Others have it worse
Recently I’ve been reading The Feminine Mystique which covers the issue of the unhappy housewife. This issue is how housewives used to (and still do) feel incomplete even when being graced with things that society instates ‘completes’ a woman. These things are a husband, a home, a child, and a kitchen. Now, in the 21st century, we know that a woman needs to feel complete herself before she can help others. She cannot live off others bread. Though this issue is still relevant in today’s society, something that has definitely stood the test of time is an excuse people gave to shun this issue. They said the housewives should be happy and grateful, because others have it worse. Fast forward to when the women’s march was happening this year, I read online an article discussing why the woman author would not march. She gave a few other reasons, but the one that hit me the hardest was this same excuse. She explained how she found the women’s march redundant because there are women in places other than America who have it worse. This excuse must be the flimsiest excuse I have ever heard. Not only does this not help either cause, but it also attempts to erase one as a whole. Also, this argument has always bothered me because if someone is in pain, the suffering of another cannot make them dismiss their own agony. A simple example of this is: if a child cuts their leg from falling off the swings, the mother does not go up to the child and say, “Oh stop crying, some children don’t even have legs.” Also, the child does not hear this and say, “You know what you’re right and due to that comparison, all the pain is gone.” This kind of thinking does not help anyone, but implements more silent suffering. If someone points out that others have it worse it does not ease the other person’s pain, but makes them do it silently. It oppresses their right to have emotions. Alongside that, this kind of thinking doesn’t help either cause. The woman who wrote this article did not say, “Women in other countries who have to fight for their education have it worse so I am going to donate a hundred dollars to a cause that supports women’s struggle for education.” No, she only stated that others had it worse, without the intention of helping either cause. The only person she was helping was herself by making excuses for herself, so she could feel better about not contributing. Also, it’s not like there were two marches in place, one for American women’s rights and one for other countries women’s rights, and everyone agreed to only go to the American one. It was called the women’s march so it could give the protesters the right to protest any women’s issue they wanted. There were signs for LGBTQ, signs for Native American rights, signs for Muslim women’s rights, signs for sexual abuse survivors, signs for Black Lives Matter, and everything in-between. The more I think about it, this woman could have gone to the protest and fought against the problems that she felt were ‘much worse than the American women’s problems.’ This being said, her excuse to not be there is completely faulty. All in all, people of this world, please stop using the excuse, “others have it worse.” Stop, because you don’t know what people are feeling and have no right to judge them for suffering. Stop, because you are not helping either cause in saying this. Stop, because supporting something is better than sitting at home and making excuses for not supporting it. Stop.
