This fortnight, I want to get to the bottom of the value in identifying yourself as a Feminist and why you should adopt the label too!
If you’re a student, I’m sure your prospectus mentioned somewhere that University would allow you to broaden your mind and meet heaps of new people in the process. Clichés aside, Uni is a time where you are also expected to defend your opinions. As a Fresher, ‘defending my opinions’ involved reasoning why chugging half a bowl of homemade vodka jelly was a reasonable Friday night activity. Thankfully for my liver, as I got to know my brand new friends and as our conversations naturally developed, I actually began to defend the more important things in life, like why I label myself a Feminist. Some did not equate Feminism with the equality of all, however.
Unsurprisingly, the celebrities also tend to shy away from the word. Very few of us have been able to escape the buzz surrounding the film adaption of John Green’s teen sob-fest “The Fault in our Stars”. In an interview with Time magazine, TFIOS actor Shailene Woodley claims being a feminist and “loving men” are not compatible acts. Likewise, Nicole Scherzinger, of Pussycat Doll fame, shudders at the prospect of labelling herself a feminist but in an act of crude self-promotion, has no problem defining herself as a strong, independent “feline-ist” (yes, she really did say that to a Journalist). Sadly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the cat community have completely surpassed human intelligence and have sussed out the concept of using common-sense.
There is a percentage of society which dismisses the use of political correct terms as unnecessary faffing about. I sadly know that these people exist as an online presence as I have had the pleasant experience of checking out the comments on whatever sexist tosh on the “side-bar of shame”. The Mail Online have recently churned out. But if we all generally believe the same thing, the actual language we use to describe it is not that important, right? Ironically, from my own catalogue of experience, it tends to be these very same people who then go on to say they prescribe to the whole equal rights thing, but upon hearing the mere word feminism, break out into cold, ego-induced sweat.
Understandably, this draws down to a combination of sheer ignorance and can’t-be-bothered-ness. Fem-inism? Fem? If we prescribe to this then will all women eventually grow to size of Godzilla, swagger through the streets of Downtown Manhattan and crush all men in the process? Is it truly too much to ask that people pop down to a library or flip open their laptop lid and spend ten minutes reading a hopefully legitimate source that defines the differences between Feminism and Misandry? People who tend to think that this is a futile activity in our advanced, supposed “equal” society often tend to have the privileges of being male, white and not stricken in poverty, and are in a position where they can stick their head in the security of the sand.
At the end of the day, in a community where sharing your beliefs to the masses in under 140 characters is not only widely accessible but actively encouraged, by the very act of defining yourself as a Feminist you are not just communicating your belief of the equality of both men and women in the present. Regardless of how you define yourself in terms of gender, you are ALSO acknowledging the prevalence of oppression that a female majority have faced, reflected in the arts, religion, law and all the history each and every one of us has inherited today. You are appreciating the power of the language we actually speak to each other. And if you think it’s pointless then you’re really missing the point. You may be able gulp down the labels that don’t sound right in your mouth and hide from the terms you hear, but you can’t escape history.
By Grace Webster
Image Credit:
Image 1: http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/87899403.html
Image 2: http://imgur.com/iWKad22
Image 3: http://www.designweek.co.uk/news/daily-mail-website-wins-top-design-effe…