Abigail Tarttelin Quotes

I think the HeforShe campaign is a fantastic initiative, and of course men and boys should be involved in seeking equality for women, because we are people, and you are people, and people should help out other people. I think more engagement too could be found from addressing the problems males face from gender inequality, because while the problems girls and women face from sexism are much more violent, I sometimes think the pressures on boys and men are more poisonous. If we think about it clearly, we see that the gender inequalities men face often lead to the gender inequalities women face. For instance, domestic abuse is often about a man’s assertion of power and control, but if he didn’t think he needed those things in the first place, would the abuse ever happen? Similarly, rape culture is often about male entitlement, but that sense of entitlement comes from what we as a society tell men about their gender, and what it means.

Sometimes I still feel that there are two of me: one clean, flawless picture, the other imperfect and cracked; one boy, one girl; one voice that speaks aloud and one that whispers in my ear; one publicly known to have been troubled but be on the mend, the other who has privately lost something to do with innocence and gained something to do with knowledge and adulthood that can never be undone. I feel sometimes there are things that tear me in two directions, that there are two sets of thoughts that grow side by side. But then I realize that I am whole, whatever that means and does not mean; I am complete without the need for additions or alteration.