Issues that are important to me are definitely those that affect me personally or that I encounter in my everday life. (I'm mentioning this, because most of my "issues" may seem kind of ...smallish compared to the big concepts that you think about.) So because of that, my list consists of the following stuff:
1.a.) Gay, or rather Queer Rights - people's right to live the sexuality they want, as long as they don't hurt anyone else with it. It's something I still struggle with, sometimes, because I have to admit that stuff like BDSM and S&M still freaks me out a bit, but it's definitely something I think about. Especially with "gay" still (or again) being a swear word for most kids. That the government accepts the changes that have been proposed to give better legal protection to GLBT / Queer people is something that I really hope for. (We have, I think, an overall slightly more tolerant legislation when it comes to gay rights than the US, for example, but we're far from perfect.) 1.b.) More asexual characters on TV / in movies. OK, not really a goal or something I want to work at, but that's something that would be kind of nice. ^-^ At the same time as this, I want to see more POC, openly homosexual people and more interracial couples on TV, but that's an issue I can't really do much about, because the only TV I still watch are American crime series (like "Bones") and documentaries, and the former, though they vex me, I can't really change. (Though seriously, Disney - please work on your interracial couples a bit more? High School Musical was OK, I guess, but why exactly did the two most prominent black students end up with each other again?) Especially in media for children and young adults, I want more heroes and heroines that even "non-mainstream" kids can identify with. We have strong heroines in children's literature (and movies / series made from that literature) thanks to authors like Astrid Lindgren and Cornelia Funke and we even have one black child hero in Michael Ende's "Jim Knopf" ("Jim Button", though the depiction of Asian folks in that book / TV series is something that's best left alone); but we don't have clever heroines who wear a headscarf or are from clearly muslimic families; we have few heroines and heroes in children's media who speak a different language and live a different culture at home, or who're gay, lesbian or transsexual.
Aaaand another split. I get the feeling I'm working on some kind of record here
1.a.) Gay, or rather Queer Rights - people's right to live the sexuality they want, as long as they don't hurt anyone else with it. It's something I still struggle with, sometimes, because I have to admit that stuff like BDSM and S&M still freaks me out a bit, but it's definitely something I think about. Especially with "gay" still (or again) being a swear word for most kids. That the government accepts the changes that have been proposed to give better legal protection to GLBT / Queer people is something that I really hope for. (We have, I think, an overall slightly more tolerant legislation when it comes to gay rights than the US, for example, but we're far from perfect.)
1.b.) More asexual characters on TV / in movies. OK, not really a goal or something I want to work at, but that's something that would be kind of nice. ^-^ At the same time as this, I want to see more POC, openly homosexual people and more interracial couples on TV, but that's an issue I can't really do much about, because the only TV I still watch are American crime series (like "Bones") and documentaries, and the former, though they vex me, I can't really change. (Though seriously, Disney - please work on your interracial couples a bit more? High School Musical was OK, I guess, but why exactly did the two most prominent black students end up with each other again?)
Especially in media for children and young adults, I want more heroes and heroines that even "non-mainstream" kids can identify with. We have strong heroines in children's literature (and movies / series made from that literature) thanks to authors like Astrid Lindgren and Cornelia Funke and we even have one black child hero in Michael Ende's "Jim Knopf" ("Jim Button", though the depiction of Asian folks in that book / TV series is something that's best left alone); but we don't have clever heroines who wear a headscarf or are from clearly muslimic families; we have few heroines and heroes in children's media who speak a different language and live a different culture at home, or who're gay, lesbian or transsexual.