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AGA Roll Call: What Women Need

Submitted by Jeyoani on July 2, 2006 - 4:21pm.
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What do women need most?

There are endless opinions on just what it is women need the most in this world-- amongst feminists and in feminist theory there have been many answers given as to what this need might be.

What do you think it is? More confidence? Weapons? Their own country? Food? More love for their mothers? More love from their mothers? Or fathers? College education? A sense of completeness apart from lovers/family/children? A revolution or breakthrough in science, math or space travel? A womens martial art?

What is the common thing that womankind the world over needs?

How will this filled need change the lives of women? Is this something women must find deep in themselves and develop individually, or is this more so something society and women as a whole need to see, address and work to change as a group?

Tag your post with "AGA Roll Call: What Women Need," or, if you're a reader here, leave a letter at the All Girl Army forums, or a link to your letter at your own blog or journal in the comments here.

To read our writer's responses to this call as they come in, click here.

I realize this is an extremely broad and complex question but this is why I'm excited to see everyones different takes on this. :)
-Jeyoani

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We need to become

Submitted by rosindust (not verified) on July 3, 2006 - 11:00am.

We need to become genderblind.

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Okay....

Submitted by Heather on July 3, 2006 - 7:01pm.

...but I have to wonder how WE could do that, when our sex and our gender is not only assigned to us, with the status (read: lack thereof) it entails, but in nearly everything we do; even if WE wanted to escape our sex and gender, to no longer be aware of it, we'd still be made aware of it in everything from our paychecks to our rapes to our daughters treatment at school to our healthcare.

And if WOMEN became genderblind, were that possible, how then might we manage the fact that men, as a class, aren't, and have a prevailing interest in not being so? What benefits do you see this actually netting women as a class?

To put it in another context, if those of color became "colorblind," were such a thing possible, where do the benefits lie, and how does that work/play out in a culture which is anything but, and where those with the most power and privilege will NOT be colorblind?

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Yeah ....

Submitted by Cristy on August 15, 2006 - 10:41pm.

... but you could follow the same logic with any benificial change in a minority that doesn't necessarily affect a majority. What good does /x/ do if society as a whole doesn't acknowledge it as viable? We don't have to adress the affect it has on society here,in this context, but only the good it does individual women. If a quality (such as genderblindness) fortifies a woman's belief that she's an equal to men, even if it doesn't secure her status as equal to men in society's eyes, it is of benifit. But I do see what you mean - how is it POSSIBLE for women to become genderblind when our gender is constantly shoved in our face?

Personally, I think that the thing women need most, world wide, is knowledge. Knowledge of other women, feminist principles, science, art, etc. If women empower themselves with such knowledge, not only will they be able to question society's assertion of gender as absolute(and thus allow for, in a way, genderblindness by making gender subjective and conceptual rather than the reality that society tries to shove in our faces), but they'll also be able to make themselves more competent in society's eyes. There's my input! Thanks for hearin' it.

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