i’ve earned it, it’s 2018 and i’ve realised nobody is safe long as she lives” this short passage of her poem demonstrates the injustices and frustrations that she and all of the others who are going through the same thing have to go through. We must make 2018 a safer place to live in, for both men and women. We both deserve to be treated equally and we must respect each other. We still have a lot of work to do but that work has to start now otherwise how can we ever evolve as a society and stop doing these horrible things to each other?