Issues that I care about

You know, this whole General election/popery stuff has made me rant a lot at the TV/newspapers/flyers etc of late. I've had massive debates with people over what I think is vitually important of late. So, I thought that I'd just tell you all about issues that I really, really care about. Issues that i want to go and rant at people about, that I want to educate people about, that I would protest about.

1. Women. Not even just women, but at this point in my life, I'm utterly convinced that the whole world needs to be emancipated from socially constructed ideas about gender. I believe that things like female genital mulitation, genocidal rape, treatment of female political prisoners, domestic violence etc etc are a result of gender images that men suffer from as well. I don't hate men at all (far from it), and I believe that they suffer from these constructed images about gender too. I'm not too sure about the new Pope, I really think that the Catholic church really missed a chance there to be more progressive and open to modern ideas that would help women.
2. Disablism. This is, understandably, an issue close to my heart. In short, I'm an avocate of the socail model of disability: that is, you are only disabled if society doesn't adjust for you. The alternative model (which i reject) is the medical model - this states that disability is something that should be "prevented" or "cured." Well, who's to dictate what is right, what's normal, what's socially acceptable? I actually like being deaf, it's part of me and it's not something I want taken away from me. I'd never have an operation to make me "hear" again. Yes, I do find life that bit harder because of my disability - but only when people don't make adjustments to help me. I don't see, or think that disability is soemthing that needs to be prevented or cured.
3. Recycling. I think that we live such a wasteful life here in the West, and we should be seeking a more sustainable lifestyle. How hard can it be to think before you chuck? How hard can it be to remember to take a bag out of the drawer instead of using a new one when you go to the supermarket? How hard can it be having two bins to make sure that you recycle ALL your paper? How hard can it be to buy books from a secondhand bookshop, recycled paper and to re-use printer catridges? With recycling, you have to close the loop you know! and it makes me cross that none of the mainstream parties have actually stated a policy yet on recycling. Why can't money be put into having a zero waste policy - like New Zealand?
4. Racism. I've never been so scared in my entire life. I'm looking at the kind of rhetoric that the Conservative party are using about asylum seekers (and they are not even using the words right 95% of the time there's a difference between economic migrants and asylum seekers - asylum seekers are fleeing terrible, terrible, awful persecution: persecution that we shut our ears off from because we can't bear to hear about it) - and I'm scared that this country is turning into something that I don't like at all - a racist country. Every time I hear of the BNP gaining seats, my heart absolutly sinks. I'm proud to be part of a multicultural country, and I really wish that everyone else was too.