“Girls can wear jeans and cut their hair short and wear shirts and boots because it's okay to be a boy; for girls it's like promotion. But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading, according to you, because secretly you believe that being a girl is degrading.”
― Ian McEwan, The Cement Garden
Been reading Atonement by Ian McEwan because it has been on my to-read list since forever and Mr Lee analysed a small part of it during lit and he keeps telling us how there's a twist and how interesting it is etc. Couldn't resist temptation and went to borrow the book from the library even though I told myself to not read any books until after A's!!! Turns out the book is too beautifully written I just cannot degrade it by speed reading through it. But I don't have the time to slowly read it either because subconsciously I keep thinking about the revision I haven't even begun. :( So I'm giving it up for now and will continue after A's!
But I think Ian McEwan is slowly but surely becoming my fav author. I'm only like, 1/6 through with the book and I'm already impressed + amazed by his language. SO GOOD. He's really good at describing and he has some really good insights. Really makes you ponder. So I really like that. :-)
Found a quote by him in his other book, The Cement Garden ^ . Really good quote, really made me think. Really made me reflect on myself as well. Quotes like these make you reflect more about yourself and it's just.... great.
Anyway, had a discussion with Jiamin about female empowerment/gender equality the other day and it was really interesting. Like, people always measure gender equality by seeing how women are doing male-dominated job or things like that? Like, people think there's female empowerment when they see a female in a political world or smth like that. But isn't that also a gender discrimination in a way that you measure/judge a women's value based on her ability to do "manly" things? Biologically women and men are good at different things, women are naturally good at "softer" things like nurturing, educating, counseling and things like that. We are not the same as men and we don't have to be the same as men. Females can be powerful by doing the things they are good at too. The only problem here is that society doesn't value these things that females do. So instead of focusing on females overcoming challenges and doing male-dominated things, we should focus on accepting the things that females are good at?
DO I MAKE SENSE??? Sorry this all sounded better in my head HAHAHA. My poor writing skills make this sounds weird T_T But anw, just a few thoughts, nothing concrete! Just felt like writing it down because I thought it was an interesting perspective.