A Little Rant on Gender Equality, Feminism, and Sam Pepper
Hello everyone! If you are as into YouTube, YouTubers, and Twitter as myself, you might have seen Sam Pepper's video; or at least heard about it. This post is going to be my thoughts on that and Emma Watson's speech at the UN on gender equality. I will also be posting a video with my thoughts on this topic tomorrow.
Before starting off this post, I would like to give a little
background about myself. Before this year, I would have never dared to
call myself a feminist. I didn't really know what feminism was, but I
just knew I didn't want to be a part of it. Last semester, I took a
course called Women's Studies, which really opened my eyes. The class
made me realize that I was a feminist. The basic definition of feminism is equal rights for women. Now why just last year did I not
want to be labeled as one, even though I believe in equal rights? It was because of the negative stigma that
seems to be attached to that word. Feminists are seen as crazy man
haters. Which I am definitely not.
Emma Watson
gave a speech on gender equality at the UN the other day, which I very
much agree with. I was fortunate enough to be born into a family that
was happy that I was a girl. I was fortunate enough to go to the schools
that I did and given the opportunities that I have. Now I'm not a
famous actress like Emma, but I believe that every voice counts and I
want to do my part
There was a video posted
recently by Sam Pepper that I am beyond disgusted with. His 2 minute
video shows him pinching girls' butts all in the name of pranking. If
you have two eyes, you can clearly see that the girls are uncomfortable.
Yes, they laugh; but it's an uncomfortable laugh. They should have
never been put into that position. Women (and men) should be able to walk down the street without being touched sexually. I honestly have no idea what I
would've done in that position, although, I hope that I would have stood up
for myself. We also only saw him do this to a few different girls, but I'm
pretty sure there were many other girls that he didn't show on the video.
This
isn't the only video that he has sexually harassed women. There's one
where he's lassoing girls to him, and another where he was getting girls
to make out with him without their permission. I
was never a huge fan of his to begin with, but I definitely know I will
never be giving my support to him again. It's a very disgusting and
vile thing to do. He's dehumanizing women and sexually harassing them,
but getting no punishment.
If you have yet to
see the video, please don't look it up. All that does is make him money
from views. He doesn't deserve to make money off of sexually harassing
girls in public and calling it a prank. I am happy to say that Sam Pepper has now been uninvited from Vidcon and The Fine Bros. have tweeted that he will not be a part of YouTubers React.
I hope this gives him a wake up call, but I doubt it will, seeing as he has a lot of supporters in the comment section of his video. Surprisingly enough, a bunch of them are women. I'm honestly disgusted and very worried about this generation and how they perceive sexual harassment and feminism.
*Update: I have just found out that Sam Pepper's video was taken down and his account suspended.
Please watch Emma Watson's video on gender quality.
Let me know in the comment section what your thoughts on this topic are. I would love to other opinions.
Thanks for reading.
xoxo
