What is the point of feminism? The secret life of Romanian country girls.

Feminism, #metoo, #timesout, woman empowerment... for too many these are all seen as dirty words. We talk too much, we overreact, we're being dramatic, the reality is much better than our endless lies, and we are going as far as starting to oppress men by making them scared of our next backlash. Why do we do it? I can't really speak for others, so the question remains, why do I do it? Do we need feminism? Does feminism need me? What's the point of all of this and what is there still to fight or to care about?

Me, a white woman in a widely regarded liberal country - where equality is probably more achievable than in most places in the world right now - why am I writing blogs, going to conferences, and preaching about #girlpower everywhere I go?

This documentary was realized by three amazing Romanian reporters, with support from World Vision Romania. You can enable the English subtitles and I encourage you to watch it, it is a sobering, cold wake-up call of under 15 minutes. The blog is available here.

This is happening today, in the 21st century, in a country in Europe, in a country in the European Union nonetheless. My home country, that I moved out of just three short years ago.

To translate the statistics quoted in the video / blog:

• "Romania is in first place within the EU for pregnancies and abortions in underage mothers.
• 1 in 10 Romanian mothers is younger than 18.
• 1 in 5 mothers gives birth without having had one single medical check-up.
• 11 out of every 100.000 mothers die in childbirth.
• 7 out of every 1.000 babies die before they turn 1 year old."

The women in the video describe finding themselves pregnant, without knowing about it until it was too late, unequipped to deal with it. They are uninformed, and they do not have the resources to seek help. Their whole lives are about making and raising children, without having a choice in the matter.

One woman explains a trip to the nearest doctor would require a bus ride which is too expensive for the household at 24 lei (about 4 euros). A consult can be as much as 100 lei (20 euors) which is again extremely expensive for these women. So, they stay at home as their mothers have done before them. "Since nothing bad happened to them I will also be fine".

During several sequences anatomy lessons are shown and the young women cannot identify ovaries, the uterus, or any parts of the reproductive system, or of course explain their role. Another woman in the video describes "the talk" she had with her mother and it, again, is the same I've heard from acquaintances growing up: "don't go embarrassing yourself or me", "don't go and do wrong things with boys". That's about the extent of it.

This is the image of extreme poverty, a broken education and health system, and of the role of women within their communities.

It seems like such a wild and distant thing, but to me this video is even more striking because of its distinct familiarity.

I've spent every summer until high school in a village that looks exactly like the one in the video, where my grandparents used to live. I had friends there that were as clueless as the young women in this video when it comes to their anatomy, their rights, and their prospects. At the time I found it strange and maybe even a little bit funny. I would go back to the city at the beginning of school and tell my friends about the weird village girl that thought kissing is what resulted in a baby. I thought of it as a joke, a child that didn’t learn about the reproductive system yet and surely, they will be slightly embarrassed when they get through it in school and they will remember what I found so funny. I left every year and after a while I never went back at all. Those girls never did learn about their bodies, they stopped going to school and they started their families before they knew what growing up really meant.

These are all symptoms of an even greater issue. 42% of Romanians live in extreme poverty, in rural villages, in isolation, according to the same article. People are born in poverty, they don't leave their birthplace, they have children and raise them in poverty, and they often die in poverty. And the wheel keeps on spinning.

Yes, having to prove yourself for an extra 5 minutes longer than a male counterpart when you enter a business meeting is not fair and should be addressed too. For some people this is the only instance of gender discrimination, the only example of the "misfortune of being born a woman" they will ever experience first-hand during their life. These people are incidentally also the people most likely to have access to the internet and to social media platforms. These people would then scoff at the idea of feminism, at women who spend their times going to conferences about female empowerment, at movements with a hashtag, and at "attention seeking". And based on their view of the world, they are just.

They understand that perhaps there are indeed issues in some third wold country, probably in Africa (without ever getting more specific than the entirety of the continent) , but they seem personally offended that someone from the Western society would dare speak about it.

"You have it so good here. You are not oppressed. Why are you still complaining about it? This is the 21st century, women can vote, women can work, what more do you want?".

So back to the original question, why bother?

Because documentaries like these exist. Because this is the reality of so many women around the world, and to me - because I could have easily been one of these girls had a few decisions made by my parents or myself gone differently.

The problem is that a woman who is indeed oppressed is probably a woman who doesn't even know what the word feminism is. She doesn't dare think there is something more she should be asking for - she is living the same life her mother and grandmother have and she knows this is the natural order of things. She doesn't know what is happening to her is not right and even if she did, she would have to means of speaking about it. Other than there being to twitter for her to put her hashtags on, daring to complain would just increase the oppression and possible put her life at risk.

I don't know. I just feel like making a few people on the internet mad that your "women's rights propaganda" is cluttering their feed seems like a smaller price to pay. Maybe if I talk about it enough, even by easing it with "pretty" topics to not scare people away - maybe people hear about these things for the first time. Maybe I can get the opportunity to go and show the people at home what I've achieved. Maybe others will do the same, and maybe eventually things change a little for the better.