Dear Everyone,
Men and women are equal and should be treated as so. Case closed.
This afternoon as I was sitting in my sociology class, we began to talk about feminism. Now, many people believe that feminism is defined as women thinking that they are better than men. Allow me to enlighten you. There are three different waves of feminism.
First Wave: This started in 1848 and the main focus was women suffrage (the right to vote).
Second Wave: This went on in the 1960’s and 70’s whereas the wave broke up into two groups, being equal rights feminism and radical feminism. These women wanted jobs (not stay at home mom jobs). Also, Title VII came about due to this.
Third Wave: This wave began in the 1990’s and is what we are currently in. This focuses mainly on abolishing stereotypes of men and women along with gender roles.
Now that you have a basic understanding of what feminism actually is, I shall continue my story. As my professor was lecturing us about the history of feminism, he made a reference about a woman being a construction worker and a man becoming a ballerina. First of all, this is not at all unheard of. Second of all, there are many great female construction workers and many great male ballerinas. Yet, this is not the point of my rant.
As soon as my professor made this example, a boy in my class raises his hand and says “I agree with men who want to be ballerinas but women cannot be construction workers because they are too small/delicate and are not physically able”. So obviously, I had to raise my hand. My teacher called on me and I proceeded to tell this boy that there are plenty of women who are bigger than men and there are also many men who would not be “physically able” to do the work that construction workers do. When I began to tell this boy off, he cut me off and talked over me obnoxiously so. He then started to explain to me how “women are biologically incapable of doing physical work”. Go ahead and read that last sentence again. You read it right. Bogus. Women are known to be more flexible than men so why does he say it is okay for a man to be a ballerina (considering his thought process)?
Don’t get me wrong I am definitely not the strongest of the bunch and I am a girly girl, at best, but not every woman is like that. You can not carry on to tell me that all women are fragile daffodils when not all women are the same.
When I came home, I rampaged to my dad and he told me that this was not something I should take personally, but I cannot help it. Close minded people get me fired up. There is discrimination everywhere whether it be about gender, race, or sexual orientation and it is too big of a deal to not take personally. One person is not superior over another based on what is between their legs; sorry not sorry. There will never come a day where I do not let my voice be heard. Do I want to be a construction worker when I grow up? No, but if I wanted to be then you better believe that no man would ever stop me from doing so just because they believe I am not capable. You may be bigger than me in this instance, but obviously, your brain is not.
Women are capable of being whatever they want. Men are capable of being whatever they want. It does not matter what shape or what size we are, because not all of one sex is the exact same. People are based on a spectrum of the amount of femininity and masculinity that they have. The world is not black and white there is so much gray. I wish that more people could realize that. But then again, maybe I just have too much emotion on this subject; after all, I am female.