Feminism | Posted by Alexa D on 07/17/2009
musings of a teenage feminist
I know from personal experience what it’s like to be a feminist in a place that has the same amount of tolerance for change and gender equality that a teaspoon can hold. I live in a tiny town that isn’t even big enough to be called a town, go to a school where girls are afraid to use the “f word,” and by that, I don’t mean “fuck.” I mean FEMINIST. Around here, the same tired gender stereotypes are alive and well. Women cook, clean, tend to their families, and do whatever their husbands ask of them, and even work on top of all that, my step mom being an example. These same ideas seem to be imprinted in the minds of the teenagers around here too. When I told a few girls at my school that I was a feminist, they looked at me as if I had sprouted another head. They didn’t even know what feminism WAS, and if they did, it was obvious they didn’t like the idea very much.
What confuses me is why many teenage girls these days are afraid to call themselves feminists. Some girls even treat the word like something taboo. In a way, I think all women and girls are feminists. We ALL have the power to stand up and fight for our rights as women, and we all have the resources to do so. The problem is that a lot of girls don’t want to be seen as “feminazis,” as the feminist movement was so fondly called. They don’t want to be seen as cold, heartless, man hating, bra burning lesbians, as the feminist stereotype has been these days. My final statement to all those girls out there who think that being a feminist is a bad thing is that you don’t have to be an angry man hating lesbian to be a feminist. All you have to do is be strong and empowering, embrace your role as a woman. The women who fought for suffrage in this country and the women who are still fighting all over the world today JUST so they can show their faces in public, and just so they can vote didn’t and still aren’t doing all of that for nothing. Do us all a favor and stand up, speak out. As Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “It’s unfair to ask of others what you are unwilling to do yourself.”
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Brenna @ at 2:23 pm, July 17th, 2009
I agree, being a feminist is something to be proud of. While I’ve never had a conversation where I’ve said, “I’m a feminist,” I’ve read two of Jessica Valenti’s books at school, and at least one or two girls would ask about the book with obvious interest.
Alexa @ at 7:06 pm, July 17th, 2009
Hah. Well, I was reading ‘The Bell Jar’ at school at one point and everyone asked me who the hell Sylvia Plath was. It’s pretty amusing after the first few times you get asked, but after about ten times, it gets annoying. I even wrote a paper on feminism for my english class and my student teacher looked a bit frightened by my strong opinions…
femi-maybe @ at 9:37 pm, July 17th, 2009
I am only now starting to call myself a feminist. Why has it taken me so long? Well yes, I guess you could call it my conception of contemporary feminists as something akin to the feminazis you speak of.
But it’s not nearly as simple as that. I have always had a huge respect for the feminists of yesteryear, the ones who fought for the vote, reproductive rights, equality. My mother calls herself a feminist and 20 odd years ago went on the marches, signed the petitions. I have nothing but respect for those women.
My problem was that I have never experienced any sexism. I’m a from a liberal middle class suburban background in New Zealand – the first country to give women the vote, we’ve had 2 women prime ministers, one for 9 years. The most it’s come to is my art teacher when I was 11 saying “that’s pretty good – for a girl.” And we all knew he was a dick.
So from my point of view, this feminism that I admired, the fight for equality, was already won. Women were equal to men. Wherever I looked this was the case.
So from this assumption, it follows that none of the contemporary feminists were from the same mold as these bygone feminists whose actions I admired. What’s the point in fighting for something you already have? Thus, these ‘feminists’ must be the kind of fringe radicals – eg. all acts of heterosexual sex are necessarily rape because the patriachy is so dominant that women aren’t in any sense autonomous, so can’t consent.
As I considered myself pro-equality (which I thought a redundant belief) I was against the ‘new’ feminism, because I think the kind of radical ‘feminist’ that I characterised is actually undermining women (by painting them as so passive) and is trying to make women better/more than men, thus tipping the scales in the other direction. In fact in my experience women were being prioritised at men’s expense, I thought (and still do in a lot of cases) that the ‘movement’ had gone too far.
Now I am only starting to realise that my experience isn’t necessarily the case, and that sexism is actually out there. If that seems ridiculous to you that I wan’t aware of it, keep in mind that I am from a liberal middle class background – i.e. all the grown up feminists (men and women).
I was pro-equality, which in my experience had been reached, so I thought the feminism I admired had already won. Thus I resented being called a feminist.
What’s the point of my blabbering on about this?
If you simply claim that all, or even most, women/girls who don’t identify as feminists do so because they don’t want to be classed as feminazis, you’re oversimplifying the issue hugely. It’s possible that their reasoning is similar to mine.
Amanda @ at 1:22 am, July 18th, 2009
I think the word “feminist” needs some rebranding. You can mean the exact same thing, but it sounds nicer, and less culturally loaded kind similar to how creationism became intelligent design.