Can you guys believe that this page has over 1000 views? Likely 700 of them are from me, but whatever. I still think it's pretty cool. I went to India this summer. Best time of my life. Well, no. It was hard sometimes. Sometimes I just wanted to die. But I mean, what an amazing experience, right. I was enrolled in classes at a university and one of them was called, "gender in India". Well, let me tell you. This class was sometimes really hard to get through. Not because it was boring or anything, but rather because of the crazy and sad stories we were told about how women were treated in India. For a place that invented the Kama Sutra, it seemed weird to me that they still burned their wives when their husbands died, they still participate in dowries (laws don't matter), and that a lot of times, an Indian woman's sole purpose was to be "beautiful", whatever the hell that means and to work to make their husbands happy. Even though elementary education is free for all children, including girls in India, there were crazy statistics about how many girls quit school there to help their families or because their families don't believe that girls need education. And there were so many stories of how they'd abort female fetuses or kill female babies because they were unwanted. And it just made me sick. Anyways, it makes me question what the fuck I'm complaining about here in Canada. I know, domestic abuse against women in Canada is a real thing. And I know that women get paid less than men (what is it 79 cents to the dollar in comparison?) and being whistled at by construction workers is embarrassing. But I really don't think Canada's case for equality is the same. I'm probably going to go out (knock on wood) and get a job and have equal chance of getting it than a male counterpart and if I'm treated unfairly, lord have mercy, I'm going to sue that company until it bleeds. And I've learned through my schooling enough that if my husband (if i choose to marry!) is beating me up I'm gonna send him to jail and get my whole community to hate him. And if a construction worker whistles at me it's because I look good because I'm allowed to wear whatever the fuck I want. Now this is only my own situation. I'd like to think of myself as an empowered female Canadian. I know there's probably a million female Canadians who wouldn't be able to do what I say I would do (And would I? Maybe I'm all talk) but all in all, we're doing a pretty okay job. In some sense, India is now in a position where most of its people know their treatment against women is wrong, at least a little bit. It's just still quite embedded in their culture as somewhat acceptable. I think that Canada's biggest problem is how most people agree about gender equality and the idea that beating on your wife is wrong, all the time. What we're dealing with is more of a quite sexism. Where, yeah, we blame rape victims and we call girls sluts and we let men make "get back in the kitchen jokes" I really don't know what I'm talking about though.

INDIA BABY GIRL!!!! D'AWWW