Friday 30 April 2010

The way I'm seeing it.... The Fight for Equality

To average young men equality doesn’t mean an awful lot. To me it stands for everything. As a member of the LGBT community in the North of Ireland, i know firsthand what it’s like to be discriminated against from the base of society and not conform to the social norm. I often can’t help but wondering will there ever be full equality in society.


Since the Civil rights struggle in the USA, worldwide it seems to have sparked a fight for human rights. Be it Women’s’ rights, Children’s rights, Trans rights, or deaf and disabled people’s rights. It all seems to be happening and is long overdue. With all the political activism and campaigning people do in our country and worldwide today, I would have thought things would have changed a lot more by now. I won’t take away the progress the human rights movement have made in the past 60 odd years. But I think social attitudes take a long time to change and develop.


For feminism and women’s rights, to some extent the law has changed to allow gender equality to partially exist but social attitudes haven’t. In a heterosexual relationship women get 6 months off for maternity leave and men get 2 weeks for paternity leave. In my opinion the couple should be able to take the 6 months and 2 weeks and divide them between the Man and Woman as they see fit. To me this is the state echoing the outdated view that women are to be kept at home looking after the children even though this may seem as an extreme view i do feel that the state should give the couple the choice.


I study sociology, in a quick survey of the class of roughly 18-25 year olds the female members of our class were asked do they think gender equality exists in Northern Ireland, most of them nodded. The reasons were that women were allowed paid time off for maternity leave, women have equal pay and equality laws make sexual harassment illegal etc. To me, on the surface gender equality may be dressed up as being an okay issue, with equality laws making everything slightly chipper. Law is one thing, but it isn’t illegal to be prejudice. Maybe it’s the Social attitudes we need to change and back them up with the laws. The same thing applies to Gay rights. Again I won’t shadow the impressive progress made in relation to gay rights and the equality act.


However to be blunt I think the politicians society elect are hardly ever in the minority. For example there are only a few openly gay politicians is this why gay rights will be slow? Again most politicians are men so will women’s rights take a back seat? I have to be careful not to over generalise on the issue as this isn’t always the case. But I’m a firm believer in if you want a change you have to get to the top and be active. People could be more active and passionate with issues they think need addressing. Politicians are elected to change things on our behalf. I do find that not enough people speak to their local MLA or MPs asking what they’re doing for an issue they feel needs raised. I know it’s something i feel i need to do more.


Thursday 8 April 2010

Motivation...


I often ask myself what motivates us to live, who’s driving the hard bargain which makes us want to go on. The fundamental question in life often asked, is why am I here?. It’s what we do surely? we have to be here, if not where else would we be. It seems indoctrinated into the very brains we each use every day but will the question ever be fully addressed as to what makes us get out of bed in the morning.



So what motivates us to carry on? Family, Friends, Jobs, Money or that search for the ultimate life filled with happiness and success. Hands down it’s easy to say everyone has something that motivates them. For me it’s my hopes and aspirations, for the next person it could be that they have to function for their kids’ futures. Ask yourself, how do we find the motivational factor in life and what makes them so special that we never give up hope in finding them.



Throughout life’s course our motivational factors can swap and change. Once we get that well deserved place at university or that fought over promotion at work, that dream having been fulfilled will only suffice for so long before we’re charging full steam ahead into something greater and bigger all over again. It seems to me that everybody’s fighting for something. That very human instinct of survival and happiness is on its own a complete and utter touch of magic.



To some people “nothing” motivates them. Then why are you here? What do you get out of this? Life is precious and taken for granted, people doubt themselves and become fatalistic about not getting what we want. We deserve every happiness and we should NEVER follow your dreams. You should charge at them and hold them tight. Stay motivated, if you can’t get motivated start with what simple things you have. I have the breath of life which surely has to count for something. Things may be awful, things may be dark but finding motivation to get out of our ruts and be successful is surely something everyone will be eternally fighting for.



I couldnt help but wonder...

To new beginnings. 
A new blog is a new lease on life, after some shopping around and comparing different sites to host my blog i've settled. If i'm totally honest starting a blog sounds/looks easier than it actualy is. I wasn't aware of how original i was to be. I thought long and hard and ,


 i couldnt help but wonder what to call my blog..