Remember 2018? The world, for a brief, glorious moment, felt like it was finally, truly getting it. Netta Barzilai clucked and chirped her way to a Eurovision victory with "Toy," a vibrant, unapologetic anthem for female empowerment. "I'm not your toy, you stupid boy!" she declared, and we collectively cheered. It was the heady days of #MeToo's global surge, a time when women's voices were rising, demanding to be heard, demanding respect, demanding an end to being treated as objects.
And then, a few short years later, the world scrolled on.
We clapped, we shared, we celebrated Netta's "difference," her "acceptance." It was a beautiful, powerful spectacle. The impact, we told ourselves, would be immense. It would echo. It would change things. It was a digital witness to a shifting tide, a promise whispered across screens: no more.
Except for the women in Gaza. For them, "no more" became "much, much worse."
While we were busy congratulating ourselves on choosing "difference," hundreds of thousands of women in Gaza were plunged into a living hell, a humanitarian catastrophe of unimaginable scale. Their "difference" became a death sentence, their voices drowned out by bombs and the deafening silence of global indifference.
The #MeToo movement spoke of dignity, of bodily autonomy. What dignity is there when 155,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women in Gaza are facing severe malnutrition and disease, directly impacting their babies? (UNFPA, April 2024). What bodily autonomy when they give birth in makeshift shelters, or worse, alone in the rubble, utterly devoid of medical care?
We celebrated Netta's defiance, her self-love. Meanwhile, women in Gaza are struggling with the most basic aspects of existence. Imagine the unbearable indignity:
- No Menstrual Hygiene: The "luxury" of a menstrual pad is a cruel joke. Women and girls are forced to use scraps of cloth, tent fabric, or even sand to manage their periods, leading to widespread infections and profound emotional distress. Only 20% of the necessary menstrual hygiene supplies have entered Gaza since the war began (Oxfam, March 2024). This isn't just about comfort; it's about health, hygiene, and human dignity.
- The Silent Cries of Babies: The severe shortage of baby formula means infants are starving. Mothers, malnourished themselves, struggle to breastfeed, and if they can't, their babies face a terrifying future. An estimated 95% of pregnant and breastfeeding women and girls consume less than the minimum adequate diet (OCHA, March 2024), directly correlating to the surge in severe acute malnutrition in infants. We're talking about mothers watching their infants waste away, a brutal, unforgivable reality in an age where we can stream anything, anywhere.
- Mothers Dying in Silence: Giving birth in Gaza is a death lottery. Without proper medical facilities, clean water, or electricity, around 180 women are giving birth every single day into unimaginable conditions (UNFPA, April 2024). Many endure C-sections without anesthesia. Many will not survive. How’s that for empowerment?
"The world is just scrolling screens and are brutal indifferent in the age of digital witness." We are more connected than ever, yet seemingly more disconnected from genuine empathy. We can witness genocide in real-time on our phones, yet our collective response often amounts to little more than a fleeting frown before the next viral dance or celebrity scandal.
We cheered "Toy" as an anthem against objectification. But what is it called when entire populations of women and children are reduced to statistics, to "collateral damage," their suffering so normalized that it barely registers a blip on our meticulously curated feeds? What is it called when their bodies, their basic needs, their very lives are so devalued that the world remains brutally, utterly indifferent?
The impact of Netta's win was immense for a moment. But the lasting impact of the world's indifference to Gaza's women will be a stain on human history, a testament to how quickly our grand declarations of empowerment can crumble in the face of selective outrage. "I'm not your toy," she sang. Perhaps the world, in its brutal indifference, has merely found new toys to play with, new lives to discard.
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