For anyone who doesn’t know, The hashtag #EverydaySexism has been alive and kicking on twitter for quite sometime now.
It’s a somewhat constant, spontaneous documentation of the average things that happen to women on a daily basis that reinforce the statis quo and the oppression and objectification of women as a whole. It’s often a documentation of the simple things that may go unnoticed by a lot of people but still cause damage by forcing people into gender roles and the stripping away of power.
Examples of this can seem benign if they were simply one example but together they show a rich tapestry that causes damage to how women are viewed by society and what is expected or allowed of us all.
These examples, such as someone telling a woman to smile at a bus stop, the speaking over of women’s voices or the omission of an important female character on a Marvel T-shirt are expressed daily on the hashtag.
Hey @Primark pretty sure Gamora is part of Guardians of the Galaxy too… #everydaysexism pic.twitter.com/ooREVUrmlr
— Charlie (@Girlpants_) March 16, 2015
Or maybe it will be a reminder of the simple fact that our society thinks boys and girls should have different toys.
Am I shopping for a boy or a girl? First question from staff in @HamleysToys Seething! I’m shopping for a robot loving kid #everydaysexism
— Claire Dow (@DowClaire) March 16, 2015
The #EverydaySexism hashtag* is a constant reminder of the seemingly simple, everyday shit that happens, that keeps us all boxed into specific gender roles and subservient to the hierarchies of privilege.
One #EverydaySexism tweet has really caught the attention of the hashtag and yanked like a choke-chain on my heart. It often goes unspoken but is widely known in the art world, that throughout her life, Frida Kahlo was primarily treated as nothing more than the wife and/or lover of Diego Rivera. She was not respected (as she should have been) as the genius artist and activist that she was. And this old newspaper clipping posted in the hashtag feed couldn’t illustrate that more clearly.
https://twitter.com/MrStevenRaeburn/status/577303915466653696
Imagine if the world had treated Frida Kahlo as the true artistic genius that she was throughout her entire life and not just sorta, kinda, at the end and after her death. We may have seen so much more from her.
Imagine if we treated all women with the respect they deserve.
*When reading the #everydaysexism hashtag, know that like everything on twitter, it gets trolled by asshats too.
Now go make some art and smash down those walls that have kept people boxed in for far too long!
