I sit alone in my dad's office chair, typing a list of things that I have done for myself against his will. Things that I believe in, that I am very passionate about. Things that just do not match up with my family's values and beliefs. I respect their opinions and I understand we are different, but I know we are fighting on two separate sides of a civil war. I'm also very grateful to be able to leave this office and walk out to the kitchen where my dad asks me questions about economics as I make myself a peanut butter and banana sandwich.
The list is as follows:
1. I dropped out of college.
2. I don’t believe in God.
3. I’m a raging liberal.
4. I am pro-choice.
5. I fight for women’s rights,
6. and LGBTQ+ rights,
7. and human rights all around.
8. I don’t have a savings account.
9. I never go to the dentist.
10. I spend my weekends at the bar with my friends,
11. or watching Netflix with my cat.
12. I am friends with a refugee from Kenya that I drive to doctor’s appointments and teach English on Fridays.
13. My career goals are to become an artist or an actress.
14. I am not ladylike.
15. I do not want to have children.
I don’t know why I am the way that I am, I just know that I stopped accepting the things I couldn’t change, and decided to change the things that I could no longer accept. Among those things that I am so passionate about sits my feministic ideology.
My father once asked me if I was being paid less at my job because I am a woman. The 2015 U.S. Census Bureau said women in North Dakota are still making only $0.71 to every dollar that a man makes. That means that women like myself, who are employed full-time, lose a combined total of two billion dollars each year in North Dakota.
Let me explain to you what I do for a living. I am the Display Lead for one branch of an employee-owned company. I do visual displays and merchandising, or what I like to refer to as “retail interior design”. It is an exceptional company to work for, and the management team is phenomenal, but I still hear sexist comments from customers and coworkers alike.
Comments such as:
“You better wash the marks off of these mannequins unless you plan on using them for a battered women display.” He said as he squinted his eyes and smiled at me, waiting for me to laugh.
“Hide your tampon on your way to the bathroom. I would be offended if I saw someone carrying that around.” I am a woman. Therefore, I bleed.
“You can’t be a woman and a leader without everyone thinking you are a bitch.”
Never stop believing that fighting for what's right is worth it. It is worth it.
We need you to keep up these fights now and for the rest of your lives.
And to all the women, and especially the young women, who put their faith in this campaign and in me, I want you to know that nothing has made me prouder than to be your champion.
I know we have still not shattered that highest and hardest glass ceiling, but some day someone will and hopefully sooner than we might think right now.
And -- and to all the little girls who are watching this, never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams.
- Excerpt from Hillary Clinton's Concession Speech a.k.a. not a bitch.
“[Moaning sound] I do love seeing a woman in an apron!” He laughed and winked, pretending to be friendly. I gagged.
“Don’t you think it’s inappropriate for that mannequin to be in a sports bra?” Umm, why? #FreeTheNipple
“The male mannequins don’t need to hold shopping bags, that’s the women’s job!” I proceeded to put bags in each of the male mannequin's hands.
Plus, the fact that I’ve completely run out of appropriate work pants because they don’t make dress pants durable enough for women that carry around 30-pound objects up ladders while trying to avoid showing their period stains or tearing their pants or revealing their midriff.
These are things that men would never have to deal with at the workplace. So when you realize that it is 2017 and you question whether or not we still need to be fighting for women’s rights, consider the fact that when my dad asked me if I got paid less at my job for being a woman, I told him that the pay wouldn’t change the way I get treated there. When I painted CURE across three bust forms and they got taken off of the sales floor at work for being too “risqué”, I was ashamed that breasts are still sexualized and need to be hidden, even if they are in support of something as serious as breast cancer. And in the winter when it’s dark, and I run to my car after a shift because the fear of being raped is just a normal part of being a woman, like eating or breathing, I know that we are fighting for a reason.
"We teach girls to shrink themselves
To make themselves smaller
We say to girls
“You can have ambition
But not too much
You should aim to be successful
But not too successful
Otherwise you will threaten the man”
Because I am female
I am expected to aspire to marriage
I am expected to make my life choices
Always keeping in mind that
Marriage is the most important
Now marriage can be a source of
Joy and love and mutual support
But why do we teach to aspire to marriage
And we don’t teach boys the same?
We raise girls to each other as competitors
Not for jobs or for accomplishments
Which I think can be a good thing
But for the attention of men
We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings
In the way that boys are
Feminist: the person who believes in the social
Political, and economic equality of the sexes."
-Excerpt from WE SHOULD ALL BE FEMINISTS by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi
