On Feminism

@sererizz

I found myself in many discussions about feminism lately. There was always one constant: someone (not only men, women too) saying that feminism nowadays is useless, in our First World countries. Women here have more than what hundreds of years ago they could hope for: we got better salaries, we got abortion and divorce laws. We fought and got the right to vote and be elected. We got the possibility to be educated. So why are there women who keep calling themselves feminists? It’s an outdated idea.

Let’s set aside for a moment all those many questions that may arise about salaries and abortion and whatsoever: even though we pretend it’s all right we know there are still issues with that. What I want to say now it’s about something else. Sit back, because it might shock you: I am 20 years old and I call myself a feminist. And no, I am not an angry wasp who doesn’t shave, hates men and is lesbian. Not that there would be something wrong with that anyway. I’m just … tired.

I am tired of opening Facebook and reading one more post of a girl who was catcalled at because she dared to wear a dress and — oh my god — walk in the streets with that dress on. As if we were just object on display for men to come and get us. As if were things, made for men’s pleasure, meant to be enjoyed.

I am tired of coming across material that is capable of annihilating women to the core, like this video, an ad for a website to instruct women on how to answer right to men’s texts.

This ad is one of those you get when you watch a video on Youtube. I wasn’t really paying attention to it but I couldn’t help and get few words and then I had to go back and watch it all again because I couldn’t believe my own ears: this man is trying to educate women.. on how to look charming.. and not too prude.. when texting? Man, if I don’t want to send you a pic of me just out of the shower when we’ve been texting for two days it’s not that I’m prude, if I want to, it’s not that I’m a whore, I’m just… and see? I’m justifying myself. Why do I even need to do that? Why aren’t we questioning the fact that you were asking for a pic of me, naked?

I am tired of being afraid of walking alone in the streets when a group of men is next to me, and they are laughing, and maybe they are laughing of me. Maybe they have been following me. Maybe they thought it would be fun to try to hit on me.

I am tired of being told to smile, when I have been working with men who took so much energy and kindness out of me and still — they want me to smile. Because no one likes a girl who doesn’t smile.

I am tired of getting told off if I curse, of course it’s not ladylike to do that. But it makes men look cooler.

I am tired of women being insulted for the way they look and not for something abstract. Have you ever noticed that? When someone wants to insult a woman, they say “ugly bitch”, “ no one would ever fuck you”. When someone wants to insult a man, they say “asshole”, and whatever else. We are always sexualised.

So yeah, I’m a feminist. Because feminism is not only about the rights we gained, it’s about the mentality of the society we live in. Until women won’t be recognized as people, real people, not pieces of meat, feminism will be necessary. Things need to be discussed, because it can’t be still normal for men to publicly address women as if they were toys with only one purpose, it shouldn’t be normal to use double standards when in the same context, it can’t be normal for women to be quiet if assaulted because it’s considered a shame or a righteous punishment, and it can’t also be normal, when a woman presses charges for harassment, to think that she is “looking for attention” and “actually enjoyed the whole thing”.

So, naively enough, I feel we need to fight the hate that surrounds us instead of fighting between ourselves until we’ll finally live in a society where equality is the rule, because we’ll finally have all understood that we are just humans. But until that moment, I’ll be a feminist.

Originally published at https://medium.com on January 21, 2019.

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