A couple of weeks ago I posted about how arguably children and minors these days are arguably more oppressed than pretty much ever as a specific group. Don't get me wrong: childhood in "ye olden times" sucked probably generally more than childhood today in an industrialized country. But at the time there was less specific oppression of the class "children", because childhood as we know it is a fairly modern invention. Because until fairly recently a lot of some basic freedoms were actually further developed for children. Children did have more freedom of movement, freedom of association, and so on. Many of those legal changes are so new, that I grew up in a time before them. And while I whine a lot about "being old"... I am not that old.
Either way, I am getting distracted. The point was actually: someone dropped into my comments at this going: "Ha! I would argue children were more oppressed when it was legal to beat them!" And mind you. This person was American. And, uhm... Well.
I do not know how I should tell y'all. But you... do understand that it is still legal in all of the US to physically punish children as a parent, right? Like, the US never ratified the rights of children. A lot of places never did that, actually.
This is the map from Wikipedia about where children can legally be beaten by their parents or in some cases even teachers. The key is: in Green countries it is illegal alltogether, in yellow countries it is legal for parents/guardians at home to physically beat children, bright orange allows it for parents/guardians and within private schools, dark orange is generally parents/guardians and people at school, and red countries allow violence against children in pretty much any institution.
And, like, you might say: "Oh, that is actually more green countries than I thought." But... I should remind you that in the end, even in the green countries, the law against violence through parents/guardians tends to not be enforced until it reaches a level where adjacent adults will be uncomfortable.
And pretty much no country protects children and minors from non-physical stuff. Having your privacy stripped? Yeah, tough luck, nobody cares. Your parents or teachers verbally abusing and humiliating you? Yeah, tough luck, fuck you.
And many of the rules that are currently pushed for to "protect" children from evil things like *checks notes* porn and horror movies and serial kidnappers that do not actually exist pushes children into a situation where they have way, way less abilities to escape abusive homes, or abusive schooling situations. Because children and minors in general are right now heavily restricted in their freedom of movement and freedom of education.
This is most noticeable for children who are queer and are raised in queerphobic households. But it affects all children. It is oppression. Nothing else. And worst of all it sounds reasonable.
Residents under 18 in Washington D.C. have been under state-ordered curfew for months (article). No freedom of movement, no freedom of association. This is on top of the nation's capital being occupied by the national guard for MONTHS.
