Outspoken_1

Currently residing in the country (not on my own volition) that managed to f*d the female right’s in a fortnight, I just can’t get rid of the filling that I’m watching some sort of a terrible movie. That sort when you think it can’t get any worse, and that’s exactly the moment when all is left goes to even bigger shit. Your popcorn has ran out, you don’t have anywhere to rush to, and on the top of that you quite sure no one will compensate you for all that bullshit that you’ve just seen. So you decide to sit till the end no matter what.

That’s exactly how I feel!

Anyway. The country I’m talking about is Poland. I don’t know if you know but Poland just banned almost all abortions making them completely unconstitutional. A couple of months ago still Poland left the Istanbul convention (treaty on domestic violence). So now if a polish dude beats his wife – its ok; if he rapes her – still ok; if she conceives a baby from that – ok; if he keeps beating her, traumatizing the fetus in the process- even more ok, and sorry no abortions cause unconstitutional (read against religion). But gay marriages are not ok. But letting foreigners to set up their businesses without paying more than 50% of earnings to taxes – not ok, and preposterous.

PiS – the ruling party rn in Poland insisted on holding the presidential elections amidst COVID-19 pandemic. They won. But only by 2%. The very crazy religious party that ruled the country for years almost lost to a party that wants to keep sex education in schools and promotes equal rights for LGBTQ community…. No wonder they lost their shit entirely. It feels like they understand that more probable than not it’s their last term in power, so they are trying their hardest to leave nothing but ashes behind. PiS is literally trying to cause as much damage as possible to everything that remotely looks progressive.

Take corona for example. First lockdown happened when Poland had around 200 cases daily. The peak day it was 400 sth. Guess what, it’s been 16.300 cases today, and they still want kids 1-4 grade to go to school in person. But elderly are prohibited from leaving their homes.

That’s a genius solution if you take into consideration the fact that a crap ton of young people left Poland in hope to earn more in the neighboring countries (and they do btw). Some of them left their kids under protection of their parents. So let’s see. Kids are prohibited to go outside without chaperon from 8 to 4PM; grandma and grandpa can’t leave the house at all, and still the kid has to go to school somehow. Is it just me and my poor math grades or that simply doesn’t add up?!

Another example: my husband is in medical school here in Poland. The whole university rn does online classes but not his department. All medical students have to go to the hospitals and see the patients. If you asking what’s wrong with that I will gladly provide you with an answer. Hospitals are full with COVID patients + school didn’t require any coronavirus testing to be done by students + they didn’t provide them with a protective gear (kinda promised but in the end the PPE turned out to be a pair of regular scrubs of a very poor quality). They didn’t even make them to sign any kind of disclaimer in case the students will actually get sick… No matter how ruthless that would’ve been, I would’ve understood the “to-hell-with-students-let’s-save-our-assess” policy. They didn’t even do that.

Tomorrow the government will decide whether or not to put another lockdown in place, but I feel like no matter what the decide, that “movie” is not gonna have a happy ending.

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“If a boy hits you on a playground, that’s just because he likes you, dear one” – old “wisdom” from our grannies and a lot of women who lived before them.

Now take a moment to read the statement one more time and think, like really think about what it means. Basically, it tells a small child that is being beaten, pushed over, and otherwise hurt that it is ok, cause …. the boy “Likes you”. “He is just confused and doesn’t know how to show his enormous adoration towards you.”

Or, maybe, he is just a poorly behaving idiot. Or maybe, he needs a psychologist’s help because he can’t manage his emotions for one reason or another. Maybe his dad beats his mom and he sees it and tries to recreate that behavior in his life.

The girl’s parents are also giving her very bad advice, and the problem is much bigger than the playground situation mentioned above. The girl will eventually grow up and (surprise) will be more prone to tolerate abusive behavior from a man.

We have to teach girls to place a high value on themselves. We have to teach boys to value other people’s lives, and not be afraid to show their emotions.

Nowadays, unfortunately, and especially in Eastern European culture there’s a lot of domestic violence. Not so long ago people believed in the necessity of beating children as a form of punishment, going to a psychologist was something to be ashamed of, and boys were forbidden from crying. “Men don’t cry”, they said. Our parents had all the best for us in mind, but the sad truth is that majority of them have failed us miserably.

In Ukraine women still depend on men in a lot of ways. Girls are being raised with a goal to get married to a rich guy, preferably, so they can sit and look pretty for the rest of their life. Boys are also being taught a lot of stereotypical sexist garbage: don’t cry, don’t play with toys, don’t like pink, don’t dance, sing, act on stage…

The root of the issue with all forms of violence, unless it’s a medical condition that has to be treated, is in the environment and the genetics one is born with. A classic example of when nature and nurture collide. We lean almost all of our behaviors from our parents. They create a reality for us from the moment we are born. The observed behavior within the home will be later replicated and perceived to be normal.

Mom cries at night every day after spending the whole day at work and later doing all the housework while dad is laying on the couch all day. This becomes the “women’s fate”, means that the daughter in the future would be ok with having a husband who doesn’t respect her and she would also be ok with carrying everything on her shoulders without even questioning the situation because her mom did so. Being unhappy she will perceive as something normal. The little boy, raised in the same family, will think that there’s no need to do anything, as long as there’s a woman to do all the work because his dad lived like that and was perfectly content with that. He will even probably be prone to violence if, for example, he marries a girl who sees roles in the marriage differently. Being very confused and therefore angry at her for questioning his reality, he will try to make her understand with his fists. Because, let’s be honest, no words can explain something like.

In my honest humble opinion, 80-90% of people are not ready to have kids. Hence, they shouldn’t. We are being taught neither at school nor in the real world how to raise a child to be independent and wholesome. The majority of us think that a good child is the one that obeys you fully. Unfortunately, that is a sign of a child that will fail in life miserably. His obedience leads to a lack of personality, and the child depends on the moods of others lacking his own opinion.

One of my favorite psychologists once said that if you are choosing between raising an overly confident, self-absorbed child or a very obedient one who will not contradict his parents – choose the first option. Cause life will test and tame both of them more or less evenly, but the first child has bigger chances to survive that turmoil and come out happy and strong.

All conflicts are of a mental nature. There’s only one way to change something – therapy. But in order to do so, the person has to admit that there’s a problem to be dealt with.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton