Iíll admit it ó while attending Nicholas Kristofís speech last week in McGaw, I was moved. The fact that a man of his success cared so much for other people, to me, seemed rare. It was clear that he has the very best intentions and legitimately believes that he is helping people through purchasing for them their ìfreedom,” building them schools resembling those in the West.
He is a skilled and brilliant man, that is certainly apparent. However, for the second time that day, I watched as a student asked him whether or not he considered himself to be a feminist. As he fumbled through ìums” and ìuhhs,” for the second time that day, Nicky Kristof, a talented journalist and a fine man, expressed rather clumsily that he was reluctant to claim his allegiance with the feminist movement because it had ìfailed.”
He then went on to insinuate that the efforts of women to acquire equal rights were often squashed because of ill-intending men, who hold positions of power high above them. I do admire and respect him. But I wish I had the gumption to say to him that if a movement of women who struggle to make their points largely due to to their social position, a man, especially of his efforts, should know that the actual modern feminist is not one of social retardation and male resentment. The empowerment of women in foreign countries, as sad as it is, probably starts with men.
And Nicholas Kristof, as a self-proclaimed female empowerer, successful writer, well-traveled, wealthy and highly educated, is in no better place to call himself a feminist.