Freedom

When a child's parents allow him/her to do more things than other children, is he/she more free? I believe the answer is no. This merely indicates that the child's parents have a different raising method in their minds than most other parents. It might indicate that the parents are more open-minded towards allowing their child to experiment and experience things. But it doesn't say anything about the child's freedom.

Freedom, as I see it, is about having the choice to do a certain action, not about doing the action itself. When people fight for freedom, they fight to have the choice, to have control. I believe freedom is revealed when people disagree about the action. For example, if a child wants to do something, and his parents think he/she shouldn't, and yet he/she gets to do this thing, then that can be called a free person.

It might be trivial that a child has little freedom, but what about adults? Logically, as people grow up, they should be given more freedom gradually, until they get it completely. There's no clear line as to when this full freedom should be given, but it's obvious that this can only happen when the person can make conscious choices and can handle the consequences of any action he/she does.

This is one of the situations where I see how deep sexism is rooted in our societies. Even though it's a well-known fact that females mature 4 or 5 years earlier than males, we find that most males have full freedom before they reach 20, while most females never get it at all. It saddens me beyond words when I see how lucky a girl in her twenties is considered when her parents allow her to do more things than other girls because they're open-minded, and I cannot help but wonder: How many great minds do we have to lose to oppression and sexism before we realize how silly and stupid this whole thing is and decide to do something about it?