He For She

It occurred to me that some of my readers may not be aware of important background material for my own blog and work. In order not to confuse the message, I'm pre-empting the economics post, look for it tomorrow.

Yesterday, I tagged my post with HeForShe, the UN Women campaign for gender equality. Emma Watson gave a speech to kick off the campaign:

"For the record, feminism, by definition, is the belief that men and women should have equal rights, and opportunities." - Emma Watson, HeForShe campaign 2014

More on the key concepts and my take below the cut:

World War II

This is the first post in a history series, discussed yesterday, to examine some of the moments where, perhaps, history "went wrong." The alternate title for this post was "Godwin's law."

Recent advice on Twitter for white women interested in supporting activism is to "stay in your lane." Years ago on my blogs, I would post about technologies for clean water and things that I thought - from my armchair in the United States - might help places like Africa. Since that time, I've learned a great deal more about the importance of culture, location, and tacit knowledge in designing appropriate solutions for global markets.

So this series, in particular, is targeted at my own people, white Americans. I have seen and heard the attitude of peers who didn't care too much about history, or who think that what happened in the past is over and done, and doesn't affect the present. I hope that this will help you to reconsider that position.

There are more recent moments that could apply. Chronologically, there are the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, post-9/11. If you really want to read about anti-terrorism politics, I recommend my sister's blogs (current and former). Much of her older blog was written during her deployment and later contract work in Iraq.

The other more recent historical shake-up was the fall of the Soviet Union and the 1990's post-Cold War era. Perhaps another week I'll start discussing that.

Trigger warnings apply to the text below the cut, for discussion of war and particularly the Holocaust.

Also, caveat: I am not a historian, and I have not examined many primary sources on this. The following perspective is largely written from textbooks and secondary / tertiary sources.