Why We Have This Month and Why Still Need It

It is almost the end of March, so I am still on time to write about it, about Women’s History Month. What does this mean? As I hinted in a previous post, some months are dedicated to acknowledging, remembering, commemorating and observing important events in the history of the people to which such months are dedicated. March is the month dedicated to women’s history as well as having the International Women’s Day on the 8th of this month. This makes people think that now is all well, if there were problems, they were in the past and we can now celebrate each month something good. Unfortunately this is not the case. These are not the cases. And I will explain why.

Why a Women’s History Month

From Wikipedia we read that:

Women’s History Month is an annual declared month that highlights the contributions of women to events in history and contemporary society. It is celebrated during March in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, corresponding with International Women’s Day on March 8, and during October in Canada, corresponding with the celebration of Persons Day on October 18.
Wikipedia – Women’s History Month page

What would you understand from these words? That there is the acknowledgement of what women have done from more or less recent history: that we recognise the hard-working women that have never stopped fighting for their rights, from better working conditions to the right to vote, to sexual rights, etc. That is the idea. That women have fought and they have won, that now we can look at the past and see what the fair sex has done and be grateful that it’s been done. There is nothing else to do, right? Mh.

But there is no “man’s history month” and men too have done quite a lot. So why is there a women’s month?

Similarly to Black History Month, LGBTQ+ History Month, etc., it means that there are actually unresolved things going on, that we still need to work on bettering the situation of these people in every aspect of their lives. So it has been decided to dedicate one month a year to say “Thank you for your contributions” or “Sorry, you still don’t have some basic rights because you are different”. And this brings us to…

Why Still Need a Month Dedicated to Women

Because there are still women that are beaten and raped daily;

Because women are denied basic rights;

Because little girls are forced into marrying much older men;

Because women are still not granted protection by the authorities;

Because there still is a pay gap;

Because it is the 21st Century and women are slut-shamed.

And I not talking (only) about those countries that are considered developing countries, but also those that are allegedly developed ones.

The most recent events in England have shed some (dark) light on problems affecting the relationship between women and authorities (you can read more here and here);

In U.S.A. there still are States where marrying girls under 16 years old is legal;

In Poland, women have been stripped of the right to abortion even in extreme circumstances (you can read more here on the background of the situation and here);

Ireland is famous for having her women travelling to England in order to abort, even after the recent Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018 (more info here);

In Italy, rape and sexual assault victims are still blamed for how they dressed at the time of the attack.

Concluding

Why am I talking about these matters on a vegan blog? As I previously explained, I am a firm believer in veganism as a holistic social philosophy. Like many others, I went vegan for the animals and the environment, but soon I realised that one can’t do much in aid of these issues without integrating the issues concerning people, which are strictly connected to affairs of social justice: we can’t achieve total animal liberation and have a clean, healthy Earth without the eradication of racism, fair working conditions for everybody, equal rights for women and men, recognising the rights of the LGBTQ+ community, etc.

Be kind, be more empathic, stand up against abuse: this is the way to a better world for everybody and our beloved Earth.

Sending messages of hope to all of you!

It is just over a year and a month now, that this speech was made. So why am I writing about this just today? Well, first of all, this blog was born like three months ago, and unless we have a time machine available it would have not been possible to write this at the time. Second: I didn’t think about this speech until a couple of days ago, and I actually don’t even remember why I thought about it. Third: I don’t believe this speech has gained that much consideration, even at the time it was made, a year ago, while it is absolutely still relevant (despite this fast-running, speed-racing machine that is the contemporary world, where things become obsolete after few months). Hence I feel like this should be made more widespread.

The speech I am talking about is the one that Joaquin Phoenix gave when he won the Oscar for Best Actor for his performance as Joker in the homonym movie (which is brilliant: if you haven’t watched it yet, do it, you won’t regret it! I leave you the trailer at the end).

So, Joaquin Phoenix is a long-time vegan (since he was a child) and he has publicly spoken many times as well as taking part in public protests for animal rights (you can read it here, here, here and what a recent interview here). If this wasn’t enough, he has also been arrested during a protest on climate change.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that he took such an important opportunity, such as the Oscar’s acceptance speech, to raise awareness of animals rights. But in these 5 minutes, he managed to include themes of social justice, the fight against racism, gender rights and LGBTQ+ rights. Few moments, with very powerful words.

You might remember that Leonardo DiCaprio did something similar when he won his first Oscar (whoo-hoo! Well done Leo, you should have gotten one much earlier, but better late than never!). He said that “making The Revenant [the movie for which he won the award] was about man’s relationship to the Natural World, a world that we collectively felt in 2015 as the hottest year in recorded history. Our production needed to move to the southern tip of this planet just to be able to find snow. Climate change is real, it is happening right now, it is the most urgent threat facing our entire species, and we need to work collectively together and stop procrastinating, we need to support leaders around the world who do not speak for the big polluters, the big corporations, but who speak for all of humanity, for the indigenous people of the world, for the billions and billions of underprivileged people who will be most affected by this, for our children’s children and for those people out there whose voices have been drowned out by the politics of greed. I thank you all for this amazing award tonight. Let us not take this Planet for granted, I do not take this night for granted.”

I find that Joaquin’s speech went beyond that: that through veganism people can not only live in a more compassionate way, but also that the vegan lifestyle can benefit non-humans and humans alike, helping in the fight against social injustice as well as for a better environment.

I leave you the video here (and the transcript below it):

“I’m full of so much gratitude right now. And I do not feel elevated above any of my fellow nominees or anyone in this room because we share the same love, the love of film and this form of expression has given me the most extraordinary life. I don’t know what I’d be without it. But I think the greatest gift that it’s given me and many of us in this room is the opportunity to use our voice for the voiceless. I’ve been thinking a lot about some of the distressing issues that we are facing collectively and I think at times that we feel, or were made to feel, that we champion different causes. But for me, I see commonality. I think whether we are talking about gender inequality, or racism, or queer rights, or indigenous rights, or animals rights, we are talking about the fight against injustice, we are talking about the fight against the belief that one nation, one people, one race, one gender, or one species has the right to dominate, control, and use and exploit another with impunity.
(applause)
I think that we’ve become very disconnected from the natural world and many of us, what we are guilty of, is an egocentric worldview: the belief that we’re the centre of the universe; we go into the natural world and we plunder it for its resources; we feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow and when she gives birth, we steal her baby even though her cries of anguish are unmistakable and then we take her milk, that it’s intended for a calf, and we put it in our coffee and our cereal. And I think, we fear the idea of personal change because we think that we have to sacrifice something, to give something up: but human beings at our best, are so inventive, so creative and ingenious and I think that when we use love and compassion as our dieting principles we can create, develop and implement systems of change that are beneficial to all sentient beings and to the environment.
(cheers)
Now, I’ve been a scoundrel in my life, I’ve been selfish, I’ve been cruel at times, hard to work with, and ungrateful but so many of you in this room have given me a second chance, and I think that’s when we are at our best: when, when we support each other, not when we cancel each other out for past mistakes, but when we help each other to grow, when we educate each other, when we guide each other towards redemption. That is the best of humanity.
(applause)
When he was 17, my brother [River Phoenix] wrote these lyrics, he said ‘run to the rescue with love, and peace will follow’.
Thank you.”