Title- All women should be feminists

Title- All women should be feminists.

In this paper, I aim to convince you that all women should be feminists. I strongly believe that women are strong creatures and have power beyond their measures. I have reasons to back my belief; first of all, the biggest disappointment to femininity given by the male-dominated world is Patriarchy and no women alone can fight such a big institution so women should back each other and help each other. Secondly, the freedom to choose to become a feminist or not is in itself a right, a right so many women around the world are denied, they might not even know what feminism is, let alone choose one. Finally, we should be feminists to eradicate the negative connotations that people have attached to the word ‘feminist’. In the name of memes and jokes, feminists are trolled every day and their ideas discarded. Women should come together, know their rights, stand up for themselves and choose the kind of life they wish to live.

Feminism is a term which was originated in the 1850s. The origin date matters but more so many matters the sacrifices of the women that came before us. Who fought for us when we didn’t even know they were fighting for us. We, women, are here, in a relatively better place because of a bunch of women who believed that women of the world are worth fighting. These women respected themselves before society and stood up for themselves. This movement gave courage to so many generations that came after them. To become something, to dream. These women are our ‘parent rock’ they knew what it was like to be treated as trash. They took that disrespect and turned it into courage; they loved tens of generations of women as their children and decided that none of their children will ever be treated inferior just because she is a woman. Apart from the three reasons that I will explain going further in the paper, all women should be feminists because we owe this to our predecessors who put their lives at stake for ours. We should be feminists because we want to give an even better world to the generations that come after us than the one we inherited. Our daughters should be proud of the mothers they were born to. Women should be feminists because there are reasons bigger than our own selves to live for.

Feminism is not a word created for the sake of its aesthetic people although people tend to use it that way. The meaning and implications of this word run deeper in spirit and it is very different for every individual. Feminists are not just women, they are any man or woman who stands against oppression based on gender, not just oppression but any form of injustice on the lines of gender.

As mentioned earlier, one of the gifts of the male-dominated world is patriarchy. Patriarchy as an institution must have been established in ancient times when the evolution of human beings had different requirements. In ancient times or say the stone age the physical strength of any human being was of prime importance. Humans were a society of hunters and gatherers and that was our sustenance. Therefore, a human with higher physical strength could lead a group of humans. As we know men are inherently physically stronger than women and hence the male dominance. But the world has evolved and cultures have evolved. Modern society works on intelligence, creativity, and innovation and that is completely common to both men and women. We discussed the origin of patriarchy, but when the world evolved and cultures changed why didn’t patriarchy dissolve? The answer is simple it served the ones on the top and usually, the human beings on the top are men. Men who show the utmost masculinity or what is defined by society as masculinity. Patriarchy does not serve even all men anymore. On one hand, where patriarchy forced women to feel inferior, denied them their rights to an equal life it made life much more complex for men too. The pressure of raising a family, the pressure of being the breadwinner, the responsible one, the one who has to always pay made men frustrated and angry at their own selves. This anger they then went on to burst on their wives by showing their masculinity and beating them; and still feeling that women deserve it. We raised a generation of men who have fragile egos and feel that showing emotions is weakness. Femininity was made synonymous with emotions, women are termed psychopathic and dramatic and men who show slight emotions are called out names. Anything resembling a woman is shameful. You need to show that you are not a woman or anything familiar to women to be taken seriously or respected. We raise our boys to be the caretaker and never be vulnerable, these men become the casualties of a society that never let them show emotions or seek support when they are suffering. These kids grow up to become adults who beat their children for pleasure, and then we as a society wonder why the most heinous crimes are committed by men and why so many crimes are committed towards women. Hundreds of men who might want to not bound themselves in the rules of society and want to do something creative are forced to fit the mainstream expectations of society. I am now not mentioning this because I intend to make feminism about men, and coddle up them, I mention this because I also want men to join this movement because, in the long run, no one is benefitting from what exists. We never really talk about this and whenever anyone talks about feminism, men are usually not a part of this conversation. Men should become a part of this conversation and agree with us that some things need to be changed. Feminism gives hope and support to anyone who became a victim of the whims of patriarchy. We should raise our boys to become good people and not perfect men. Only a good human can become a good man. Goodman and women will take this world far.

Around 52% of the world’s population is women and yet their representation in the world platforms is minimal. Women are unaware of their rights, they don’t get the freedom to choose, most women still in the world cannot even choose the guy they want to marry. We raise our daughters to be the perfect woman, the perfect wife. Women are raised to believe that only a man completes her, no doubt we have generations of women who instead of supporting each other are competitors to each other. I aim to discuss how we all should be feminists because women around the world are so unaware that they sometimes don’t even recognize the wrong done to them, because of many factors. But unawareness is not so casual, it is serious. I want to tell you all what I told you before we should be all feminists because there are reasons beyond ourselves to live for. By connecting together we can save so many women who otherwise would have met the fate of her ancestors.

We ask our sons to perform better at sports, we ask them to compete and be furious and snatch your right. At the same time, we ask our daughters to focus more on language so they are better communicators, and can cater more conveniently to the aggressive sports guy. We ask our daughters to look pretty, eat less and be polite. These things are changing, parents are becoming more and more aware. I want you to notice that it’s mostly mothers who realized the injustice they were doing to their daughters. If you look at the history of the past decade or even turn on Instagram, 90% of the female activists are women, and conversations about raising children differently are usually mothers. Most men still do not feel the need to even speak up and it makes me so angry. We all need to be feminists because we want to be better mothers than our mothers, they were victims of a world that taught them to put their husbands first and put their happiness second. We need to unlearn things like marriage is sacrifice and compromises (made by the woman) who should understand her husband. So these were the teachings are mothers passed onto us, this is what they wanted us to become. Acceptable, accepted in a society that was run by men. Men still applaud their wives and daughters for not wearing short clothes and still bully their sons for not having multiple girlfriends. Most fathers still do not teach their daughters to stand up for themselves but crush their spirits when they stand up for their rights. We should be feminists because only we can change this. We can give support to each other.

Things get a little more serious after here, when a rape victim is shamed for being alone with the guy, it is insanely serious. This society wants us to accept “boys will be boys” and ruin the lives of little girls. Crime against women is so high around the globe. I often sit down to think why must it be? Why do women face this? What must these people be thinking when they commit such crimes. The answers that pop up in my brain are not so pleasant. First, Men probably commit crimes because they don’t see us as equal human beings. That’s it, that’s pretty much the root of everything against women. They don’t see us as equals, they don’t feel like our lives are as important. Second, masculinity, to teach a lesson. To prove to themselves that they are a bigger man when any woman’s success threatens their own. These men boast about how they lie to their wives and partners and how ill they treat them and how they manipulate them and laugh it out, because, “boys will be boys”. These are the men that will go on dates and go in debate mode with a nice woman and tell them, “but I see nothing wrong! It must have been about the earlier times but now everything is changed.” Please do not lose focus now, for these words are coming from the mouth of a man who might go to the office and will receive a higher salary than his female colleague for the same work done because he’s a man.

Sometimes I also wonder that maybe some men are not as naïve as they show, they just want to fool us, they say they don’t see a problem so that they can make us feel foolish to feel like there is a problem. Anyway, this world with all its flaws is serving only one gender as of now, men. If it caters to their needs, there is no loss and they can gaslight their partners into thinking she is a fool to blame the system. They can continue to reap the fruits, like the higher salary and better freedom of speech or respect I was talking about. This is what I wanted to bring focus on, we women should be feminists because thousands of young girls around the world are manipulated into thinking they are foolish and nothing wrong is being done. They will remain unaware of their rights, to a better life. We need to make sure no girl ever shrinks her spirit to be accepted. They have all the right to dream. No girl should think that a man’s validation is the most important thing. No girl should change her words to suit a man’s world and not stand up for herself just because she would upset the man. After all, they are just human beings of a different gender. If this gender can make women feel like they matter less for centuries and did it on such a level that even women accepted; I think it is about time we together can make them know that we are equals, different but equals, it should not be that hard.

Women are denied the rights to their own bodies. The state of Alabama, USA in 2019 passed a law making abortion illegal. They took control over the life of a woman, her body and her identity. The law is now blocked and under dispute. But this gives us insight into how lowly do you have to look towards a gender to act such as this. Because I know for a fact that the same court that passed the law making abortion illegal will never force any man to have children because it is mandated by the state because freedom for all (men) is a law. Freedom to choice is only actually performed by men. We should all be feminists because no little girl should be taught that just because a state law passed such a law it is the right one. She should be able, educated, and informed, she should be able to make her own decisions. She should not be forced to make a choice because of her parents or her partner or her teacher or I said. She should have a choice in what she wants to become, what ideas she wants to have.

My third and final point is that feminism is attached with tons of negative connotations. We should be all feminists to normalize being one. So that no girl gets trolled for accepting that she is a feminist and no girl should be discouraged due to this bullying. Why should women not be? In a blog post, I read some time ago, the woman wrote so passionately about being a feminist. She went on to explain how some women degrade the word feminism and others’ dedication towards the movement get trolled for it. She explains that pseudo-feminism is a trend now. But after all this, she wrote a line that stick to me, and it will for the rest of my life, she said, “it might be difficult and there will be challenges in calling yourself a feminist, people will test you. But if the other option is not being one, I will choose to be on side with women, because how stupid it would be to not be on my own side’.

People are much more interested in the advantages the word feminist can provide them rather than the actual implications of the word. I will cite an example, an experiment of a sort, this idea I adopted from another article I read around 3-4 years ago. Go to Google and search ‘feminist clothing’. Notice the list of unending dealers selling “Future is Female” t-shirts and think about this for a whole minute. What are feminist clothes? Feminism was meant to make women able to choose whatever they want to wear, in fact, whatever a woman chooses to wear is feminist clothing. How ironic is this? Brands, people, and men are now using the word to their benefit. Brands start promoting womanhood and equality always around International Women’s Day; these are the brands that might not even have any women on the directorial board. This particular brand that promotes Women’s Day on all its social media would not even hire a woman if she comes in for an interview and let it slip from her mouth that she, in fact, is a feminist. The terror men experience when you happen to mention that you are feminist is intense. Men usually will act like they realized the woman he’s eating with belongs to a terrorist organization when she says ‘I am a feminist’. But men can do worse, they can just laugh it off.

So to conclude my paper I would urge everyone to think about all the reasons present in their lives to be a feminist and start being one. I kind of adopted this Title from Ms. Chimamanda Ngochi Adichie, from her book, “We should all be Feminists”. But before I could request ‘all’ to be feminists, I wanted to request ‘women’. I believe all women should be feminists because you will wish to be one every time your friend or colleague mansplains you or when he will receive the promotion you deserved. You will wish there was a community supporting you when you manage to go up the corporate ladder and find that you are the only woman there. You will wish to be a feminist when you go to a country less fortunate than yours and see women struggling. You should be a feminist because no waiter in the world will bring the cheque to you if you are sitting with a man unless you specifically snatch it away. I wish I was a feminist way before I was, I wish had the confidence to accept it before. But better later than never.