This past Thursday I went to the Davis Annex to walk through the Tunnel of Oppression. Some of the topics discussed were "the glass ceiling", human trafficking, gender neutral bathrooms, racism, problems with the educational system, and woman discrimination. The overall feeling of walking through the different rooms was depressing and ominous. The two rooms that really stood out to me were the gender neutral bathrooms and the room of woman discrimination.
The gender neutral bathrooms are a problem faced by transgender individuals and women/men that look like the opposite sex . (Ex. a women with manly features like a deep voice or facial hair) Many times, these individuals are forced out of their own bathrooms by the public. They get called "perverts" and are rushed out of the bathroom. I never really thought about this problem. These individuals are stuck without a bathroom and have to "hold it" for hours until they get home. I was pleased to find that Otterbein has quite a few gender neutral bathrooms.
The room of woman discrimination was filled with words that women commonly get described as, like bitch, fat, whore, boob job, facelift, etc. These words were so offensive to me and I was just standing in the room. As I looked around the room, I thought back on the words that my friends use, particularly my male friends. They tend to make jokes that involve women being described by these words. It made me sick to know I just let my friends use these words. I definitely need to take a stand to not let people use these offensive words.
I really liked the Tunnel of Oppression. It made you think about your life and how you can make a change to a world filled with many oppressions.
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