We're living in a fraught time. The nightly news is filled with calamities, on every continent of the planet.
In the face of so much turmoil in the world, women hesitate to speak about their own struggles at home and at work.
We self-deprecatingly tell friends that we've got "first world problems".
Women tell me they're ashamed to even complain about feeling overwhelmed at home, or undervalued at work, because "it sounds so privileged".
This sets up an unhelpful hierarchy: problems worth caring about (the "big stuff" going wrong in the world), and "first world problems" (the "little stuff" going wrong in our homes).
And it's a form of self-gaslighting. Of trying to convince ourselves that we shouldn't care so much about our own emotional pain, because it's not "important enough" in the bigger scheme of things.
As feminists, we need to examine this line of thinking. Because it's one way that people in power keep women down.
What You'll Learn:
Two things can be true: there are important tragedies in the world AND important issues at home
Why patriarchal, white-supremacist, late-stage capitalism runs on women's exhaustion
A few reasons why we should retire the entire phrase "first world problems"
How putting yourself first can make you MORE equipped to cause good trouble in the world
For more information, visit The Mental Offload.
