Feminism

I recently bought a book that is described as a "feminist memoir" of a woman in her mid 30s living in London. This book is amazing, and, while I always identified myself as a feminist, makes me want to stand up and start really acting on it. I want to write a book about what feminism is to me too! I don't always agree with this woman, she makes valid points, but I think that is part of what feminism is about.

She spends about 5 or 6 pages discussing underwear, complaining about thongs and bras (though, she is very adamant about bras being our friend and that she loves her bras, even though they hurt) and I like thongs (I remember when I didn't) and I think bras don't have to hurt if you buy the right ones, so I think that though she is in full support of "big undies" as she says, I prefer my stance to be that I am in full support of people who want to wear big undies wearing big undies. I think that feminism has been popping up all over the place lately too, and I want to jump on that bandwagon and scream about it to all of my friends, family, and random people who are willing to listen to me!

This article in GoodMagazine (yes, still one of my favorite online magazines to read) talks about why we need feminism and other articles that I've read recently discuss the issue that fewer and fewer women are identifying with the term feminist. I think that the term feminist needs to have a looser definition than what people associate with it, and I think one way to start working on that change of definition is to start talking about it. I also think that maybe we need to keep some of the aspects currently associated with the term, maybe we NEED a little bit of the loudness, and the brashness with the term. Women are making less than men, women are pushed into certain jobs and certain tasks because of their gender, and (yes) women are sometimes hired for their looks or NOT hired for their looks (as are men, I know). We need to start acknowledging that some of our struggles are not JUST about female freedoms and male/female equality, but about human equality.

In the spirit of the GoodMagazine article: I need feminism because it's who I am, and who I want to be.

R