In the western world most people shrug off feminism, most people shrug off catcalling and people who mean well, but execute questionably. We forget that somehow this equality thing is worth talking about, even if it gets us fired or even if it steps on people's toes. We don’t ignore it because we think it isn’t worth talking about, but because “it’s just the way things were.” A lot of the boys we see cat-calling or feeling girls up when they aren’t wanted are actually solid young men looking for a future— for careers and lives and dream cars. They’re just looking for fun, and I guess that’s where the problem lies: that they need to realize that getting their fun is not ok if it is infringing on someone else’s freedom. Or fundamental human rights.
Feminism isn’t about hating men or burning our bras or flicking off every guy that barks at us on the side of the road— it’s about women learning to take back their own lives and futures. Or maybe even just learning to claim them in the first place; learning to look at the people who mean well and the people who are just jerks and say “hey, I get that’s the way you were raised but you can’t impose yourself on me anymore.” It’s deciding that women have the right to fight, to be believed in court— to not be hated for ruining a mans life when he wrecked her emotionally and took her physically. So many of the women close to me have come quietly whispering about nightmares and trauma, twenty years later and the smell of smoke still takes them back or they can’t tell the story without crying. What is it about our society that allows people to look at another human being and take what they want without a second thought about the other person?
Being a woman in this world means every time you leave your house you are in danger of having someone take from you what is not theirs. Being a woman in this world means that what you wear is always up for talking about, it means that your amount of makeup is always up for being commented on. It means that you will be blamed for whatever happens to you if you dress a certain way— even though the way you dress or act does not mean yes when verbally you say no. Being a woman means you won’t get hired because you might have children; it essentially means choosing between your dreams and your family, because there is a slim chance of you making it up the food chain if you have to take a break for maternity leave. It means that men will get paid more than you do, not because your employers are sexist necessarily but because they have the courage to ask for more because they feel they deserve more whereas females are less confident in their abilities. (Kay, K., & Shipman, C.)
Being a woman here and now means that you will never only be your own. It means that you will be afraid for most of your life because that is what you are taught to be. It means that you will be given extra safety sources such as mace or pepper spray or a taser because in real life you actually will probably have to use those things. It means people will tell you not to go places by yourself or walk alone in the dark, and that you need a man to go with you to make it safer.
Being a woman means that you are constantly on show, it means you will be given extra clothing guidelines in order to help prevent rape when really it isn't what you are or aren't wearing that should change. It is not the womanhood at fault and it never has been. It is the socially constructed opinion that such men are at the top of the food chain, allowed to devour anything lower than their special status that makes living freely as a woman, in every sense of the word, impossible.This is what it is to be a woman, whether we want to believe it or whether it makes you cringe or not. The purpose of this is not to point fingers at men and say they do everything wrong, because that isn't true. This is to say that it's time we raise our heads up and open our eyes and realize what we are raising our daughters and sons into. This is for the one's who have been stuck in silence about that which has wrecked them. Sexism and rape culture are real, raw things and they aren't funny or normal, they're desperately wrong and it is way past time that they started to change
A friend of mine got caught in an awkward situation with a man who was really eager to take what wasn’t his, her immediate response was, “It’s probably because my dress was so short.” I don’t know where modesty lies in the fight for women to be able to not blame or hide themselves; I don’t know where the line is between privacy and ownership. I still have a lot of questions that I haven’t gotten answered yet. But what I’m learning is that it doesn’t matter what you’re wearing or how fat or skinny you are, if you are a woman, you’re fair game. And I want to know why that makes it acceptable, why people don’t get distressed when they see it happen to women on the street. There are so many girls and women who have been raped that sit in front of me weeping, saying, “And no one believed me, and if they did: they said it was my fault.” I know girls who were kicked out of their homes because no one would take the time to see the hurt in their eyes enough to believe that they really hadn’t been asking for it, in fact they’d been drugged or forced or all of the other million ways it can happen.
There are these stories everywhere— creaking and groaning in the hearts of girls/women who have been oppressed for so long. Feminism to me, means fighting for the women before us whose voices have not been heard, and fighting for those after in hopes that what is happening today will not happen to them. Feminism to me means fighting so that women all over the world, who have different beliefs or lifestyles or wants than I do, might be allowed to pursue those things. It means that even though they might not change a thing about their lives, they still should have the option to.
