This time last year I would never have called myself a feminist. In fact I wanted nothing to do with the word. Worse than that I thought it was a twitter-based, military movement to prove that women were better than men and just reduce them to sperm so we women could one day rule the world.
Thank God I was wrong.
And more importantly, thank God that I lived with two feminists last year who pointed out that I was barking up the complete and utter wrong tree. A tree that was more likely to lead to the TARDIS, transport me back to any point in time pre-Suffragette/Suffragist movement, dump me there and shout back at me, ‘Good luck you ignorant fool!’ And I would be left to make a living leaning on a bar in some Victorian red light district, Les Mis style.
This, fortunately, is not going to happen any time soon thanks to the “radical” movement of feminism.
In case you didn’t know, feminism is quite simply making the world aware that ‘women are equal to men’.
It’s at this point I find myself asking, ‘Well why didn’t anyone tell me this before?!’
I went to an all girls school and so you might have expected them to point out, ‘Hey there’s this thing called feminism. You might like it. It will help you out a lot in life. Take it, use it, and thank us later.’
If there was any of that around, well, it was kept in a secret book, which in turn was kept in a secret cupboard guarded by nuns (yes, I went to a Catholic school) with a key which could only be obtained if you said your ‘Hail Mary’s’, and after five years at the school, I still do not know past the first two lines.
Basically, the point I’m trying to make is that people, especially women, need to be told from a young age that feminism is not against them. It’s there to help them. It’s not forcing them to stop shaving, stop wearing makeup, and grow a lady beard. It’s pointing out that the option is there should you choose it. And you know why? Because it’s your fucking choice. No one else’s. And that’s the most important thing. No magazine, advert, tv programme, should tell you differently.
This is why education holds the key to the success of feminism. And this time the key is in the lock ready to be turned. No ‘Hail Mary’s’ needed. It’s waiting there, hoping that someone soon will come along and wonder what is behind the door.
And what is waiting there, ready to be taught to millions and millions of children across the world, is that there is NO difference between men and women. So one has a penis. One has a vagina. It doesn’t make one better than the other. It doesn’t give one authority over the other. It doesn’t add an extra ‘0’ to the end of a paycheque for one but not for the other.
In fact, I’ve been told they work pretty well together.