*Note: This is from my personal journal from the first week of my Women's Global Health and Human rights class at the University of Washington-Bothell.
Ever since I was a little girl I never really understood or cared about politics or laws because I had never needed to. Now that I’m older and I work at a non-profit organization named LETI, which is focused on promoting equity for minority groups and especially women through education, it’s important to understand the laws and politics that affect our work. That is one of the reasons that I was interested in taking this class!
One of the first things I did when getting access to this class was watch the film, “Girl Rising” which was one of the most eye-opening films that I have ever seen. I laid in my bed at night watching the film while my husband slept and cried. I cried because being a young woman in the United States that I am I had never realized how lucky I was to live in a country where I had rights and some level of protection. How I had the option to get an education without having to struggle the way other girls did and to be with who I wanted because my parents had been able to raise me, so I didn’t have to be given away to a man that I didn’t know. I had so much and yet it had always felt like so little, until now. I had cried myself to sleep and thought about my luck, how if I had been born somewhere on the other side of the world my life would be different, my mind wandered throughout the night and thought about all those what ifs until I drifted into my sleep.
The day after I watched the film I passionately talked to my husband during our car drive to my parents’ house about all my thoughts on the film and how I didn’t understand why these other countries didn’t allow girls to be free and to get the education they deserved and he responded simply with “Well it’s because their culture has never changed and you cannot change their beliefs, only they can do that”. I simply nodded, but deep down I still felt like there was something that should be done for these girls. That is why when I read this quote by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in our module 1.3 reading, I was more than exited, I was filled with inspiration. The quote goes like this, “Culture does not make people. People make culture. So, if it is in fact true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, then we must make it our culture”. That quote resonated with me and it made me think deeply in how we as humans tend to blame society for everything that goes wrong in our everyday lives, but are we not society? If so, then to make change we must begin with ourselves because if we cannot help ourselves than we cannot help others.
Knowledge is the one thing that can never get taken for us and that is why I continue to pursue my education because I know that it is the only thing that is mine and mine only. It is also why I see the importance of understanding laws that influence the world, especially human rights. After reading Chapter 1; Human Rights Development: Provenance, Ambit, and Effect by Winton Higgins I saw the sad truth of the modern society. The opening quote in this chapter from The Marquis de Condorcet, July 1790 “Either no individual in mankind has true rights, or all have the same ones; and whoever votes against the rights of another, whatever be his religion, his color, or his sex, has from that moment abjured his own rights” (p 55). If someone in 1790 thought this way, why was it until 1948 that we established human rights to include everyone? Even though the concept of human rights has always existed it had been twisted to be used however those in power at the time saw fit. Even though we were all human, if you didn’t fit their concept then you were not worthy of the rights you had been naturally born with. It’s a disappointing truth that I hope one day all individuals in the world will know that they have the right to live a healthy life and be who they want to be and that will only be achieved through education. I understand a little more than I did a week ago and I hope to understand more and more every day because educating a girl and anyone in general has effects that will affect the lives of many which can change the world.
Refrence List:
By: Marisol Lizbeth Bejarano
Ever since I was a little girl I never really understood or cared about politics or laws because I had never needed to. Now that I’m older and I work at a non-profit organization named LETI, which is focused on promoting equity for minority groups and especially women through education, it’s important to understand the laws and politics that affect our work. That is one of the reasons that I was interested in taking this class!
One of the first things I did when getting access to this class was watch the film, “Girl Rising” which was one of the most eye-opening films that I have ever seen. I laid in my bed at night watching the film while my husband slept and cried. I cried because being a young woman in the United States that I am I had never realized how lucky I was to live in a country where I had rights and some level of protection. How I had the option to get an education without having to struggle the way other girls did and to be with who I wanted because my parents had been able to raise me, so I didn’t have to be given away to a man that I didn’t know. I had so much and yet it had always felt like so little, until now. I had cried myself to sleep and thought about my luck, how if I had been born somewhere on the other side of the world my life would be different, my mind wandered throughout the night and thought about all those what ifs until I drifted into my sleep.
The day after I watched the film I passionately talked to my husband during our car drive to my parents’ house about all my thoughts on the film and how I didn’t understand why these other countries didn’t allow girls to be free and to get the education they deserved and he responded simply with “Well it’s because their culture has never changed and you cannot change their beliefs, only they can do that”. I simply nodded, but deep down I still felt like there was something that should be done for these girls. That is why when I read this quote by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in our module 1.3 reading, I was more than exited, I was filled with inspiration. The quote goes like this, “Culture does not make people. People make culture. So, if it is in fact true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, then we must make it our culture”. That quote resonated with me and it made me think deeply in how we as humans tend to blame society for everything that goes wrong in our everyday lives, but are we not society? If so, then to make change we must begin with ourselves because if we cannot help ourselves than we cannot help others.
Knowledge is the one thing that can never get taken for us and that is why I continue to pursue my education because I know that it is the only thing that is mine and mine only. It is also why I see the importance of understanding laws that influence the world, especially human rights. After reading Chapter 1; Human Rights Development: Provenance, Ambit, and Effect by Winton Higgins I saw the sad truth of the modern society. The opening quote in this chapter from The Marquis de Condorcet, July 1790 “Either no individual in mankind has true rights, or all have the same ones; and whoever votes against the rights of another, whatever be his religion, his color, or his sex, has from that moment abjured his own rights” (p 55). If someone in 1790 thought this way, why was it until 1948 that we established human rights to include everyone? Even though the concept of human rights has always existed it had been twisted to be used however those in power at the time saw fit. Even though we were all human, if you didn’t fit their concept then you were not worthy of the rights you had been naturally born with. It’s a disappointing truth that I hope one day all individuals in the world will know that they have the right to live a healthy life and be who they want to be and that will only be achieved through education. I understand a little more than I did a week ago and I hope to understand more and more every day because educating a girl and anyone in general has effects that will affect the lives of many which can change the world.
Refrence List:
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (n.d.). 1.3 How Do We Make "Full Humanity and Rights for Women" Our Culture? Retrieved from Canvas
- Girl Rising. Retrieved January 21, 2020, from https://washington.kanopy.com/video/girl-rising
- Higgins, W. (2012). Human Rights Development: Provenance, Ambit, and Effect. In Dudlety et al. Mental Health & Human Rights (pp 55-66). United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
- Picture from google search labeled for reuse.
By: Marisol Lizbeth Bejarano
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