Ronald Giphart writes a poem as a tribute to his mother, wife and daughter: 'Men must also be feminists'
After a night out, Ronald Giphart heard his daughter repeatedly tell him she'd been harassed by men, and it made him angry. That's why he's championing the rights of girls with a poem and a fiery speech. "Men must be feminists too."
A wave of positivity is spreading across social media today. For the International Day of the Girl Child, Plan International, an organization working to achieve equal rights and opportunities for girls worldwide, commissioned forty renowned authors to write poems about girls. These poems and statements have been digitally compiled in "Poems of Light."
One of them is Utrecht-based author Ronald Giphart. "I immediately thought of my daughter when I was asked. So I asked if she would be interested," he says.
And so it happened. He wrote a poem about his daughter, in which his worries resonate. He's always felt more of that with his daughter than with his two sons. "With my sons, or myself in the past, I never felt any intrinsic fear when they went out. We noticed what time they got home. But when my daughter went out, that worry did arise."
It turns out there's a reason for it. "My daughter has been harassed on the street a few times, and once some jerk chased her in a car. Driving slowly, shouting, honking, asking questions, cornering her, yelling things."
When he hears about it a day later, he feels an anger he describes as an "Old Testament rage." "I'm not one to take the law into my own hands, but I do wonder: why do we live in a society where this can happen?"
Giphart is thus focusing on how things can improve for girls in the Netherlands. But internationally, there's also much room for improvement in the disadvantaged position of girls. For example, Plan International notes that girls are hit harder by wars and increasing conservatism. "They are more often taken out of school or married off, and their rights are being curtailed," the organization writes. "One in three girls will experience physical or sexual violence in her lifetime."
Feminism runs in Ronald Giphart's blood, so collaborating on a poetry collection that helps girls was an opportunity he couldn't resist. "My mother was a feminist. The fight for women's rights was the reason she entered the House of Representatives." His stepmother, ex-wife , and daughter are also feminists. "So I felt this poem was a tribute to the great women in my life."
As a man, he's also concerned with women's rights, recently participating in the demonstration against femicide. "I think it's very important that men pay attention to the position of women. I remember my father saying to me, 'I'm a feminist.' At that young age, I thought a man couldn't be a feminist. Now I know: yes, indeed! Men must be feminists too."
He also focuses on the upcoming elections, emphasizing that people should think carefully about which party they vote for. "I want to live in a country where the government and its citizens are concerned about the position of girls. Sometimes it seems like our empathy stops at national borders. I think we need to pay attention to that. We need to exert international pressure and invest financially to ensure that something is done to improve the
position of girls."
