The "Feminist"

I am a feminist. When I hear the stories of women in other countries being forced to submit into whatever their society deems proper, be it being banned from driving or forced into marriages, it makes me want to fight the people responsible! It’s unbelievable that women are still being oppressed in such a modern age or any period of time for that matter! It’s not right! Besides our reproductive systems, women aren’t any different from men. In fact, we can manage just the same, if not more. We aren’t objects whose sole purpose is to be used to make others feel superior. We’re human, of the same species as men! And it’s not just in foreign countries, the fact that women in the United States, the land of freedom, don’t have the same wages as men, is preposterous! Yet year after year, we still have to organize demonstrations to protest a fact that should be obvious. It simply makes me want to holler and give people a good smack of common sense. None of this and any excuses are justified!

I consider myself a feminist. I believe that women should be equal to men. The people closest to me do too. At least, I haven’t felt that I was lacking anywhere because I’m a girl. My parents haven’t held me back for it and support me very much. My friends are like me, we’ve grown up in a society where refusing basic human rights to people and unequal treatment is frowned upon.  I’m glad all of us are in consensus on that sentiment because I seriously wouldn’t want to “refuse to cook” or “crack one or two [dishes]” to demonstrate my rejection of what their beliefs would otherwise be. (page 47, Woman Warrior) I express my feminism by following well-known feminists on all forms of social media, retweet feminist posts, and comment on feminist Youtube videos. Above all, I avidly follow the #metoo movement and I’m fascinated by the effects which all these actresses confessing to the sexual harassment they had to endure has. A new wave of feminism has begun, just like it had when Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique was published, and I’m glad to be alive to witness history go down…  Considering all this, I should be a feminist, right? It’s enough, right?

Am I a feminist? Having been loved and never discriminated against for being a woman, what do I know of being of oppressed? What do I know of not being paid equal wages as men, never having had a job? Do I even have the right to be called a feminist? I’ve never taken any initiative to improve the equal pay situation in the United States, much less save the women being beaten and refused education because of their gender. Who am I to defend the honor of these women when I read news articles of the same exact people, who have actually experienced the lengths which sexism can go, in indifference, getting annoyed that the reports are becoming so repetitive? I don’t deserve to be called a feminist.