Radical islam part 1

Maybe you’ve heard a thing or two about Mali in the news recently. If not, here is a little bit about it to get you up to speed. Mali used to be a centre of African culture with a booming tourist trade and a tradition of great musicians. Unfortunately, since the 16th of January 2012, there has been a change in this great country. Islamist military groups extended their ever growing reach into this African nation and seized control of the northern portion of the country. The cities of Gao and Timbuktu were occupied in this insurgent push.

Jihadis held the whole north before France came in

So eventually the Malian government asked for help, and France came to the rescue. They quickly pushed back Jihad in the North, but now they are engaged in an Afghanistan style war with a hidden enemy that uses child soldiers and suicide bombers to their advantage.

Now, I’m sure someone out there is thinking, “Well why can’t we just let a country do what it wants? Why do western nations always stick their nose into the business of other countries?”. Well if you take this viewpoint then please, tell me why. In my opinion the answer to this question is clear. Violent religious fundamentalists have absolutely no right to overthrow a vulnerable secular state and replace it with a cruel Islamic code of conduct known as Sharia Law

.

The islamists in northern Mali were implementing a strict form of Sharia Law. In doing so, they effectively banned alcohol, cigarettes, music, dancing, socialization, and books that are not the Quran. This form of theocratic government is the first step on the long road backwards for the rights of women, secular government, freedom of the individual, and quality of life in Mali. In the North, there were reports of inhumane applications of sharia law, such as amputation of fingers or hands as a punishment for theft.

I have to respect France for being the country to step up to the plate and help stop this menace. Even if all they manage to do is get engaged in a long bloody war, they proved that the western world would still respect democracy over theocracy. Theft should not result in amputation of the hand. Adultery should not result in public flogging. Leaving Islam is no justification for capital punishment. 

Picture from Gao

Though Mali and France seem like they’re so far and distant from us, the idea of Sharia Law is closer than you think. In Britain, Sharia is seen as a parallel legal system. Even here in Ontario, Muslim organizations attempted to get the provincial government to allow Sharia law as a parallel legal system. Luckily for us, then-Premier Dalton McGuinty answered their calls in no uncertain terms…

“There will be no sharia law in Ontario. There will be no religious arbitration in Ontario. There will be one law for all Ontarians.”

Experiments of evil

Israel Keyes killed 8-12 people brutally... looks like a nice guy

      If you could tell who was good and who was bad, this world would be a far easier place. Unfortunately it doesn’t work like that. Evil doesn’t come with a warning label. An evil person cannot be recognized by mere appearance. Maybe it could even be said that many acts we consider evil are not executed by people who are evil whatsoever. I think the answer is more complicated than just having The Devil on your shoulder.

Marilyn Manson looks super evil... Actually he's a pretty solid guy

      Many famous experiments have changed the entire way we think about evil. One occurred at Yale in 1964 and is known as The Milgram experiment. It measured the willingness of subjects to preform evil acts on an innocent person when an authority figure told them to. 

      This experiment required separating the teacher (a volunteer) and the learner (who was a paid actor) by putting them in different rooms, but still allowing them to communicate. Then the teacher then made the learner recite and remember word pairs. With each incorrect answer given, the teacher was instructed to give the learner an electric shock that increased with power for each wrong answer. The experiment was ended after the maximum 450 volt shock was administered three times, or if the teacher refused to continue after receiving these four prompts from the experimenter.

Please continue

The experiment requires that you continue

It is absolutely essential that you continue

You have no other choice, you must go on

This is how the experiment worked

      So how many administered the excruciating 450 volt shock three times to max out the experiment and end it? Five percent? Maybe ten percent? Or even as high as twenty-five percent of participants? No, a staggering 61-65% of participants administered what they believed to be the maximum shock on their innocent peer three times. These numbers barely changed, even when the experiment was moved from Yale’s respectable campus to a back room of an office building in an inner city.

      Now, what can this experiment tell us about the nature of evil? It seems to point to a truth that is sickening but entirely logical. Almost every one of us has the ability to become the inflicter of pain and torment on another human. It seems that the perceived good or evil in a person has much more to do with that person’s situation than their personal morality. 

I'll spare you the graphic pictures,
this one says it all

      It is this thought that makes heinous acts like genocide all the more terrifying; the people committing them are not all horrible twisted psychopaths. Maybe some are just cogs in a larger psychopathic machine. This means that all that would be required to get large numbers of normal people to commit abhorrent crimes against humanity would be a few horrible people in power with the intelligence and charisma to create the system. This makes a lot of sense when you think of the holocaust. I'm sure many other genocides also fall into this pattern.

      So tell me, how does this banality of evil apply in our world? From brutal dictators, to religious extremists, to soldiers who carry out war crimes; they can all be seen as evil. Is there a way to stop this, or is it simply a part of human nature? 

      I hope that through more experiments and advances in science, we will be able to one day understand and eradicate the evil in the world.

Rehteah part 2

The Halifax police have re opened the Rehteah Parsons case in the wake of her death citing “new and credible information”. Anonymous, the hacktivist group launched a campaign after her death that they named #OpJusticeforRehteah. They claim to have identified the four boys who took and sent the picture and have given that information to the police. The Canadian police, however, made sure to say that the additional information “did not come from an online source.”

Protesters holding vigil for Rehteah

Though it comes too late in this incredibly sad story of both human and government failure, Nova Scotia Justice Minister Ross Landry is seeking to change Canadian law and try to find a silver lining in this very dark cloud. If passed, this law would make it illegal to circulate pictures of a sexual nature without consent. Though what happened to Rehteah occurred at age 15, the proposed law would address this long standing problem for people of all ages, not just minors.

As young people in a digital world, we can see the effects that this law will have if it is passed. I’m sure every one of us knows someone, or has even heard rumours about someone, who had sexual pictures of them sent around. It’s tragic that, in our hyper-connected environment, people at their most vulnerable are being used as a source of comedy and ridicule all because of one bad decision. 

I hope that making distribution of those kind of pictures without consent a federal crime will stop teens from trading naked pictures of others like baseball cards. It’s a damn shame that an act as easy to trace as sending a picture between cellphones is not tracked by the police. It’s a bigger shame that the legal loophole with regards to sexual cyber bullying was so extreme that it took repeated suicides to motivate the country into action. 

     I hope another girl doesn’t have to die for this. 

     I hope we learn our lesson.

Is a hacktivist really an activist?

      Before the glory days of the internet, an activist was standing on the street with a sign. Maybe on a soapbox making a speech. Activists in large numbers would break laws, or even resort to such bold moves as standing in front of tanks. Civil disobedience was the workhorse of social change for most of the 20th century. But it’s a new era now. This is the century of the internet and a new form of activism has rapidly grown there too.

      They call themselves Hacktivists. You may have heard of Anonymous, but they are not the only group. Through image boards like 4chan and 711chan many communities started, merged, and split over the subject of online activism.

      Anonymous is probably the most influential and powerful, so for this post I’ll mainly focus on them. The iconic images of the Guy Fawkes mask and the suit without a head have become synonyms for Anonymous. They’ve shut down government websites around the world, discovered the tormentors of Amanda Todd and Rehteah Parsons, and led the way on many issues of social justice and liberty. 

      Anonymous was a large backer of the 2011 Occupy Wall Street movement, and had a considerable role in ensuring that the protests remained peaceful. They work to undermine such organizations as the Westboro Baptist Church and the Church of Scientology have a difficult time. They even went after the North Korean Government. These guys have balls, and the skills to pull it all off. Anonymous is an organization by the people and for the people, the supporters of the 99%. They don’t forgive, forget, or even back down.

      Unfortunately, there is also a darker side to the hacktivism of Anonymous. Extreme decentralization weakens the group's potency. The organization without any leaders has no ability to plan strategically and maximize their resources to further their goals of a free internet. It has even been speculated that some of their actions could diminish the freedom of the internet instead of defending it.

      

      They attacked the Chinese government. They attacked on cyber-security companies that were lobbying for internet regulations. They shut down the sites of big music companies and many US government sites in response to them closing file sharing sites. They even shut down sites that run other sites, immobilizing thousands of blogs and businesses in one fell swoop. This strain of activity could be roughly compared to shooting a bazooka into the middle of a vote on gun control. By cyber-attacking anyone who tried to control the internet, they could be further increasing the fear of an unregulated “wild west” internet.

      So what’s your take on these hacktivists? Is shutting down websites and wearing a Guy Fawkes mask really activism? Are they the voice of the oppressed in the twenty-first century, or are they simply sowing the seeds for their own destruction by poking the hornet's nest?

Embryonic Ethics

      Embryonic stem cells are possibly the most exciting development in the field of medicine. Some people see them as ethical nightmares, some people see them as the start of a medical revolution and the cure for many diseases. However, almost everyone would have to accept that they hold a massive potential for changing the way we approach illness and injury.

      So let’s back up, and talk about what they are. Embryonic stem cells are cells that can change into other cells and self regenerate. Through repetition of that process, a single totipotent (able to become all cell types) cell becomes an organism as complex as you and I. Not all stem cells are totipotent though. As the organism becomes more developed, the stem cells begin to specialize into different specialized stem cells, and finally into the myriad of different cells types that make up life.

      Hypothetically, these cells could be used to create any part of the body. Many diseases, disabilities, and injuries could be cured by this breakthrough in medical science. Unfortunately it’s never that simple. Many different groups are raising ethical issues with the source of the stem cells required for research.

      According to a list of stem cell opponents presented by Rep. Jeb Hensnarling, (R-TX), thirteen of the seventeen opponent groups are conservative religious lobbying organizations. The remaining three are primarily anti-abortion groups. Their problems stem (pardon the pun) from the fact that the embryo has to be de constructed to access the stem cells inside.

      So what side do you take on the ethical front? Is this the murder of unborn infants, or is it a promising new field of science? Keep in mind there are many different types of research being done and we are still not at the point of perfect cures. On the other hand if we unlock the secrets of our creation as organisms, it could hold the keys to eradicating many of the diseases and issues that plague us today.

Rehtaeh Parsons

Rehtaeh

        Her name is Rehtaeh Parsons, and she died after being taken off life support Sunday, April 7. Her death was the result of a suicide attempt that was ultimately successful. The vile circumstances that led to this poor girl’s death should serve as a wakeup call to all Canadians out there. Online bullying and slut shaming have reached scary new heights in our society. We must take action to ensure that the sick and twisted chain of events that cut short the life of Rehtaeh Parsons never happen again.

She loved all of her many pets

          One night in November 2011, Rehtaeh and a friend went to another friends’s house and had a bit to drink.There were four other boys there, and at some point during the night her friend left. She was only 15 years old when she was raped by the four boys. During the rape, one of the boys took a picture and decided that it would be funny to circulate it online. Though she was drunk and barely remembered the incident the next morning, no one would ever let her forget it. No one believed that it was a rape. Everyone just thought she was a slut. Her old friends abandoned her, and she moved away to Halifax to seek escape. The bullying continued, and she fell into depression. The shaming had become so extreme that Rehtaeh was admitted to hospital and on suicide watch for 6 weeks. Eventually she managed to move home and was able to start fighting the depression. She tried to hold her head up high, and tried to simply forget about what happened. 

           She attempted to prosecute the boys who did this to her. She went to the police, they did nothing for her. They said there was no case. They did not even interview the boys until the end of the investigation. No child pornography charges. No rape charges. No bullying charges. Nothing. 

Rehtaeh and her father just chillin

           Rehtaeh died from suicide April 7th at 11:15 PM. She was 17 years old.

           Rehteah’s father wrote a beautiful but heart breaking piece about her. The full article which I very strongly suggest you read and share virally is available by clicking the excerpt.

“I had to write something about this. I don’t want her life to defined by a Google search about suicide or death or rape. I want it to be about the giving heart she had. Her smile. Her love of life and the beautiful way in which she lived it.  The family I found out this afternoon my daughter saved the life of a young woman with her heart. How fitting. She also gave someone a new liver, a kidney, a new breath, and a new chance to love. She saved the lives of four people with her final gift of life. She was that wonderful. Someone out there is going to look at the world with my daughter’s eyes. The most beautiful eyes I have ever seen.”

         The piece written by her father and interview with her mother almost brought me to tears. There is a strength and nobility in the way her parents are dealing with the death of their precious daughter. There are no calls for revenge, or vigilante justice. Just some good, honest people trying to do the best they can after losing the one they loved the most in this world.

        I guess the rest of it falls on us, the teenagers of today. It’s our job now never to tolerate another instance of a young woman being bullied and abused. Alcohol is not consent. Rape makes rapists out of the perpetrators, not sluts out of the victims. Let this tragedy be a turning point that forever changes how we view those victims.

Dying From the Inside Out

     As I mentioned in an earlier post, a close friend recently let me know that she has been struggling with an eating disorder. Again, I am moved to voice my opposition to our culture that worships impossible proportions for women, and then makes them feel ugly or inferior for not being able to conform.

     It has been estimated that by the age of 17, a girl will have seen 250,000 commercial media messages. The vast majority of these messages perpetrate the myth of the impossibly slender ideal. According to Statistics Canada, “prevalence of the most common eating disorders is 0.3-1% for anorexia nervosa and perhaps three times that for bulimia nervosa”. I am left wondering if the reason these disorders are affecting such a large portion of young people has any correlation to the massive number of advertisements they are bombarded with daily.

     That’s why I was thrilled when I heard that a Swedish store named Åhléns has been sending ripples through the world with a picture taken at one of its stores. The picture is of a mannequin with far more realistic proportions than the traditional stick thin ideal of female advertising. One leader on this is Dove, but to hear about more businesses adopting this brightens my day.

     From the barbie dolls at young ages to magazines and celebrities later, this image of the “perfect” woman has to stop. Every woman is perfect to some, and vile to others. You can’t judge a person by what the mirror and measuring tape tell you. Like everything else, women are subjective and trying to objectify them is causing great harm to the girls among us who chase perfection.

     I hope this new mannequin and the massive positive reaction to it signifies a change for the future. Too many girls have been made slaves to the scale; sticks are not sexy.

     If anyone reading this thinks, “That’s me,” then I have a message just for you.

Relax, you’re beautiful exactly how you are.

An Undeniable Truth

      All week, I have heard people say to me “It’s supposed to be spring! last year it was twenty-five degrees at this time, when will winter end?” or something along those lines; and yeah, it’s true last year WAS a lot warmer, but a snowy march should be nothing new to us. We’re Canadian, it’s the hot and sunny march that is out of place! 

So, lets see what you know about global warming.

      Anyway that got me to thinking about climate change, and how different the world is going to be by the time we are adults. Huffington Post and National Geographic both warn of food and water crises that could alter world food production, health, stability, and economic growth by 2030. We will only be 34. By the time we are 54, some predictions indicate that things like coffee, chocolate, honey, peanuts will be rare for those of us in (developed countries). For our brothers and sisters in Africa, the middle east and southern Asia, food and water shortages will probably raise some more serious issues then us hankering for coffee, sweets, and a PB&J.

      In spite of all the evidence, I have come across a surprising number of people who refuse to believe the overwhelming science of climate change. Maybe there’s comfort in the denial, but personally I don’t get it. If you're still determined to not believe it, try to fight this flowchart! 

(Slate climate change flowchart.)

      So consider the extreme storms, droughts, erratic weather and vanishing arctic. It’s here. It’s real. It’s happening. Climate change can no longer just be ignored, or written off as a natural and balanced phenomena. Our world is changing, and I believe our continued ability to thrive and survive in the future depends heavily on how we treat this issue in the present.

   P.S. If you disagree with me, tell me why!

WWW.

I think it would be safe to assume that, for 14 hours a day, there is a computer within a foot of you. It could even be under an inch! That tiny box in your pocket has more information in it that any person could have learned in their entire life 30 years ago, and with a few swipes of your finger on a touch screen, you can access any of it. Or  you can communicate with people anywhere in the world. It has brought dictatorships to their knees, it has connected humanity, it has given many people a job, and yet we still just watch cat videos and read tweets. My idea for this blog is the internet. It can be our friend, our enemy, and it will shape tomorrow.

In 1969, just a few days after the last of the hippies left Woodstock, a silent (revolution) took place at UCLA. “LO” was typed into the very first computer by professor Leonard Kleinrock. It continued to crash before he could finish his word “LOGIN”. Eventually the system worked, and the infant internet was born. Twelve years later there would still only be 213 computers. Fourteen after that there were 16 million, and by today there are over 1.7 billion people who are connected. 

So there’s for the past, what about the future? Quantum computing is supposed to be this amazing new thing happening right in our town, but I know absolutely nothing about it. All I got from looking it up was that it’s really fast and can factor huge numbers very quickly and overpower classical computer immensely. If anyone knows a thing about it, please comment. I’d love to figure out what all the fuss is about.

So quantum aside, I really don’t know what is next for the internet. Kansas city now has Google Fiber, the fastest connection in the world. So I’d be surprised if nothing came out of that. Also, SOPA and PIPA failed, which would have sterilized the best of the internet through copyright law. 

Google Glass is so cool

Also, for those of us on the less tech-y side of things, google glass looks just plain awesome!

But this cat is cooler

And just to preserve the part of the internet we all know and love,

Our demon-haunted world

     I spent a good part of the March break in Quebec City this year, and while I was there, I met a girl l have not been able to forget. While dancing with her one night, I glanced down, and I couldn’t fail to notice the raised pink scars lining the inside of her arm. Later I saw that her hips were also marked with the very same parallel ridges. I didn’t mention it, and neither did she. One look in her eyes, and I could tell she knew. 

     Only a few days later, I learned that one of my closest friends has been suffering with anorexia for months. 

     With all of these things happening at once, mental health (depression, eating disorders, schizophrenia) has definitely been on my mind. In this blog post, I’d like to take a look back into the history of mental health, and maybe even try to guess what lies ahead.

1800s Asylum

     From problems with the gods, to Prozac, the way society sees mental health has shifted drastically over the course of our history. Ancient peoples usually thought that mental illness came from the gods or demons. Charms, hexes, and ointments were seen as the best way to treat these problems. The  only light in this dark age was the Greek Hippocrates who classified paranoia, epilepsy, mania and melancholia. In the middle ages, people who were mentally ill were believed to have demons inside them, and they were killed. Joan of Arc, the warrior maiden who liberated France from British occupation, heard voices inside her head that she believed were holy. The church inquisitors believed her to be possessed by a demon and she was burned at the stake.

     From the Renaissance through to the late nineteenth century, confinement, institutionalization and torture were seen as the best treatment for deviants from society. Insane asylums were very profitable businesses at the time. Some owners would even let people pay a penny to see the patients being abused. Harsh treatments and restraints were seen as therapeutic. It was not until very recently that we started to try digging into the root cause and possible solutions to the widespread mental illness in our world.

Ashley Smith

     Psychoanalysis and prescription antidepressants now dominate the mental health landscape. The mental health facilities now are much different from the ones of the past, and far more effective. However, we still know little about these illnesses of the mind. Our treatments are far from perfect, as proved by the sad case of Ashley Smith who was in solitary confinement 23 hours a day at the Kitchener prison for women, and repeatedly choked herself with cloth strips. It seems clear that prison authorities had no idea how to help her. I hope that, in the future, we will have a good enough understanding of the brain to be able to identify and treat these diseases.

     In the words of Cardinal Roger Mahoney, "Any society, any nation, is judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members -- the last, the least, the littlest." Maybe one day, we will be able to say with pride that even those who are so ill that they can’t function in society are receiving the treatment they need. I hope that day is not too far off.

Meat, Inc.

     Though it is a very old idea, I believe that vegetarian-veganism will change the world. Fifty years ago, no one knew what a vegan was, being a vegetarian was kind of like being from Mars, and no one thought twice about fur, or leather, vivisection, or animal rights. 

     Over the last half century all that has changed. Maybe it’s just me, but I feel a turning of tides concerning the treatment of animals in our society. Increasingly, people are peeling back the layers of advertising and deception to discover the true source of the food we eat three times a day. Each person that experiences this awakening does so in their own unique way. Here is how it all changed for me.

This one was my game changer

     As a kid, I loved meat. I would eat it at LEAST twice a day, but in the eighth grade, all that changed. I watched a documentary called Food Inc. (available here) : It is a compelling, well made, and informative exposé about the food we eat and where it comes from. This film was nominated for best documentary at The Oscars (It lost to another animal rights documentary, The Cove) and puts most of its focus on the food safety side of things. After seeing this movie I was appalled at the state of the industrial food system and how much I had been duped into still believing the image of the traditional farm. What I had always though of as a relatively organic and simple means of production was revealed to be a sadistic, dirty, inhumane process that applied the factory system to living things.

     This marked the beginning of my shift towards believing in animal rights. After discovering Food Inc., I slowly began to educate myself further on the subject. From this great blog (We are all animals) to endless hours on Netflix, my relationship with meat started to change. I started off disliking it, before I knew it, I had completely cut it from my diet. 

     But that’s enough about me! Now let’s get on to how this could affect our world. Global warming is upon us, and if you don’t believe it’s happening then click this, (global warming flowchart). If that doesn’t convince you…then just go down south and join the Tea Party where you can chat with other intellectuals like yourself. Anyway, I’m getting off topic. So global warming is here, saving the planet is not going to be easy, and we produce many greenhouse gasses every day (CO2, Methane, Nitrous oxide). Can anyone guess what the number one way to cut down on all of these gasses simultaneously would be? Removing meat either partially or completely from your diet! (Vegan is better, but one step at a time.) So not only is it healthier and more compassionate, it’s also good for the planet.

It's a good question, no one eats their pets

     Maybe this is why going vegetarian as taken off so quickly in the developed world. In 1971, 1% of U.S. citizens described themselves as vegetarians. In 2013,13% of Americans identify as vegetarian (7% vegan, 6% vegetarian). Now, considering that a lifelong vegetarian will save 760 chickens, 5 cows, 20 pigs, 29 sheep, 46 turkeys and half a tone of fish from the hell of the industrial food system, that 13% means much less cruelty, obesity, and greenhouse gasses in our world. So never think that your actions won’t make a difference, because even the smallest ones do.

     So if you’re looking to lose a few pounds, be more eco-friendly, or even a little more compassionate, I urge you to explore a world with less meat. It doesn’t have to be 100% vegetarian overnight, It took me months to get all the way there. But I do think you’ll find that once you start to walk down that road you never look back. In the words of another vegetarian, “We must be the change we want to see in the world.” so if it’s a more compassionate, healthy, and sustainable world you seek, then be the change.

Evolution

On February 12th 1809, two great emancipators were born. One would become a republican president who freed the slaves: the other freed the world from mythical creation stories and the haunting question of how we got here. The former was named Abraham Lincoln, and the latter is Charles Darwin. My blog post today is about the latter. 

The young Charles Darwin was not a motivated student. He found lectures to be a bore and did not finish his studies in medicine, natural history, or the arts. It wan not until he took a five year long journey on the HMS Beagle to map the coast of South America that the young intellectual rose to prominence. 

On this voyage he meticulously collected many different species of animals and began to see patterns in their origins and similarities. Another thing that struck him as odd was how certain fossils would be visible in places they did not belong, such as the bizarre find of seashells high in the Andes mountains. 

The Beagle made its long voyage around the world, and when it returned to England, Darwin had all the building blocks he needed to publish his famous book On the Origin of Species. This book proposed a theory of evolution based on natural selection. Though it was not almost unanimously recognized as correct by the scientific community for quite some time, it was the only theory that did not buckle under decades of skepticism. 

Did I mention he had an awesome beard?

Darwin’s theory attracted the interest of many religious institutions alongside scientific ones. Even though he was careful to downplay the role of natural selection in the creation of humans, simply stating; “Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history.” He still got mixed responses to his theory. Some liberal men of faith defended it as the assurance that god is creating omnipotent laws to govern our world, while others would claim that his ideas were blasphemy. Even in our world, some religious people doubt that truth of Darwin’s theory.

The theory of evolution opened many doors in science, and poked many holes in faith. Lincoln may have freed the slaves, but Darwin freed the minds of the people. I have nothing but respect for this man, and his theory that undoubtedly changed the world. 

“The beginning is always today.” - Mary Wollstonecraft

“In this style, argue tyrants of every denomination, from the weak king to the weak father of a family; they are all eager to crush reason; yet always assert that they usurp its throne only to be useful. Do you not act a similar part, when you force all women, by denying them civil and political rights, to remain immured in their families groping in the dark? for surely, Sir, you will not assert, that a duty can be binding which is not founded on reason?”

These eloquent words were written by a courageous and iconoclastic woman named Mary Wollstonecraft in her inflammatory pamphlet, Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792). 

Just over half the world population is female; until relatively recently that huge piece of humanity had almost no rights or freedoms. That trend continued until the idea of feminism was brought forwards. Until some brave and intelligent women fought to change the way the world saw their sex.

In our modern times, we take it for granted that women have the same rights as men. In our culture women are equal. They have the right to vote, own property, choose when to have children, and be paid the same wages as a man for the same work. These equalities were not always there; and perhaps would still not be there if not for many brave women throughout the last two and a half centuries who lit the fire of equality of the sexes. In today’s blog post I will be focusing on one of the earliest and most eloquent of those women. A woman who became the inspiration for an entire movement.

Mary Wollstonecraft is widely regarded as the grandmother of feminism. She bravely published one of the first ever feminist writings, Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Though she died at the young age of 38 through complications of childbirth, her works were the defining influence on the suffragette movement that culminated in the right of women to vote.  She also was an outspoken supporter of the education of women.

She had an unquestionable effect on feminists throughout history and although she did not live to see it, she was the spark that started the fire of women’s rights that tore through the world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Education, the vote, equality in the workplace, and independence; all these fruits of the feminist movement would have brought Mary Wollstonecraft to tears. She was a pioneer, a radical, and an idealist. There is no doubt in my mind that the life, works, and ideas of Mary Wollstonecraft gave birth to modern feminism and changed the world.