This week
my friend walked into the production office in Xavier and goes so "I have decided
that I am not a feminist." Now my best friend was in the room with me and
she knows that I have been all about women's rights and so she turns to me in a
panic and goes "Katie, no!" But I calmly tell her its all right and I
turn to the other girl and I say well what does feminism mean to you and she
says "I don't know" and so then I ask her how she can say that she is
not a feminist when she doesn't even know what it means to be a feminist; she
had no response. I think this is what kills me most about our generation,
women's rights is a topic that is almost skimmed over. We are constantly
learning about civil rights and wars and other things that we have touched on
so heavily that we don not even need to pay attention to. However, how often are
women’s rights addressed in history classes? How often is it brought up and
talked about as an act of oppression as casually as other things are. This part
of our history is just barely acknowledged and it had such a large impact on
the people we are today. This is not a topic that she vanish into the depths of an alley like abortions once did. We need to bring it into the light so that changes can be made and people will actually have the knowledge they need so that they can make informed decisions. Ignorance hurts more then anything else.
I'm not going to lie, I denied that I was a feminist for a long time (even though I knew it deep down) because I was afraid of the backlash or just stigma there is with being a feminist. I heard jokes around me being made and I didn't want to be the butt of them. I'm embarrassed to admit that I tried to ignore it for so long (even little 10 year old Claudia playing football as the only girl on an all boys team just to "show them I could", knew it). But it was a long road of investigation, reflection, education and empowerment to get me to the outspoken feminist person I am today.
ReplyDeleteAs I am still new to the academic side of feminism, and embracing the whole thing in general, I feel like I have a lifetime of education on brilliant women to make up for. Watching the "Makers" documentary, I was crying because I just felt so empowered- due to the fact that the majority of those revolutionary people were women; bold, intelligent, outspoken women. That feeling I had that brought me to tears while watching, I feel, was some of those years gained back; a sense of empowerment to see people of my gender being told their voices are important enough to make up the whole movie; and just the excitement of a new journey learning about the incredible women (and sisterhood!) we have missed out on.