#5SmartReads - December 7, 2022

Hitha on the vulnerability of America, the fight for equality, and what Harry + Meghan's Netflix series is really about

December 07, 2022

Just because things are legal doesn’t make them necessarily right.

Like when companies are recording massive profits on their necessary products that everyday folks are struggling to find and afford. That $80M was raised THIS YEAR on GoFundMe campaigns to acquire essentials like gas, groceries, and formula is messed up.

In my opinion, it should be illegal.

It’s not just about how much was raised on the platform, but how the number of these fundraisers grew from last year. The number of gas campaigns grew by 60%. The number of baby formula fundraisers grew by 110%.

Something has to change to make basic necessities like these accessible to all. And given the divided chambers of Congress in the incoming session…I highly doubt nothing will get done to help these Americans.

I’ve found it incredibly difficult to find accurate reporting of the fight for freedom in Iran. So I’m listening to the Iranian women I know, and seeking out the women who have been on the decades long fight for freedom.

And what I’ve learned from each of them is that this is not a place for compromise or to work with the Islamic Republic. This is a revolution to overturn the oppressive, fundamentalist regime and for the freedom of all Iranians.

These five women - Shiva Mahbobi, Roxanna Vatandoust, Mahsa Alimardani, Elika Ashoori, and Shadi Sadr - are using their voices and their privilege to fight alongside those in Iran and educate the rest of the world of what’s actually happening in the country. The goal?

“I imagine a day that there will be a referendum in my country,” she [Sadr] says, with measured conviction. “A referendum under the watch of the UN, so there will be a free and fair choice for people to choose which government should rule over them.”

“It’s about building an infrastructure for the future and a transitional justice process,” she explains. “At least we will have some evidence against the perpetrators of the human rights violations, to be able to prosecute them outside the country or using UN mechanisms.”

The fight for equality is a global issue - but the factors differ from country to country.

Take South Korea. President Yoon Suk Yeol eeked out a win in this year’s election, partly due to a pledge to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality. Given that South Korea ranks 99th out of 146 countries in terms of gender equality…I’d argue that this ministry’s got a lot more work to do, and could use more staffing and funding (it has less than 300 employees and its budget is 0.24% of all government spending).

So what’s driving this movement in South Korea? There are always multiple factors with varying weights, but the one that jumped out to me is that South Korean men are required to serve 18 months in the military. There is no such requirement for women.

“Aversion to feminism is shared across generations, but men in their 20s express it most aggressively,” said Park Jeonghoon, author of “There’s No Such Thing as a Good Man,” a book that discusses the anti-feminist backlash among young men in South Korea. “I think it’s because of a uniquely Korean situation: They have to go to the military.”

South Korea, which technically remains at war with neighboring North Korea, requires all able-bodied men ages 18 to 28 to serve at least 18 months in the military, causing delays in their education and early career that are perceived as giving women an advantage. 

“I felt similarly in my 20s,” Park, now 34, told NBC News. “I was forced by the state to serve. I couldn’t resist against the state … I became angry that women weren’t going.” 

There are a lot of false narratives fueling this movement, which makes the fight for equality even harder as you’re waging multiple battles - the information gap and messaging, the actual policy, and eventually the impact in individual lives.

I think this is a really important read to put the “why?” behind Harry + Meghan’s forthcoming Netflix docuseries. When even your date nights are scrutinized by the British tabloid press and make the front page on all the papers, of course you want to regain control of your story.

Never once did Harry + Meghan say that they were stepping back for privacy reasons, but that’s what every single headline about them led with. It’s a case study of how a false narrative can become the only narrative, and this is designed to undermine and hurt those who are trying to correct the record (and this tactic goes beyond the royals and can be attributed to people and groups that are traditionally underestimated that challenge the power norms).

I have no clue what to expect from this series, but I do hope it takes the same approach as Archetypes and bring the issues of online harassment (and how profitable it is), Meghan’s experience with racism within an institution that exists due to imperialism and the harm the British empire has caused people of color, and the role of royalty in the modern world.

I also recognize that Netflix likely urged them to pursue this project for their own bottom line (the company has missed earnings targets two quarters this year and saw a dip in subscribers and revenue), and this likely was a driving force in how this docuseries came to be.

In any case, I’ve blocked off 3 hours on Thursday to watch the first part - and I cannot wait.

Here I am, once again, talking about the precarious state of the country’s electric grid. Let’s take a look at what happened in North Carolina.

In Monroe County, there was open fire on two substations that knocked out power for 45,000 customers of Duke Energy. What happened is important. Even more important is how.

“Most substations are protected only by a surrounding chain link fence, and some well-placed shots can knock out power to tens of thousands.

"The physical attack, to be honest with you, is the threat that I'm the most concerned about, because these transformer stations are such soft targets," Mabee said Monday.”

Yes, the bipartisan infrastructure bill passed with significant funds allocated to upgrade and strengthen the grid. BUT the issue is that we take a backward look when it comes to infrastructure in this country, waiting until something is broken or on its last legs before fixing it.

The vulnerability of our substations is something we can address right now, especially given that local police budgets grow year over year and access to electricity is vitally important in every community.

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