Feminism just means you want to be fair to everyone
Whenever someone says: “I’m a feminist”, the immediate thought that was always conjured up in my head is a hippie who goes braless, doesn’t shave anywhere, and wears sexless clothing with Birkenstocks while smirking at all the other women (like myself) who rather enjoy wearing a bit of makeup paired with pretty dresses.
….except I can say that I too, am a feminist.
But I mean, are you really surprised?
EVERYTHING I WRITE ABOUT HAS UNDERTONES OF FEMINISM
My whole blog is essentially about buying the horse and not waiting for that mythical white knight to gallop in and save you from your money woes.
I’m all about taking charge, start a budget to track your expenses and to realize that you can’t wish that everything will turn out fine — you have to plan for it.
I am also pretty militant about women learning to handle their money on their own instead of shuffling it off to someone else and/or not paying their fair share, however that fair share may be agreed-upon and divided up among individual couples.
I for instance, believe in paying 50/50.
Yes, if I fall into a rough financial spot, I can always count on BF to help me out (and vice versa), but ultimately, when we buy anything that we share — food, shelter, utilities, traveling — I ALWAYS fork over my 50% without question (unless it’s a gift, in which case I’m not going to be rude and refuse it).
I talk until I am blue in the face about us women getting some backbone, being confident in your abilities and asking for that goddamn raise because you actually deserve it in comparison to the others you work alongside, and absolutely not because you’re some entitled brat (unfortunately these brats seem to crop up in my Millennial generation).
Of course this is applicable to men as well as women and I really do try my best to balance my views between both so that it can benefit everyone, but ultimately as a woman, I am in the best position to talk about being a woman.
All of that, makes me a feminist.
Maybe not a militant one, but I am someone who believes that women should get paid equal pay for equal work, and I don’t suffer fools lightly who think they can treat me like a bimbo without brains, by calling me “sweetie” or “dear”, thankfully none of which has happened so far, probably due to the expression of professional seriousness I try to keep on my face.
I’ve had my fair share of condescension from older males, no doubt, even BF is sometimes shocked at how they treat me, but I told him it comes with the territory of being a young female, and they’ll just end up regretting that they underestimated me (which has happened a few times).
Note that I am NOT SAYING that women should get paid extra money for being women, just as minorities should NOT be given jobs and extra cash just for being the colour that they are.
I am saying that if I, a woman consultant in a sea of testosterone-charged male consultants, am doing the same job (sometimes better) than these guys, I should be paid as much as they are (and in some cases, MORE).
That’s it. That’s what equal pay for equal work means to me.
If I as a female, don’t put in the work and I am a hopeless headcase who can’t get her work in on time, on budget and as close to perfection as possible, then I absolutely deserve to NOT be paid the same as the guy who is working his ass off next to me.
THE DEFINITION OF FEMINIST HAS CHANGED
Being a feminist used to mean garnering a lot of rather nasty, backhanded comments about how they want to be like men, when in fact, it is the farthest from the truth that you can get.
I don’t want to be like a man at all.
For one thing, I already have enough problems with my own female hormones.
For another, I don’t need to also deal with all the psychological and emotional crap that comes with being a man in society, with pressures such as bringing home ALL the bacon, keeping a stiff upper lip at all times and giving up your chance to be a fabulous, involved and loving father just because you feel this need to provide all the time.
Then on top of all that, you’re supposed to ask the girl out, pay for various dinners, court her and navigate trying to be respectful of her without ending up permanently in the friendzone?
No thank you.
I want to be a 100% woman, but treated equally with the same respect that I sometimes have to wrangle out of people with a verbal headlock and spine of steel — nothing more, nothing less.
A FEMINIST DOESN’T HAVE TO BE UGLY TOO
I guess the worst of it all, is that women are scared to call themselves feminists, in fear of being typecasted as that Birkenstock-wearing sexless cavewoman I mentioned above (although I will mention that Birkenstocks ARE very comfortable in the right situations and I do look like an asexual hobo when I travel, but purely for practical and comfortable reasons).
Instead of continuing to stigmatize “feminism” or “feminists” as a dirty word to hush up, we women owe it to ourselves to make an effort to SAY we are feminists in an effort to correct those who start to verbally rip in on those “unshaven bra-burning feminists”, even while we are dressed in girly frocks, high heels and wearing makeup.
…Oh, and men can be feminists too, and anyone in between who believes in women being truly equal partners in their world and society.
It isn’t a term strictly given to you only if you happen to posses life-giving body parts.
This is the one area where what you wear does not totally define and say who you are.
Just as how other minorities have taken insulting, ethnic slurs and turned it into a way to express brotherhood, sisterhood and community, we should do the same.
To put it bluntly..
A feminist is someone who believes that we should all be treated as equals, for better or for worse.
..for all that means in the good and the bad; with that, women should be under the same expectations and rules that men are, as well as being given the same freedoms.
SO, FEMINIST OR NOT? MAYBE WE NEED A DIFFERENT WORD?
2 Comments
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Revanche
Because it’s gone through multiple generations, there are unfortunate negative connotations associated with the word and it’s used derogatorily but I am absolutely a feminist. I have to fight 30-50% harder for the same damn thing a man gets without fighting for it, professionally. If the roles were reversed you bet we’d hear about it. In fact, the roles aren’t reversed, we haven’t even achieved that equality, and a particularly hopeless contingent of men are already screaming about losing primacy. Apparently only getting all of the pie 70% of the time instead of all the time is utterly unreasonable, or not getting the advantage without question and without effort is intolerable. So you have the MRAs and all that. Talk about ugly. It’s a damn shame but I refuse to be afraid to call myself a feminist: I believe in equality and a meritocracy.
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Anonymous
Not all feminists are like you. I agree with your definition of feminism but feminism has different meanings these days to different people. We live in a planet with 7 billion people. Unfortunately we’ve gotten a few feminists that are so extreme they want female privilege as in they want to make men into second class citizens which is starting to happen in certain cases, the ones who want female privilege and not egalitarianism sound like misandrists.
And sometimes the extreme feminists just want to cherry pick certain rights for men and women, so a lot of them are against women being registered for the selective service but then men have to be registered for it. That seems sexist.
But then how far do you go in having equality because men are physically stronger than women? Some feminists say its misogynistic to admit this when it is a simple observation. I know that as a woman I am definitely not stronger than my male partner. Also some women think that men can’t have their own clubs and military academies but oh no you try to be a man or boy and go to a women’s or girls club/school/community center and they will refuse to allow boys and men in. That’s sexist too.
Also within the feminist movement some of the feminists make fun of the pretty women in society for being more attractive and wanting to have a traditional home life instead of a career life. They also degrade women for not wanting to follow leadership roles like becoming a business executive but guess what, there are many men who don’t want to lean in & climb the corporate ladder either!
I have guy friends and they just want to make enough money to cover their bills and basic wants. I realized I don’t have enough desire within my psyche to climb the corporate ladder, it all just seemed boring to me, working just to make a corporation rich. However I wasn’t attracted to any of the other career paths i.e. healthcare, IT, insurance, military, etc.
But I have met women who were married 25 years and the husband asked them for a divorce. In stats it’s usually women that ask for a divorce but sometimes the men ask for one. So when women choose a more traditional path and don’t work and the hubs asks for a divorce then the women have to financially start over and by the way, may I say that while traditional media focuses on cases where women get with the house, the pets, and the kids that is not the case for every woman.
In several cases the women get left with NOTHING. While I don’t care for the corporate world I refuse to have such a fate happen to me. I have a plan to retire early whether or not I’m with my male partner. To me the greatest joys in life are my hobbies and spending time with my loved ones. As long as I’m financially comfortable I don’t care about being “king of the hill.”
Instead of a feminist I now call myself a humanist. I’m an agnostic so I’m a secular humanist although I kind of support religious humanism sometimes.
Unfortunately MRA’s are becoming in some cases as bad as the feminists who want female privilege. Even my male partner is disgusted by some of the MRA’s men out there and we both make fun of extremists on both the feminists and MRA’s side.
So now our society is starting to have things in our society like “Men going their own way.” And you also have books like “Men on Strike.” Also I think the feminist movement has hurt us outside of the battle of the sexes.
I will give a link below about how highly educated professionals in science and medicine refused to acknowledge for the longest time that women and men need different doses for medicine. You can’t be treated equally in all cases.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/drugs-can-affect-men-and-women-differently/
However in careers that don’t require physical strength especially in careers where brains, education and talent matter women can do the same work as men and should be compensated equally.
I don’t feel offended when people call me sweetie or dear. It doesn’t really mean anything to me. It’s an empty word when it comes from strangers or co-workers. Although there have been times when older males have been surprised I have technical knowledge…why shouldn’t I? I grew up with electronics and computers.
I also can’t say that men have it better. Men in the past have been shipped off to war in their teens like in the Civil War. Men were often tortured for information, had their limbs cut off, left paralyzed and put in POW. Even aristocratic men didn’t always have it better as their parents arranged marriages for them to women they didn’t always want to marry.
Sometimes men and women were disowned by family when they married someone out of their class system like in medieval times. Men in the U.S. couldn’t always vote because they didn’t own land, because you had to own land to vote.
So if you were a good man and patriotic man in early America you couldn’t really vote unless you owned land! Also men had to do hard physical labor because most jobs back then were undesirable and physical which is why people lived until 40 if they didn’t die before then.
Also you were financially responsible for women (your wife, female relatives, etc) as a man and that is a lot of pressure. I’m sure if I was a man back in the day I would have been stressing out about pretty much everything.
Feminism taught us that men had it easy but when you truly read history you realize, wow history sucked for both men and women. People say that life is complicated now, I disagree I feel pampered and I’m just middle-class, I feel pampered compared to how men and women lived back then.