Tag Archives: international women’s day

Thanks, feminism

It’s the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day today! I’m feeling a bit emotional about it. In fact, I think I might like International Women’s Day more than I like Christmas day.

The women and girls of my generation often enjoy the achievements of feminism without really giving any credit to the women who fought for it. There are those who actively reject feminists of old, and those who tell me feminism is no longer relevant. They’re wrong.

I wrote this for IWD 2010 in the midst of my feminist awakening. Up until then I’d felt something strange was going on, sensed some injustice, but the concept of feminism was completely alien to me. The closest I’d ever come to it was girl power- false empowerment wrapped up in a capitalist bow.

It’s funny that just a year ago I was only vaguely dipping my toes into the ocean of activism that I soon discovered exists. Feminism is such a huge part of my life now that I couldn’t imagine me without it.

So, I’m going to dedicate this post to saying thanks to feminism.

Thanks, feminism- if it wasn’t for feminism, I wouldn’t be at university.

Thank you, first wave feminists, for fighting for my right to vote.

Thank you, second wave feminists, for freeing my generation from that restrictive, singular career choice of wife and mother. Thanks to feminism I am not consigned to a life of domesticity. And If I chose to be, that would be ok, because it would be my informed choice, not one thrust upon me.

If I choose to get married and my husband views my body as his instead of mine, I can report him to the police. Thanks for that, feminism.

Thank you feminism for fighting for me and every other little girl of my generation to have options past fulfilling and supporting men. Thanks for letting me know that it’s ok to be my own person and have my own dreams, that I don’t have to consign my life to the male gaze, and that marriage isn’t my only destiny. Thanks for assuring me that I can have and own sexual feelings without having to feel dirty or wrong.

Thank you feminism, for handing me control over my own uterus.

Thanks feminism, and your consequential activism, for introducing me to some rather awesome people this year.

Thanks to feminism I’m a lucky, lucky girl. When I speak to older feminists I hear horrific stories of blatant and overt discrimination, 20, 30, 40 years ago, based entirely on their gender, and for black feminists, also their race. It makes me sad. It makes me angry. But just because that misogyny isn’t as overt today (sweeping generalisation, it often is, and is disguised as ‘banter’ or justified with blind and dogged misogyny) doesn’t mean it’s disappeared. Misogyny is clever, it’s sophisticated and manipulative. Misogyny is in those images of impossible ideals marketed to young women that eventually makes impressionable minds ill. It’s in that anti-wrinkle cream that promises eternal youth and advocates that warped message that older women are no longer sexually attractive and therefore invisible. It lingers upon page three of The Sun and in those lads mags that make you feel uncomfortable when you pop into your local newsagents. It’s rife in porn, which seems to be serving increasingly as sex education and somehow dictating just how far women’s bodies can be brutalised, and just how much men can do to them.

So I’m eternally grateful to the feminists and womanists and women-who-didn’t-define-as-feminists-but-still-fought-for-equality of the past. I’m a 21 year old woman enjoying the achievements of their efforts, but despite this I still understand that there’s work to be done. Because as long as women’s bodies are still seen as public space, still used as insults, still used as a synonym for weak and pathetic, as long as women are beaten by their husbands; and as long as women and girls across the globe are denied access to education,  equal pay or just any work at all, as long as governments see fit to control women’s bodies, and as long as women are bought and sold in the name of objectification, as long as women’s genitals are sliced and stitched and mutilated for fake notions of chastity; as long as women have to suffer sexual shame, as long as single mothers are blamed for the ills of society, as long as a woman’s work is never done, and as long as women and girls are blamed for sexual assault and rape, as long as women internationally are confined to lives of domesticity and servitude, as long as women’s bodies are oiled up and dissected in music videos, as long as the female form is used to sell things, and as long as women are seen as subordinate to men;

That’s how long I’ll keep fighting the feminist cause. Solidarity.

Is feminism a dirty word?

It’s International Women’s Day on March 8th. With this in mind, perhaps it’s important to address the taboo of feminism amongst our generation. Why are so many young people reluctant to declare themselves as feminists? You’d think it would be common place in this day and age, given the extensive protests, essays, literature and general awareness we’ve witnessed from feminist movements over the past 100 years. But there’s a stereotype surrounding the word- one that conjures up images of angry, man hating, bra burning, dungaree clad women with hairy armpits. Singer-songwriter Marina Diamandis, also known as Marina and The Diamonds, summed it up when she recently tweeted:

“I like how women wrinkle their noses when asked ‘Would you call yourself a feminist?’…
It’s more fashionable to be sexually empowered than “intellectually” empowered, it seems.”

It could be said that the feminist battle has already been won. Women have the right to a university education, access to high power jobs, the right to vote… the list goes on. But it would be absurd to suggest women and men are now equal. What isn’t absurd is to suggest that we still live in a patriarchal society. A society where young women are indoctrinated with digitally enhanced and airbrushed celebrities, told they’re not good enough, and advised to spend as much money as possible to achieve perfection. A society that finds its young women overtly sexualised from an uncomfortably young age, and judged, first and foremost, on their physical appearance. If that’s not patriarchal, I don’t know what is.  A government funded report recently attracted a lot of attention from the press, earning comments from Gordon Brown and David Cameron. Both agreed that the sexualisation of children must stop. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suggest that this immense peer pressure on girls and women to look attractive in order to gain approval from their peers is down to the constant, aggressive barrage of images we’re all subjected to through popular culture- in particular, the celebrities we admire. Sure, these celebs are very talented, but looking perfect is top of their list of priorities. The unobtainable look has become the norm, and any female in the industry slightly left of beautiful is an anomalous phenomenon. Susan Boyle proves this.

Take a step back and asses the situation. What’s happened to common sense? As children we were warned never to judge a book by its cover. Good looks do not equal a good person. When did beauty become an accurate measure of self worth?

In a lot of ways, this is a boring, tired old argument, one that’s been debated time and time again. But doesn’t the fact that the issue won’t go away confirm how big a problem it is? Feminism has always been about empowering and equipping females with the opportunities and education to better themselves.

In reality, there is no stereotype that can define a feminist. Feminists definitely aren’t ‘anti man’. If you believe in equality, you believe in feminism. It’s as simple as that.

For more information, visit www.thefword.org.uk or http://www.internationalwomensday.com/