Surprisingly good hip hop music, beautiful countryside and vegan EVERYTHING… I guess you could say I’m loving it here in Iceland so far. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my time in Greece (and America), but something in Iceland feels more like home.
Maybe it’s because I am a feminist and I really enjoy a female-forward culture with androgynous clothing stores and equal pay for women and men in the workforce...
In fact, before practice, we were listening to the song “Rake It Up” and one of my teammates innocently asked me, “what does ‘Rake It Up’ mean?’' I proceeded to tell her that Yo Gotti was referring to strippers gathering their dollar bills at the end of their performance…
One thing led to another and the topic of strip clubs, brothels and sex shows came to the forefront of discussion. Me, having been to strip clubs in America and in Greece, my whole entire perspective was completely changed on the industry after talking with some of my teammates…
Some might consider it feminist to say, “I think that females can do whatever they want with their bodies, objectifying or not, at least they’re making money off of it and doing what the want”….Which to an extent I definitely agree. But after talking to some Icelandic teammates, I have a different perspective...
After explaining the idea behind what goes on at American strip clubs, more than one of my teammates instinctual reaction was not how messed up it was that females bodies were put on display for money… It was “damn, it’s really sad that these women feel like they need to do this to survive.” I even tried to play devils’ advocate and think of an example of a story of a female from an Ivy league school, in politics, making extra money stripping to pay for her colossal school payment while attending an Ivy league school…
Ultimately, in Iceland, they're on a whole other level of feminist thinking. It's a deeper level. It's not just that females should make their own decisions with their bodies and how they portray themselves, it's genuine concern for why she would think that portraying your body like that is necessary. Something that I wouldn't naturally think about... and I wish I did.
It’s a step to think to take advantage of the system to gain profit, but what if there was no system?
And why don't we naturally and instinctively think like that as a Americans? So far, after being in Iceland for the last month, it seems like a cultural issue we have in the US.
