The word ‘feminism’ is often given a bad name, associated with this idea that we hate all men and we want to kill them off. This isn’t true. I most certainly don’t hate all men, I just don’t see why there has to be this big divide between men and women. Like actual feminism. While there are some people who perhaps take this approach, it is actually the minority and is perpetuating the idea that we want women to be superior.
The official definition of feminism is (according to the Cambridge dictionary): “the belief that women should be allowed the same rights, power, and opportunities as men and be treated in the same way, or the set of activities intended to achieve this state."
No mention of hating or killing men. No mention of women being better. Just equal. This is what we need to re-associate feminism with.
I shouldn’t have to be scared to walk home from school in winter because I’m alone and it’s getting dark. There’s not much damage I could really do; I’m 5’1”, have a little limp and am in no way able to sprint in my school shoes without them coming off after one stride. If I got chased or attacked, that would be the end of me. I have a group chat with a bunch of my closest friends, and one of them shared an Instagram post that said “do you ever just want to go outside in the middle of the night and walk around and not actually do anything just observe and think and stuff?” and not one person felt like they could safely, because they were a woman. This is why we need feminism.
The actual inspiration for this post is the reason for the title. A verbatim quote of what was said, in reference to my friend. This was a completely unprovoked incident, all she did was sit at the back of the bus in her uniform. The woman criticising her was not stopped by the man she was talking to, but rather encouraged. The male bus driver stayed silent. When my friend politely confronted the woman who was saying all of this, she was called a “slut”, a “slag” and a “piece of crap”. I commend my friend for keeping her cool the whole time. All because of a school skirt. I think the part that really stuck with me was that she really suggested we be “hung, drawn and quartered”, a very medieval and extreme outlook on girls today. There’s no account for our academic ability, intelligence, personality, or even interests. It’s all about the physical. There was no reason any of that needed to happen, and yet we were all sat in the common room the next day, dumbfounded by the whole situation. It’s not just men that criticise us, we criticise each other because that’s how society has conditioned it to be.
My friends and I often joke around, calling each other “slags” for doing something. An example: “Oh my god, you held hands with your boyfriend? Such a slag, Chloe!” That is funny because the negative connotations are being mocked. When it’s said to you in a negative way, you can feel your heart sink because you’re degraded into nothing. We reclaim it to make it into a joke, because we know how much its connotations can affect us, it’ll get into your head. Every comment, or look, or wolf whistle makes you feel sick, insecure, and like you don’t really matter. I don’t want to live in a world where someone else’s gaze makes me feel like I don’t matter.
A girl is not a slag because she’s wearing a short skirt, she’s not asking for it either. We shouldn’t have to censor our self style in fear of being labelled a “slut” or a “whore”. Too fat, too thin, thin in the right places, thin in the wrong places, there is no end to it.
From the same friendship group, girls have had to create fake names to avoid creepy men who try to hit them up when they’re alone, some have created fake names just in case so they don’t panic and give their own name. The night before the incident they told me about, they were growled at by men. It was an eventful trip as they were also almost mugged by a group of boys, and it was a woman who helped them and stopped this from happening, she knew that she needed to keep them safe. We have strategies of how to keep ourselves safe, staying in groups when we’re out in public, relying on each other because we know that without each other we’re almost helpless.
It’s not just my friends who have experienced things where having an equal society would be beneficial. It was around February time this year (I don’t remember exactly), and I was in the bus station. My boyfriend and I were waiting for his bus to come and for my dad to come and pick me up. There was a group of guys who had just got off the tram and were in the bus stop. They had come near us a couple of times, and I was starting to feel on-edge. There was no verbal conversation, all I had to do was glance at my boyfriend and he instantly stood a little further forwards so I was protected by him. He was standing in between us so that if anything happened, he could intervene. As he was leaving, he told me to walk as quick as I could and don’t respond if they call out to me, practically begging for me to be careful. He knew how unsafe I felt and stepped in, because he knew how some men could be. If he wasn’t there, I don’t know what I would’ve done.
I don’t think a single woman has gone through life without something like this happening to them.
Going to an all-girls school from year 7-13 has definitely taught me a thing or two about feminism. They obviously emphasise that we are strong, independent young women who are going to change the world when we’re older, infiltrating male-dominated fields and making them more equal. It’s hard to go to an all-girls school and not understand how important feminism is. We want to feel safe and make our mark in fields where we’re traditionally underestimated. We’re encouraged to be feminists, to fight for what we believe in, and I don’t think I’d have the same opinions as I do now if I didn’t have those lessons in the most crucial part of my development.
Now of course, I need to address the other part of feminism that isn’t always talked about as much but is as important. Female persecutors should be punished as much as men. If we want to be viewed as strong and equal and then we need to accept the consequences for our actions. We should believe male assault victims more and dispel the myth that men can’t have mental health issues and can’t show emotions.
Feminism means equal and so we need to make things equal.
I could write about hundreds of examples of stories of why we need feminism, bringing in speeches, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s, or books that are dedicated to feminism, but I wanted a raw account of things I have been told about or have happened to me.
We still need feminism until everything is equal. We need it until we aren’t labelled slags for everything and can feel safe at night. Until men can feel like they can talk to someone when they’re in trouble. When everything fixes itself. I don’t know if we will ever achieve that, but unless we say something it never will.