Girls

It has been disturbing me for months now, the image of an Afghani girl shivering with pain on CNN infomercials, her face covered with a translucent slime that looks like Vaseline. A man attempts to put drops in her eyes via a long tube but she gestures him away the way a screaming toddler would a nurse with an approaching syringe. The question that has been a permanent fixture in the revolving doors of my mind repeats itself one more time. What kind of person would throw acid on little girls who just want to go to school? What kind of world do we live in that allows this?

I had heard of acid attacks before but only in the context of personalized violence against women; jilted lovers in Uganda and Bangladesh and other developing countries who seek revenge by scarring and maiming their former partners for life. It filled me with disgust then too. But the recent attacks in Afghanistan, illuminate the political dimension of Gender-based violence (GBV). I guess I can understand personal violence, the red-hot anger that drives people to hurt and kill the people they claim to love. I don’t condone it but at least I can wrap my head around it. But the coldness that drives grown men to splash burning acid in the eyes and faces of young girls who are the future? The coldness with which men maim young women for political gain and in the name of religion? That I cannot understand. It disturbs me deeply, every time I think of it. Little girls who just want to learn. How is it that grown men who claim to be interpreting the word of God can declare these little girls the enemy. Little girls who just want to learn.

This post comes after day of hell being super Nanny to a family, a new one, who, while I do love these kids, think their parents are great and enjoy my job, I also just cant help but shake my head at how much these kids have, how little they know about the world outside of their very nice four walls. Sometimes I have to catch myself while doing this and question whether my feelings are fair or if this is how we should all have been as children, but because my life was such a contrast to theirs I just cant seem to work out my feelings on this.

I was raised very aware of what goes on the world, the good, the bad and the ugly. Some of it unfortunatly I learnt the hard way, being abused etc. But the rest was because my parents were very open with us about such things. My dad especially took us to protests, friends houses who were going through crisis and it was always explained to us what was going on, sometimes I must admit this was overwhelming and probably a bit inappropriate for the age I was at the time. But most of the time, I think it was okay, good in fact, as by the time I went to high school I was very aware of the issues in not only my community, but in many parts of the world. I guess though, that my Dad being so relaxed about me interacting with people, trusting people and trusting that I knew dangerous from safe situations a little more than I did at age 11 was really how I got hurt in the first place.

The latest incident in Florida, where a group of teenage girls attacked and beat a fellow class,ate and video taped it to put it on Myspace saddened me greatly. Girl's beating up other girl's. Just the thought of that really bothers me. Women physically overpowering another woman, and often, as I found out from a number of teenage girls (and boys) who work with me the fight is about a guy who both girls are interested in or something along those lines.

I never experienced girl's at my high school actually physically fighting with each other, although sadly we had a whole lot of verbal bashing and rumors going on, which really is no better.

Now that the summer is here (apparently... I havnt even been able to wear shorts yet!) I have been madly working 3 jobs to save up so I can get out of here next year and on that (oh so long awaited) plane to Vancouver. One of those jobs, which is my very favourite, is nannying for three awesome little children, two little girls ,Molly (4) and Frances (2), and the baby boy Darcy (9 months). I have been there for over a month now, and I love those kids, I have known their parents for years and so they already knew me before I started and they are just such a cool family.

There were a couple of incidents that really have had me thinking over the past little while, and I was hoping to get some discussion on these things. The other day, I was dropping Molly off at kindergarten, I had little Frances and Darcy with me in their push chair. Earlier that day, Molly and Frances had been playing with a butterfly stamp, stamping each others hands, one of them (probably Frances!)put a stamp on Darcy's cheek just as we were running out the door to walk to kindergarten. We get in the gate to kindergarten when one of the other mothers stopped and told me he (Darcy) had something on his cheek, saying I should take it off soon because "its a butterfly and thats not a really good look on a little boy". She was not the first to say something like that whilst we were at kindergarten.