While driving this morning, I heard on NPR of the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Even though I was not familiar in-depth with her politics, I knew superficially from her having been elected one of the most influential women of 2007, and what came up on her on the L.A Times, from time to time.
Regardless of her influential status, she was simply a strong willed woman; a woman perceived as a threat, who died victim of violence on her person.
Even though I did not know her; I still felt tears well up for what she represented. Another woman victim of circumstances and perceived an easy target for violence.
Violence towards women - those perceived as the weaker sex - thrives and is promoted through film, music videos which exploit women’s sexuality for sales while feeding the base instincts of malleable young minds.
It happens on the border of Juarez and Texas, where hundreds of young women have been found violated and assassinated, without any of the perpetrators of such heinous acts caught as of yet.
It happens on the border of Tijuana and California, where young girls use their bodies as commodities to be traded for $60. This is what a co-worker bragged about; that it was worth the drive there, as the girls were very young and gorgeous, and would no anything for $60. I was disgusted by this.
The list of abuse could be elongated, and take several pages to sustain this statement.
I can summarize from the rapes of children in warring countries, as those in Darfur, to the peddling of young children as sex toys to foreign pedophiles in other third world nations, to the verbal and physical abuse of abusive men on their spouses and daughters.
Strength need not originate solely from brute, physical force. There is also strength of character, conviction, willingness to sacrifice for loved ones, and last but not least, the strength to carry forth and endure the pain to bring forth and nurture a new life.
Sometimes I lose hope for mankind; then perhaps it is as it's meant to be. Man is fucking up this world on a grand scale, and perhaps we are in a rollercoaster ride to self-destruction.
