It's nice that we can write blogs and tell everyone who cares to read what we stand for. Or analyze the latest trends, crazes and ideas. It's nice that we can express ourselves and find other people who care to comment. Or not. But in the end, does it really matter? I mean I'm most likely to read the bits and pieces that already fit my values and worldviews. What I read adds to what I already think, but it doesn't change it.If I am against abortion, I probably won't be reading Feministe (unless I want to trash them). And, it turns out, more and more young women are against abortion. I'm speechless. I simply cannot understand how a woman can be against abortion - unless she's brainwashed by religious beliefs. After all the fight that previous generations had to put up to get to the point where a woman could claim her right to her own body, some still fail to understand the importance of this right. And the price some people had to pay for it. Fighting for the right to abortion does not mean that all women get pregnant and have an abortion. It's like saying 'we are against condoms, because they encourage promiscuity'.
And if I am against abortion, it's most likely that I believe in the sanctity of my cause. Each year, some students in an university in a conservative city put up billboards on campus that equate abortion with genocide. The images are graphic, the students are believers. I'm speechless again. How can it be that students, who used to represent the revolutionary wave, have become the prophets of intolerance, blind faith and conservatism? Their 1968 French fellows must be really disappointed... Students used to represent the commitment to critical thinking and reason (I know, a heavy concept, but maybe it's time to reclaim it). Not anymore. Not since the university has become the labor-processing plant, serving the needs of governments and industry. Critical thinking is a dying breed - nobody needs it anymore.
Photo credits: Liverpool Street Station by victoriapeckham
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