If a woman declares herself to be a
feminist today she’ll get asked three questions: “Do you hate men?”, “So you
don’t shave?” and “Are you a lesbian?”. I’ve personally been asked all of those
questions, and it’s not just “the ignorant men” who ask, it’s everyone -
because almost no-one in these times actually knows what it means to be a feminist.
Let me first tell you what feminism actually
is and then we’ll look at what it means in today’s world. According to Oxford Dictionary
feminism is the advocacy of women’s
rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes. And personally I think this
is a good definition - because what feminism is, is the belief that; that
everyone is equal - not that women
are better than anyone else. After having looked this more serious definition
up I decided to see what Urban Dictionary had to say about the matter, and I
found a lot of serious entries, obviously made by people who actually knew what
they were talking about, but as I went through the pages it turned into “a
bunch of women who are ugly and therefor hate men” or “ the belief that women
are people and therefor it’s their right to criticize men for everything in
history” - both of these images or of course completely wrong.
Of course it’s misguiding that it’s
called “feminism” when it probably should be called “humanism”, because, first
of all - everyone and anyone can be a feminist, to say that it’s only for women
is to go against the equality feminism fights for.
Secondly, women can’t force men to
make up for history, if we always had to consider what happened in the past,
no-one could do anything anymore. Sure, through history “the white man” has
created quite a mess, but we need to look at what we can do to better the
future instead of focusing on what we could’ve done better in the past!
I do believe there’s a reason why
the angry, hairy-legged feminist stereotype came to be. There are - as with all
stereotypes - some people who are like that; there are the extreme-feminists
who’ll tell you not to shave your legs, armpits or whatever or not to cook for “the
man”. A thing that these women forget is, it’s our bodies, just like women
shouldn’t let “the man” decide over their body and actions, no woman is to
decide what other do with their bodies. I don’t wear make-up, because I don’t
like doing so, but if I wanted to, I wouldn’t let some angry extreme-feminist
tell me not to. And I cook dinner for my boyfriend, because I want to - and I
know he’ll return the favour!
It’s funny really, that this group
of angry “man-haters” are so busy telling others that they’re not “proper” women,
when one of the things feminism fight for is that anyone who sees themselves as
a woman is a “proper” woman, regardless of how they act or dress. The debate of
gender versus sex is a completely different one, and it’s too complicated for
me to go into at this moment.
Some might think there’s no need for
feminism in our society, because we’re equal as it is. And here my inner
feminist might shine through. It is true that women have the same rights as men
in a lot of fields; women can vote and go to school just like men in most countries,
in some fields women are actually taking over - just look at the more book-ish
youth educations. But there are still a lot of fields where women aren’t equal,
we still get paid less for the same jobs and there are more men in positions of
power. Around the time of the local elections last year I was talking to a friend
(who happened to be male) and we were discussing who we were voting for, and
when I told him who I was planning on voting for he said “oh, because she’s a
woman?” - and this shouldn’t be a question that needed asking, because I wasn’t voting for a candidate because
of gender, I was voting for the one I considered best!
Just like it shouldn’t be the main
focus what skin colour a politician has, their gender shouldn’t be important. Though
it can be a bit hard to see how a group of old American men should be the ones
deciding whether women should be able to have abortions.
You don’t have to be a woman to able
to ask yourself questions like: “is it okay to rape?” or “is it okay to treat
one group of society differently?” and as a normal human with the capability of
logical thought you should be able to answer “no” as well.
We need feminism as long as it’s
okay to over sexualize women. We need feminism as long as “she was asking for
it” is still a reason to rape - this thought is both degrading to women, who
should be allowed to dress however they want, and men who aren’t the kind of animals
this way of thinking presents them as. Feminism is needed as long as I’m being
told to sit down and be quiet, because women should not be loud and provoking
the way I am.
Women like me might not have needed
to fight their way out of the kitchen, but we have to fight every day with society’s
expectations of our looks and behaviour.
Women are people and men are people,
and if we stop nagging each other, we might just get along. Extreme feminists
are just as sexist as the guys who tell women to get back in the kitchen.
Yeah, a long one, but oh well.
-Sidsel out
No comments:
Post a Comment