As millennials, we are always told that we don't know how to behave and you can get a rise out of us with the stupidest shit. Normally, I would agree to the extent of the Huh Challenge and the many young adults who threatened to push children out of the way to see DISNEY PIXAR MOVIE SEQUELS (for which they are no longer the target audience), but we also tend to forget that our generation is still faced with very similar social issues to those of our parents and grandparents--we clearly still experience racism, sexism, police violence, and many other levels of misconduct. The scary thing is that we have evolved into a culture in which defending oneself is perceived as misconduct and getting what we want at another's expense is the model behavior.
Friday morning, famous model Gigi Hadid was met by a suspicious looking male figure who picked her up off the ground, after which she elbowed the man until he set her down. She proceeded to go after him and assert that he was never to touch her again with the help of her sister. Although she was cheered on by many, there are still articles that pin Hadid as the attacker when the male who picked her up also allegedly kissed Will Smith, fondled Leonardo DiCaprio, and attacked Brad Pitt on the red carpet. Would any of those men be considered wrong or bat shit crazy for attacking him? No, but she has been called a crazy bitch for doing something that we all should have the right to do--she defended herself.
In more recent responses to the incident, Hadid was said not to have displayed model behavior at the Max Mara fashion show in light of the incident, but seriously. Let me ask, then, what this "model behavior" should be. Should it resemble that of June Cleaver from "Leave It to Beaver" or one of the many wives of King Henry VIII?
We would like to think that we'd say neither of these as a developed nation, one of the most fiscally and socially progressive nations in the world, but we still fail to realize that actions speak louder than words--we still marvel at the societal guillotine responsible for chopping off the heads of feminism, one by one, and are so in awe that we still can't seem to move, despite ample promises we keep making to women that, "We'll try harder tomorrow. We'll try harder tomorrow."
When is that tomorrow? When is our tomorrow? Our tomorrow as a nation that truly supports all of its citizens and recognizes that women and men both deserve to feel safe at home? Our tomorrow where women are not fetishized and publicly shamed for being anything more than a porcelain doll? The problem, as Gigi Hadid showed in Milan, is that we are not porcelain--we do not break, and neither should support from our fellow Americans in light of these issues.
Here's to our tomorrow...
