I love music. From Tchaikovsky to T-Pain, my iPod has it all. I also love to sing. I’m not all that good at it, and my off-key crooning is usually confined to my shower or car, but nevertheless I enjoy it. It puts me in a good mood.

On my way home this afternoon, I was listening to my usual pre-set pop radio station when a relatively new song called Extraterrestrial by Katy Perry and Kanye West came on. I’d heard it before, but never paid much attention to anything other than the catchy beat. It wasn’t until today that I realized what the lyrics were actually saying. For those of you who aren’t fans of top-40 radio, here’s a partial transcript. You can also listen to the song here.

“They say be afraid
You’re not like the others
Futuristic lover
Different DNA
They don’t understand you

Your from a whole other world
A different dimension
You open my eyes
And I’m ready to go
Lead me into the light

Kiss me, ki-ki-kiss me
Infect me with your love and
Fill me with your poison

Take me, ta-ta-take me
Wanna be a victim
Ready for abduction

Boy, you’re an alien
Your touch are foreign
It’s supernatural
Extraterrestrial”

Infect me with your poison? I wanna be a victim? Really?

Of course misogynistic lyrics are nothing new – women have been objectified and called “bitches” and “hos” in rap lyrics for years, but what I find most disturbing about this particular set of lyrics is that a woman is actively and with conviction insisting she wants to be a victim. A victim of what, you might ask? Well, perhaps I’m reading a bit too much into this, but it sounds eerily like the articulation of a female rape fantasy played out in lyrical form.

Ms. Perry recently admitted to the British tabloid OK! she has no desire to be a role model and would prefer kids look up to girls like (*gag, choke, vomit in mouth*) Miley Cyrus.

You have GOT to be kidding me.

Too bad she doesn’t really have a choice in the matter. She’s a role model (albeit not a very good one) whether she wants to be or not, and she should know better than to think she’s not culpable just by saying she doesn’t want to be. Shame on you, Katy.

Songs like “Extraterrestrial” and Rhianna’s “S&M”, where the songstress states “the pain is my pleasure” and describes how excited she becomes by whips and chains (surprising given the brutal and widely publicized beating she received from ex-boyfriend Chris Brown), leave me wondering what a conscientious feminist is supposed to do? Can I like these songs and still claim to be fighting patriarchy? Can I sing along without compromising the part of myself that hates the message the lyrics are promoting? Of these things I’m not sure. But what I am sure of is that my daughter won’t be listening to them.

These women know they are influential. They know their lyrics reach millions of teen girls and young women on a daily, if not hourly, basis. They also base their entire careers on the notion that the cultural products they produce will resonate with people, and Rhianna has experienced first hand one of the ugly and painful products of patriarchy. So why on earth are they loudly and proudly proclaiming their desires to be brutalized by men?!

Perhaps they don’t claim to be feminists, and that’s perfectly fine, even appropriate given the content of their music, but that doesn’t get them off the hook when it comes to promoting violence toward women. We’ve come to expect it from many male artists in the popular music industry (i.e. 99% of male rappers), but I find it tragic that even a former victim of such violence now seems to be promoting it, even glamorizing it.

If Katy wants so badly to be a victim, I’m pretty sure she’s gotten her wish. She’s yet another victim of the hegemonic, patriarchal ideology that has relegated women to nothing more than objects of male sexual pleasure. I sure hope she’s happy.

Katie E also writes for Figuring out Feminism

we need to get rid of ALL prejudice

I recently heard some of  my classmates talking about how sexism really isn’t as big a problem today as racism is. They said that racism is on a different level and that all the feminists need to shut their mouths and just get over it. On Women’s Day,  one student stated that the day shouldn’t be a big deal because women’s struggles are not the same, or as serious, as racial ones. I didn’t say anything, but I was upset by what he said. I do not agree with this, and it hurts me that people feel that way.

I feel that sexism and racism are both equally horrible in their own right, and to separate or rank them doesn’t do anybody any good.  I really do believe that we have a long way to go before women and men are considered equals, and by saying racism is worse and deserves more attention, we are putting women’s rights on the side burner. For example, the statistics for violence against women are insane:

Approximately 2/3 of rapes were committed by someone known to the victim.
73% of sexual assaults were perpetrated by a non-stranger.
38% of rapists are a friend or acquaintance.
28% are an intimate.
7% are a relative.

Not to mention that people still blame women for getting raped. How is that fair and equal? How is our work done?

Women are more likely to be passed over for certain positions, such as police officers and firefighters all because they are dainty little women. Women fought hard to get equal rights, and we are still fighting hard to get them. Women have fought for the right to vote, some were beaten by cops others institutionalized just because they wanted equality. Women fought for reproductive rights, the right to choose her own birth control without her husband’s permission (something some women are still fighting for, especially in bible belt south). I could go on and on and on about other things but I’m sure you already know those by now.

Clearly, sexism is still a big problem, and the next time somebody says it’s not maybe you should stand up and correct them. But really, the bottom line is that sexism and racism both still exist and are both still problems. Rather than trying to say one problem is “worse” than the other, we need to join forces to stop prejudice of all kinds, not just race and gender inequality. That’s the only way the world will ever be fair and equal.

A week ago today (March 8th), countries around the world celebrated the hundredth anniversary of International Women’s Day. But surely, one hundred years after its conception, women don’t need their own special day anymore? What about an International Men’s Day, hmm?

The answer is that the 364 other days of the year belong to men. It’s more important than ever that a day specifically for women is celebrated: to see how far we have come, and to see how far we have to go.

No one can deny that in one hundred years, huge amounts have been achieved. When I woke up on Tuesday, I was proud to be an independent woman, able to live, work and travel freely, able to study at a university and be awarded a degree for my efforts. In Britain at least, many people believe that the fight is over.

So why do I believe that feminism is more relevant than ever? The statistics speak for themselves: 75% of civilians killed in war are women and children; one in four women will be a victim of domestic violence in her lifetime; one in five women will be a victim of rape or attempted rape in her lifetime; worldwide, 60 million girls are sexually assaulted at or en route to school every year.

Even just the fact that only 19% of MPs are women (in America, this figure is 16.5% for the whole of Congress) is shocking, and reflects the figure for the percentage of parliamentary seats held by women worldwide. It’s not easy to pinpoint exactly the reasons for this, or what we can do in the short term; it’s not a simple case of sexism or discrimination. The lack of women in high-powered jobs reflects on our society in general, and the expectations of women even today.

There are some countries where IWD is celebrated with much pomp, and where routine prejudice and discrimination against women is still tolerated. Fortunately, that is not the case in the UK. But with the Fawcett Society attempting to hold a judicial review against our government, because 72% of the cuts currently being implemented will directly affect women, we mustn’t forget the importance of feminism, on International Women’s Day and every day of the year.

the punishment for being raped?

It seems impossible but it’s true: although her sentence has just been overturned, in Britain recently, a woman was sent to jail for accusing her husband of rape, then retracting the accusation.

Although this story has received little coverage except in The Guardian, a left-wing daily national, it caught my eye at once. The story goes like this: the woman, ‘Sarah’, was being repeatedly abused by her husband. One night, after brutally raping her, she summoned up the courage to dial 999 and her husband, ‘Ray’, was arrested. However, one year on, it was Sarah who was sent to prison and Ray who walked free.

After Ray was arrested, Sarah was put under increasing pressure to retract the rape allegation. This she did, after emotional blackmail from both Ray and his sister.

For most people, it would be obvious that a rape victim suddenly retracting her allegation would require more investigation, particularly because the police and CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) knew the background details of the case, including the fact that Ray had abused Sarah before. The physical and forensic evidence was all there. However, rather than investigating further, Sarah was arrested for perverting the course of justice. On November 5th, she was sentenced to eight months in prison. After serving eighteen days, however, her sentence was overturned; she instead received a community sentence and a supervision order for two years.

Some victory: it is Sarah who now has the criminal record, not Ray.

In my eyes, Sarah is a victim not only of her abusive husband but a system that has repeatedly let her down. Although they dealt well with the case initially, arresting Ray and taking her allegation seriously, they let her down by allowing Ray to write emotional letters to his children from prison, blaming Sarah for his predicament. It takes so much courage for a rape victim to come forward, particularly if the perpetrator is her own husband. In Britain, only 6% of reported rapes result in a conviction, a shocking statistic, even allowing for a certain number of false accusations.

It seems incredible that a husband raping his wife was only recognised as a crime in 1991. Since then, rape conviction has barely progressed at all, with judges taking an increasingly hard line on (supposedly) false rape accusations.

The process of reporting a rape is enough to put some women off: an internal forensic exam by a doctor is followed by intense cross-examining from a barrister if the case proceeds to court. Obviously these measures are necessary to discover the truth. But it seems to me that a lot more sensitivity, tact and compassion is needed when it comes to reporting rape; cases like this can hardly encourage victims to come forward. Rape victims can expect nothing but harsh treatment and utter scepticism from the British courts system; this must be changed.

It was not in the plan to get a domestic violence charge at age seventeen. Unfortunately, sometimes people make plans for us. My boyfriend had devised the perfect one. Nobody wants to be the dumper. The dumper is mean and awful and almost always the bad guy. As the dumper, it’s hard to get much sympathy and you end up wasting
valuable time feeling bad for someone else. It requires awkward timing and planning of words and is overall completely undesirable. So rather than deal with all of this, he had decided to cheat. It was the perfect plan. Bill Clinton did it, Tiger Woods did it, even Brad Pitt did it, so why couldn’t he? When Brad Pitt left Jennifer Aniston for Angelina Jolie, girls everywhere professed that Angelina was the worst person in the world for breaking up America’s Sweethearts. The two emotions associated with cheating usually include hatred and pity. Hatred for the homewrecker and pity for the scorned woman. The lesson learned? Cheating is an easy way out. My boyfriend could cheat on me because, naturally, we would all blame the “slut” for hooking up with him. For some reason, society is okay with men’s promiscuity, while simultaneously scorning women for the same actions. So his plan would work. He could cheat on me, and I might cry, but ultimately I would blame her. He knew I would because that’s what society had taught him.

As a woman today, I have to fight for my man. I have to work hard so I am enough for him. Jennifer didn’t have the pursed lips and the rippling muscles that Angelina had. Her flawless face and perfectly kept form was not enough to keep Brad happy, so he was justified in moving on to Angelina. Jennifer probably wasn’t smart enough or kind enough or maybe she wasn’t ready to have his children. I knew that just like Jennifer, I had to be on constant upkeep or my man would leave me. Society has taught me that my appearance is more important than my heart. Behaving like a lady trumps defending my honor. So as a woman, as a humiliated, objectified, and belittled woman, I should have known better. I should have read the evidence of his infidelity and cried myself to sleep knowing that I wasn’t enough for him.

Truth is, I am enough. Just as it isn’t Jennifer Aniston’s fault that Brad wasn’t able to respect his promise, it isn’t my fault either. It isn’t any of our faults, so women, I say, screw society! He cheated and lied. He threw me and pushed me and shoved me. I did what any smart girl would do. I defended myself. It’s disgusting that our society today now promotes backing down and blaming ourselves rather than defending what is right. I’m proud to be a strong woman and I’m proud for not allowing his abuse. And the fact that any human being could look at me and say getting arrested is what I deserve is the saddest and most pathetic thing I have ever heard.

The court sentenced me to hours upon hours of counseling, teaching me never to defend myself again. The court taught me that lying, cheating, infidelity, and abuse is okay when it comes from a man and that as a woman I should just deal with it. Stereotypes of women create an unsafe and very unequal environment for the female population. Until society is willing to level out the playing field, our culture will continue to see violence and infidelity amongst men and timidity and helplessness amongst women. After fellow students found out about my visit to the county jail, I was avoided and discriminated against at school. Not once was I asked for a statement to the judge or for my side of the story. Not once was I approached by a school administrator or teacher. Everyone knew I had hit someone, and that was all anybody needed to know. The discrimination toward me, a “violent” female, heavily outweighed the discrimination of a dishonest boy.

I can only pray that other women of society will not travel down the same path I have, but ultimately, the structure of society must change. In one of my last therapy sessions before heading to college, I was asked “If you were placed in a domestic violence situation again, would you defend yourself?” Sadly, the answer is no.

Human rights org Breakthrough has announced eleven ways that individuals can help fight for human rights in 2011, recommending eleven unique actions, many supported by activist and nonprofit organizations. The Breakthrough eleven for eleven range from encouraging acceptance and tolerance among children, to helping to end violence against women, to participating in Breakthrough’s video and Twitter contest, I AM THIS LAND, looking for new visions of a more tolerant and accepting America, going on now atwww.iamthisland.org.

The Breakthrough eleven for eleven are below:

1. Read for Good: Take a cue from Reading to End Racism of Colorado and talk to your local library about volunteering to host a reading group for kids. Choose books with a positive message of acceptance and encourage dialogue about their experiences.

2. Spend More Time on Facebook: Already connected with everyone from your second grade class? Move on to Jumo, a website that will connect you to organizations matched to your do-good interests. After logging in with your Facebook account, answer a few questions about the things you care about and Jumo will search through the 3,500 organizations to find the ones that align most. On a weekly basis they will send you updates on your chosen organizations and what they’re doing on the Internet – everything from Twitter to YouTube.

3. Drink Wine to Give Water: Gather your friends and host a party to benefit Wine to Water, an organization dedicated to helping provide clean water to the more than 1 billion people in the world who do not have access to it. Invite your friends to your home, ask that everyone contribute a small amount and spend the rest of the night talking about how happy you are to have clean water.

4. Give a Little, Do a Lot: If you’d like to help those Americans around you that are suffering in this difficult economy, visit Modest Needs, which enables individuals to request grants to help Americans facing unexpected bills, the newly and temporarily unemployed, helping the disabled to live independently, and to help small nonprofits. All grant requests are rigorously researched by the organization to ensure legitimacy.

5. Live the DREAM: The proposed DREAM Act will help young U.S. residents become legal citizens. Learn more about the DREAM Act in 2011.

6. Make Gay Marriage a Reality: Learn more about campaigns for gay marriage that help same-sex couples to gain rights of marriage, like social security benefits and hospital visitation. Sign on to support campaigns from Freedom to Marry and Human Rights Campaign.

7. Help End Stereotypes: Do your part to help end stereotypes and intolerance in the United States by talking to your friends and family about the small-scale intolerance that happens on a daily basis. And make an official pledge to “promote greater understanding and acceptance” during Characters Unite Month. For each pledge made, The USA Network will donate $1 to their nonprofit partners.

8. Host an Un-birthday Party: One in eight people in our world don’t have access to the most basic of human needs—water. By helping just one, you can make a difference. Instead of gifts, ask your loved ones for donations to charity:water.

9. Talk it Out: Host a screening with friends and talk about religious tolerance. Organizations such as 20,000 Dialogues encourage community dialogues and provide films so you can talk about issues of religion and acceptance in your community.

10. Fight Domestic Violence: Take a cue from the Bell Bajao! campaign initiated by Breakthrough and do your part to end violence against women. Learn more about the International Violence Against Women Act.

11. Make a video for I AM THIS LAND: Embrace the diversity that is this country and use technology to promote religious tolerance, equality and racial justice. Make a video on diversity using the phrase “I am this land,” and enter it in the I AM THIS LAND contest. The grand prize includes $2,500!

Originally posted on B-listed

I wrote the following essay in 2007, during my senior year of high school. Although the message is strong and confident, in the three years since writing it, I still often  find it too difficult to talk about, even though the abuse is not a personal experience of mine. However, the recent experience of one of my best friends has reminded me of the importance of speaking out. One of the biggest problems of sexual abuse is the shame which so often coerces victims into silence. Victims can be any gender and belong to any race or social class. That also pertains to abusers. I encourage everyone and everything who has ever been affected by sexual abuse or knows someone who has to NOT REMAIN SILENT. Reach out, seek help, and fight.

My mother and I do not have a “Gilmore Girls” relationship. She asked me in seventh grade if “the talk” was necessary; I told her no, and she replied, “Good, because neither of us really wanted to have it.” However, I was twelve when the pieces of my mother’s fractured childhood began to fall into place in my mind. We sat in the dining room with a book and her past in between us.
The select stories I had been told of my mother’s side of the family painted her, her parents and siblings to be resourceful despite poverty, slightly strange, and certainly in a different living situation than the way I had been growing up. None of her siblings lived within frequent-visiting distance, but the effort probably wouldn’t have been made anyway. The “family time” I know means going to a movie and not talking for two hours. Most of what I know about my family are childhood stories, my mother’s sister ripping the head off my mother’s Barbie and chucking it out of the car on their cross-country road trip, her brother’s python getting loose in the house, or her father making everyone hate decorating the tree because of his persistence in the correct placement of the tinsel. My grandparents died before I was born, and my aunts and uncles are seen every few years depending on how convenient it is to travel to wherever they live.

It is not her exact words that I would remember, nor how the conversation came to be. It was how her words echoed through my body. The book, Promise Not to Tell, was given to me to show me an example, to explain how something like that can possibly happen. I finished it the same day, oddly fascinated and sickened; the same motivation that drew my best friend and me in eighth grade to obsessively watch Sleeping with the Enemy, The Babysitter’s Seduction, and other frequently played movies on the Lifetime Movie Network. Later, I learned that when Carolyn Lehman wrote Promise Not to Tell, it was the first literature aimed at children about sexual abuse. And that she wrote it because she had been sexually abused as a child.

My mother is one of four girls, in a family of six children, raised in a time where saying “butt” was the equivalent of a curse word, public disobedience was not tolerated, but private indiscretions were never mentioned; especially within families.

“What did you do?” I asked, rapt.
“I said no, and walked away,” she told me. “And that was the only time it ever happened to me.”
“Then what did you do? Did you tell your sisters?”
“No,” she said. “We never talked about it. Not until years and years later, after my parents had died.”
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“I thought I was being bad, that it was my fault. Why else? This is the way children think, and the way girls think. I must have done something wrong. And I thought I was looking out for my sisters, but he was a sneaky bastard.”

Shattered were my vague, shadowy images of my grandfather building solar panels in the backyard to heat the pool, or teaching the dog to eat an ice cream cone by standing it up on the driveway.

My father tells me fairly often, “Your mother needs to stop volunteering for things and learn The Power of No.” The Power of No, I assume, is another Essential Life Skill he picked up from one of the numerous self-help books that he buys and of which he will never read more than the first two chapters and the inside flap. “She needs to learn that you can simply say No, and that’s the end of it.”

When I was twelve, I realized that my mother knows The Power of No, but that No is nowhere near the end of it. I had known for a few years of my mother and her siblings’ heroic effort that got their youngest sibling out of her first marriage. Now I know that abused children are likely to find themselves in abusive relationships as adults, which helped explain why she had first married an abusive man. Now I know the heroic effort could never have worked without her courage to finally use the Power of No.

“No one talked about things like that back then,” my mother told me.

The sisters finally talked to each other when they started going into therapy as adults. After more than two decades they realized they each hadn’t been the only one. Then the two brothers were brought into the loop. Their oldest brother refused to believe it, and wouldn’t speak to his sisters for a while.

“He seriously didn’t believe you?” Shocked does not begin to describe my reaction. I lived and embraced the Girl-Power nineties, and to me, undercutting a woman’s experience was foreign and unacceptable.

“He didn’t want to believe anything bad about Daddy.”

I find it disturbing that the same man my mother calls a “sneaky bastard” she calls “Daddy.” I was twelve and I realized that I will never begin to understand the contradiction that children of abusive families live. I was twelve and I know that there will never be anything to be gained from staying quiet.

If you or someone you know has been sexually abused, it is important that you seek help and talk to someone. Talking to a trusted friend can be very helpful, but I encourage you to seek help from a trusted adult like a family member or guidance counsellor. If you have been abused, it is not your fault. It never should have happened to you and the shame should belong to your abuser. If you want to see help but anonymously, here are some resources (all numbers are 24 hour hotlines):

RAINN (Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network) (http://www.rainn.org/)
Free national hotline: 1-800-656-HOPE
Information on how to help someone you know (http://www.rainn.org/get-help/help-a-loved-one)

The National Domestic Violence Hotline (http://www.thehotline.org/) :
Free national hotline: 1-800-799-SAFE (7233)

Childhelp (http://www.childhelp.org/):
Free national hotline: 1-800-4-A-CHILD

Liz P blogs about feminism, current events, pop culture, and teens at her blog Our Turn.

One of my extremely good friends is finishing out her high school career abroad, and I spent the weekend at her apartment with some other friends as a send-off party before she left. When we were discussing how she would get around, since she can’t drive yet, she said that she wouldn’t go into a taxi alone. I agreed.

“Yeah, that’s not a good idea, you don’t wanna get…hurt,” I said.

The word I had in mind was raped, but I felt uncomfortable saying it. She didn’t, though.

“Yeah, since I definitely do not want to get raped or molested or something by a cab driver,” she said.

Why did I have such a problem saying the word rape? Seriously, what was wrong with me? Rape is a crime, just like murder. Both are horrible, horrible sins, but they happen every day. I have no problem saying the word murder; why did I feel uncomfortable with the word rape? I felt sickened with myself.

I’ve only just realized that I shouldn’t have felt that way. I should feel sickened with society for fostering the idea that rape, domestic violence, and other crimes against women are bad words, taboo topics, Things-That-Must-Not-Be-Named. The only way to combat something is to be able to discuss it; if you sweep it under the rug and try to forget it exists, it’ll never be stopped.

My favorite book of all time is Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. (Every self-respecting feminist MUST have read it. If you have not, go reserve it at the library. I’m serious. Right now.) The main character, Melinda, is shunned by her peers for calling the police at a party – but they don’t know that the reason she called was because she had been raped. Nobody does. Because of her outcast status and PTSD from the rape, she stops speaking until she finally tells what happened at the party.

We need to speak out loud on behalf of all the Melindas out there who feel that they can’t speak for themselves. Unfortunately, there are a lot of them. Every nine seconds, a woman is assaulted. We need to be vocal about stopping rape and other sex crimes, and helping survivors go on with their lives. If we don’t force society to talk about rape and help those who have survived it, rape will continue to ruin the lives of women around the world.

October isn’t just Breast Cancer Awareness Month, it’s also Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Instead of sharing statistics that you can easily find online to show how prevalent domestic violence and interpersonal violence is, I’m going to share a story:

Last spring, my university’s chapter of the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance co-hosted the Clothesline Project.  The Clothesline Project raises awareness about interpersonal violence by physically showing how many people have been affected as represented by t-shirts. You can decorate a t-shirt for yourself, for someone you know, or for someone you don’t know. Our event happened to be the same week that a senior girl had been tragically murdered by her ex-boyfriend, so we got a lot of her friends coming by to make t-shirts. Sadly, it brought the project a lot closer to our college and reminded the student body how domestic violence can affect anyone. However, that’s not the story I’m going to share.

Another girl from FMLA and I were tabling for both the club and the project, and it was pretty uneventful. Tabling tends to be that way. Occasionally people come by with stupid questions, but for the most part you sit smiling for a shift or two. After awhile, a middle-aged woman came over and asked about the project. We explained the significance of each color of t-shirt and that it was free and that she could make a t-shirt for anyone.

“Oh, that’s great, that’s great. I used to be in an abusive relationship, but I got out of that. I’m not going to make a t-shirt for me though. I’m going to make one for my friend,” she told us.

“That’s great!” we told her.
“Yeah, she stayed with him too long. But they’re not together anymore. I made sure of that.
I was at her house one day when he came around and started bangin’ on the door yellin’ at us to let him in. And I just knew that if he came in he would kill her. Of course we were both scared because he was crazy, but he didn’t know that I was crazier. I grabbed a knife from the kitchen, and while he was screamin’ and bangin’ on the door, I told my friend to open the door. When she opened it I just started swingin’ the knife as fast as I could. And he saw me and jumped back and ran the fastest I’ve ever seen to his car and drove away. And they never saw each other again. They’re divorced, and she’s with a real man now, but that’s why I’m gonna make a t-shirt for her.”

We were obviously in awe. “Yeah! Go ahead!”

Clearly, fighting violence with violence is not the answer. However, the courage that this woman had to fight for her friend is amazing, and I hope that everyone has a friend that they could find the same sort of courage to defend and that their friend would do the same for them.

The Clothesline Project is easy to bring to your school if it hasn’t been there already, and I would highly recommend getting a group together and hosting it. Domestic violence has likely affected you or someone you know, and you owe it to them to get people to care.

Liz P blogs about feminism, current events, pop culture, and teens at her blog Our Turn.

the kitchen: not as related to feminism as one might think!

The past few days I’ve noticed some hating going on towards modern feminism on tumblr, and hey, everyone’s entitled to their own opinions, but it still frustrates me. I don’t think people really understand what modern feminism is and that there’s still reasons to fight, even if it’s not necessarily the reasons of the 60’s. I mean, I didn’t even really understand what modern feminism was until about a year ago.

People hear the word feminism and associate it with the fight to stay out of the kitchen. It’s just not. I mean, if you want to talk feminism and the kitchen, feminism believes it’s a woman’s choice to stay in or out of the kitchen. I for one, try to avoid the kitchen at all costs because I can hardly make a grilled cheese correctly. But, if I was a good cook, I’d always be slavin’ away at the oven because I have the appetite of an infant and need to eat every three hours. But alas, my cooking skills are sub par. ANYWAY, I’m really hungry, so we’re just going to move onto the big picture.

The big picture is, that yes women can vote, and yes they don’t have to stay home and not get an education if they don’t want to. But equal? Nah.

We live in a world where the majority of males thinks it’s okay to be degrading and beep, yell, whistle, etc at us. Can’t a girl get a vege roll and a side of fries from Big Gary’s without every Tom, Dick, and Larry giving her the “I obviously have a small dick” salute? We still live in a world where women are portrayed as helpless, the damsels in distress, and oh my, she’s not married? What’s wrong with her?

For christ’s sake, we live in a world where it’s advisable to carry pepper spray in your purse because some douchebag thinks he’s entitled to rape you because you’re walking home alone in the dark. We live in a society where a girl has too much to drink and is taken advantage of by a guy who had too much to drink and HER faults are pointed out.

The real heartbreaking thing here is, we still live in a world where (in America), someone is raped every two minutes. And since 97 percent of rape victims are women, every two minutes, it’s usually a woman getting raped. And domestic violence? That’s happening just as frequently too, and it’s almost always happening to women.

How can you know this is happening and not believe there is a need for change?

Look, people are entitled to their opinions and it’d be awesome if more women cared about feminism, but realistically, not every woman can be convinced. So you may go on with your day and not think twice about the concept of modern feminism. But until women are making more than 70 cents to the man’s dollar and until marriage dowries aren’t taking place almost every day… please do not belittle the cause. You may not be fighting for the cause, but the cause is fighting for you.