One of the perks in working for news broadcasting is
that you read tons of great articles from different media every day. Most of it
is just to check if there is something big happening in your region or in the
world. However, some articles truly catch your eye. And you start digging
deeper.
I’m usually copying the links to the articles that
looked interesting for me to my special “treasure file” to check it later more
attentively. It turned out that all three stories that I picked during my first
week of internship at the TV News are about women. Well, I guess, I really
can’t avoid that topic in my writing….
These stories about women choosing their paths made me
wondering what feelings and thoughts they had while taking certain directions in
life. If I were them, why would I decide to become what they became? Would I understand
them as a woman?
Instead of yelling about feminism while living myself
in a world with a great number of options and without tough decisions, I’d
rather try to understand those women who don’t have that luxury; to be able to
help instead of blindly imposing my beliefs on them.
A 7-years-old girl in El Salvador ran away from home
because nobody really cared about her and her uncle physically abused her every
day. A 16-years-old member of the Mara Salvatrucha, or the MS13, one of the
largest Salvadoran gangs, got arrested for having killed six children from the
other street gang. Who do we sympathize more? The answer is obvious. However,
it’s the same person. Article call these people “victims and perpetrators”.
What happened during these 9 years with the brave,
little girl? Life happened. Her brother, who helped her when she ran away, was
killed by the other street gang while she was raped by the age of 8.
The story doesn’t end there. In prison she
participated in a creative writing program and now leaving the prison at her
21, she is looking for a different life. Did she really have a choice for her
way in life? I’m not sure. Did she ever think about “choosing” some direction?
When you just need to survive, I don’t think you ask such questions.
Another story about the meaning of life. 7,000
volunteer soldiers have joined the Women’s Protection Unit, or YPJ, which grew
out of the wider Kurdish resistance movement. Most of these girls are at the
age of 18-24. They wake up at 4 am; they sleep with their guns at arm’s length;
they eat whatever food the locals donate. Meanwhile, they braid their hair,
they pluck their eyebrows; they laugh and make a girls-like friendship. And
sometimes they bury their sister-soldiers.
Don’t they want a normal life like dressing up, going
out for dates, having children? People say war is guys’ business. However,
these girls know that every day they safe people of their country, their neighbors
and relatives. They know that they are more than just young, fragile girls –
they are solders defending their land. They liberate hundreds of women and
children strained in the mountains after ISIS attacked their village.
These girls had a choice of life paths, and they chose
the one that seemed to be the most meaningful for them. The question “why do
you do that?” is ridiculous for them.
Somewhere in South Korea there is a US Army garrison,
surrounded by old shacks. There lived about 70 aging women who worked their
whole life as “comfort women” for American soldiers. They are old and sick, and
they don’t have any support from the government because they are “prostitutes”.
It’s not that kind of profession that people would
respect, right? It’s not even a legal work, people would say. Nevertheless, in the
50es Korean government deeply dependent on the U.S. military was so confident
about this “profession” that it formalized the camptowns as "special
tourism districts" with legalized prostitution.
More than 20 000 women were persuaded that they
are helping their country by sleeping with American soldiers. I always wondered
what would make a woman sleep with strangers for money. Apparently, patriotism
might be enough reason. And after you just can’t quit because that is all you
know to do for work.
The saddest thing here is that a country these women
donated their bodies for doesn’t really care about them. They became old and
sick and everything that Korean government and Korean people remember about
these women is a label “prostitute”. These women thought that made a right
choice…
