The F Word

Feminist is one of the F words that causes disgusted reactions. Feminism has always seemed like common sense to me, but I am learning that is only because of the role-models I had who explained it to me. I first learned about feminism from the star of Ally McBeal, because someone was asking her about how she was reacting to the "controversy" of her being a feminist. She explained that feminism is simply the struggle for equality between the sexes. Feminists can't even all agree on what's okay and what's not, but that happens with any movement. A movement consists of many people uniting for one cause, despite having many other differences.

I had a professor last year say that she was frustrated with the way "our" (not her) generation cowers away from the word feminist and that us women don't fight for our rights. I was upset, because I disagreed with her. I am a feminist and I think it's empowering. I was then shocked when the subject came up with my friends from high school. No one liked the word feminist. Most of them either didn't care, or had some crazy idea of what it means to be a feminist. One of my friends from an elite University said, "Well, I believe in equal rights for women, but I don't flaunt it around all of the time." I understand why people are afraid to claim feminism, because society will label you as, "bitter," "prudish," or "butch." The only feminist people seem to think about are the bra-burners from back in the day. Feminism has evolved along with society. There is feminist theology, literary criticism, and magazines. My literature instructor last semester was a young to middle-aged guy from England. He had to introduce us to Feminist Criticism in literature for a play we were reading. Some of the guys said they had a hard time analyzing the text from a feminist perspective, and he lectured on the importance of feminism. He said, "People are so turned off to the words feminism, because they have some crazy image in their head, but if you replace feminism with equal rights, then a lot more people will join you...even though feminism is about equal rights."

People tell me that feminism is a bunch of radicals, because things aren't that bad. Women still make seventy cents to every dollar a man makes and there are social norms burned in all of our brains that keep the vicious cycle going. Women keep the cycle going. We enforce the unrealistic social rules. I can think of plenty of things my friends have said that are so degrading to women. I try to understand that it's burned in their brains. It's in mine too. It's a struggle to overcome it but we must. This article about Hillary Clinton really struck me:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/erica-jong/tears-fears_b_80679.html

Hillary Clinton has her problems. Im not saying she needs to be president, but I do think that the hate she is receiving would not be nearly as severe if she was a man. I think this article raises some good points.