How do you feel about NY's same-sex marriage ruling? Submit your opinion to the online zine Grrrl Beat!

I'm guessing you've already heard the fantastic news: "[New York] lawmakers voted late Friday to legalize same-sex marriage, making New York the largest state where gay and lesbian couples will be able to wed and giving the national gay-rights movement new momentum from the state where it was born."

Sophie, the creator of the online magazine Grrrl Beat, is seeking submissions from teens about their views on this momentous ruling. If this issue is at all important to you, I highly suggest whipping up a response and sending it to grrrlbeat@gmail.com as soon as possible!

This was my response: 

Before finding feminism and identifying wholly with the movement, I wasn't too familiar with the LGBTAQ (lesbian, gay, bi, transgender, asexual, queer) community or its struggles. I certainly didn't have a problem with people who fit under the acronym's umbrella, but I knew as much about their varying lifestyles as I knew about theoretical physics (which wasn't much).

Considering I can literally count my family members on two hands (and the number of non-Christians on about three fingers), I didn't experience much diversity growing up. My parents were cool about most things and taught us to be honest, hard-working, etc., but homosexuality was something we just didn't talk about at the dinner table. (We rarely ate at the table, anyway. Most of the time we had our butts planted to watch Seinfeld. Bonding at its finest.)

Feminism introduced me to a litany of human rights issues. I'm still not as well-versed in the LGBTAQ movement as I would like to be, but I do have a child-like passion for equality. "Should two people of the same sex be allowed to get married?" seems like such a stupid question. If two people love each other, why shouldn't they be inclined to do whatever the hell they want? Love is love. It doesn't matter what form that takes.

When Sophie (from Grrrl Beat) emailed me the news — that same-sex couples can now get marriage licenses in New York — I was ecstatic. It was one of those fist-pumping "Hell yeah, equality strikes again!" sort of feelings. This may only be a small win in the grand scope of things, but this win will inspire another, and that win will inspire two more.

People are going to fight us every step of the way, but activists and feminists and allies are rising up in mighty hordes. Imagine if we (those of us who want to) go on to have kids of our own, passing on ideas like "equality" and "acceptance." Our kids will teach their kids, their kids will teach their own kids, and then those kids will go on to teach their kids (the only difference is they'll have robot butlers by then).

This world is changing for the better, and I am so damn excited.

Words of Wisdom From Tina Fey

Pro-Choice is Pro-Life (By Amelia G.)

This article was written by Amelia G., a woman who describes herself as "an undergraduate, feminist, seafood enthusiast, bookworm (and, more recently, blogworm)." She writes for Plenty of Otherwise!

"If you can't trust a woman with a choice,
how can you trust her with a baby?"

The other day I came across an article in the Michigan Messenger about how Thaddeus McCotter, a Republican running for president in 2012, signed a "Pro-life leadership pledge." This means that if elected, he'll "nominate pro-life judges, select pro-life cabinet members, de-fund Planned Parenthood and support legislation that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy."

That news didn't exactly surprise me, but it still pissed me off, especially given the fresh batch of anti-choice news that has popped up in the U.S. this week. The Executive Council in New Hampshire just voted to de-fund Planned Parenthood. And yesterday, a federal judge blocked a law that would have required Crisis Pregnancy Centers, or CPCs, to disclose particular information about themselves, such as whether they employ licensed medical personnel.

CPCs pose as abortion clinics, but do not provide abortion or contraceptives (nor do they refer women to organizations that do). As the Ms. article points out, CPCs are notorious for providing false medical information about abortion in order to scare women out of considering it as a viable option that might work for them.

I'm really uncomfortable knowing that I live in a country whose government damn near shut down over an argument about whether to de-fund an organization that does as much good as Planned Parenthood. And it hurts even more to learn that people are actively working to ensure that the nation's laws are on the side of CPCs that flat-out lie to women who come to them for help and comprehensive information.

As someone who cares deeply about reproductive justice and people in general, I'd like to take this opportunity to explain — to Representative McCotter, Judge Pauley, and everyone else behind all of the legislation that has come up since the last election — that pro-choice is pro-life.

A lot of people will be surprised to hear this, but I didn't always identify as pro-choice.

Yeah, really. Because let's face it: the rhetoric sounds great. Don't kill babies. That's something I could totally get behind, you know?

Neither of my parents are U.S. citizens, so they can't vote. Therefore, politics just weren't discussed in our house when I was growing up. I've read that statistically, parents have a great deal of influence over their children's political views. That wasn't really the case for me. I had a few opinions, but those were based shallowly on what I felt to be common sense.

So, when asked for my views on abortion, I would proudly declare that I was pro-life and thought abortion was wrong.

But once I got to high school, I noticed that a lot of people I really respected were especially passionate about their pro-choice views. And important things were going on at the time that forced me to seriously reevaluate my stance. In 2006, when I was a junior, my school district considered adopting an abstinence-only sex education program, to replace the comprehensive one that was in place.

People went apeshit. Friends of mine spoke out against the proposal at school board meetings. Medical professionals came in from out of town to voice their opinion, too. And in the end, we stuck with a comprehensive program.

I was pleased with the school board's decision not to adopt an abstinence only program (even though I didn't believe in abortion, I wasn't quite that conservative; I've always fully supported birth control). But I still could not understand how or why my friends felt so strongly about the abortion issue in particular. And because I knew my friends to be intelligent, compassionate people, I wanted to understand their point of view, so I started researching the topic.

I don't remember a specific moment when I "became pro-choice." I do know, though, that I kept finding instances where I could see myself agreeing that abortion was an acceptable option: rape, incest, poverty, etc.

But what won me over fully in the end were the personal anecdotes. By reading tons of stories about women's experiences with pregnancy, I discovered that it was impossible to put them into boxes marked with the aforementioned labels. It hit me that I couldn't call myself pro-life without taking women's lives and diverse experiences into consideration.

The Supreme Court's upholding of the "partial birth abortion" ban in 2007 (the year I graduated from high school) is the event that both tested and solidified my new pro-choice views. I was furious with the decision, even though when George W. Bush had signed the bill four years prior, I hadn't had a problem with it. That's because on the surface, "partial birth abortion" sounds awful; it evokes images of selfish women who, after 35 weeks of pregnancy, suddenly freak out and realize that they don't want to carry the pregnancy to term. So they go out and have an abortion.

But for one thing, "partial birth abortion" is not a medical term; it was coined by right-wing politicians. And secondly, come on, there have to be reasons for women to get an abortion that late in the game.

And damn good ones, at that.

One woman's story has really stuck with me over the years. It appears on page 14 of  The War on Choice by Gloria Feldt:

We were awaiting the arrival of a son. I'm diabetic, so I had more prenatal testing than most women. At twenty-five weeks I had an ultrasound and the doctor's exact words were, "Vick, you are disgustingly normal and so is the baby." At thirty-two weeks I went in for another ultrasound and my world came crashing down. They discovered that [the fetus] had not grown past twenty-five weeks, and further testing revealed that he had nine major anomalies, including a fluid-filled cranium with no brain tissue at all. He could never have survived outside my womb. My body was the only thing keeping him alive, and I chose to remove my son from life support. I'm a mom. I had three beautiful children, and in fact I have a new baby boy who's here with me now. Who are the people on the anti-choice side to judge me? They've never been in my shoes. I never in my wildest dreams thought something like this could happen, but it happened to me.

The abortion she had in 1996 was made illegal under the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act. Her experience reminds me of the woman in NE who, earlier this year, was denied an abortion and forced to watch her baby die in her arms shortly after giving birth.

So this is why I feel so strongly that lawmakers should not get between a woman and her doctor. As NARAL's Speak Out for Choice Award recipient Katie Stack said earlier this year during her acceptance speech: "Women's experiences with abortion are nuanced and complicated. But . . . if [we are] given the opportunity to share these diverse realities, we can begin to challenge the stereotypes and falsehoods that are promoted by the anti-choice movement."

Pro-choice is pro-life. That's something I firmly believe and discovered simply by being curious and open. By reading. By trusting/caring about people, and respecting their personal opinions and choices.

I don't think that's too much to ask of humanity.

20 Best Biographies for Women in Business

This article was submitted to me by Florine C. over at bachelorsdegree.org.

What do Ruth Handler, Martha Stewart, and Oprah have in common? They're all included in an article titled 20 Best Biographies for Women in Business! This article features books about influential women who have overcome many of the trials that go along with being female in the male-dominated world of business and economics. 

If you're an aspiring entrepreneur (or simply have an insatiable hunger for new reading material), you should definitely check these books out — literally, from your library!

What does being a girl mean to you? (By Alexis Z.)

Alexis Z. wrote this piece in response to a question I've been asking for a while now: "What does being a girl mean to you?" If you've got a different opinion about what "being a girl" means to you, type it up and send it to me at teenagefeminist@gmail.com! See the official submission guidelines here.

Women are fighters. Even without the gloves.

[Being a girl] means that I can do whatever I want. I can wear what I want and not be criminalized because of it. Though today some men think that it's okay to rape a woman because she is wearing a short skirt . . . being a girl means that I can wear pants, shorts, or a skirt. It means that . . . when I turn 18 I can vote, I can join the military. It means that my fore-mothers fought for equality and they fought hard. We don't have perfect equality today and it would be nice to have it, but we do have some. 

Being a girl is a sense of freedom that I can be myself. [But it also] means that whenever I am in a bad mood it's [automatically] "my time of the month." That isn't fair. 

Being a girl means that I have to fight for what I want . . . Being a girl means that I have to prove myself in whatever I do and I have to do it right, because if I don't then it will be said that "women can't do that." Being a girl is a blessing and a curse. Everyone says that women are equal, but being a girl means that I am a minority, even though women are 52% of the world's population.

Being a girl is wonderful. I may have to fight for my beliefs, but the fight is worth it. Even if I get shot down once, I am going to keep trying . . . Being a girl means that I am never going to change my opinion on anything that is dear to me. I thank all of my ancestors who fought for the rights that I have today, and I will keep fighting for the equality that all women still have to gain. 

Being a fighter, a mother, a lover, a pusher, and being stubborn is what being a girl means to me.

Other posts in this series: 

• What does being a girl mean to you? (By Becka W.)

A Video that Summarizes My Views on Gay Marriage

This video perfectly — and I mean perfectly — summarizes my feelings on gay marriage. Watch it (the actual thing starts at 0:28), and I'm pretty sure you'll figure out where I stand. 
If you like Nineteenpercent, check out her other video Beyonce - Run the World (LIES)!

What advice would you give a budding feminist (who just happens to have an anti-feminist stepmom)?

It can be extremely frustrating when
people just don't *get* what
we're about.

There's no escaping it: at some point or another every feminist is going to have to deal with people who aren't exactly supportive of our cause. 

But what happens when these people are our best friends, our neighbors, or our very own parents?

The question below was submitted to me by Serena, a relatively new feminist who's experiencing some friction with her stepmom. Serena gave me permission to post this question on Experimentations in hopes of hearing different perspectives.


What would YOU do in Serena's situation?

Hello! My name is Serena. I have been reading your blog off and on for a while now and well, I finally feel comfortable asking you something. 

Here goes: I am really new to feminism and . . . enjoy learning everything I can. My problem is my parents, my stepmother in particular. Feminists are the enemy and there is no changing her mind, which is fine, but I don't like being backed into a corner. 

Recently, I was [arguing] that pregnancy was unfair and that men got the lucky end of the reproductive stick. Well anyway, she starts talking about men's rights and it's all the feminists fault for taking away men's parental rights. Her comments really took me by surprise and I had nothing to [say back] . . . so I was wondering if you had any material that I should read so I can have an intelligible debate with her. Now that I think about it, every time I say something good about feminism, she comes back with "they took men's rights away from them." 

I hope I made sense. Thank you for any help that you give me, I really do appreciate it.

The Definition(s) of Feminism

fem·i·nism (noun) \ˈfe-mə-ˌni-zəm\

1 : the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes

2 : organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests

3 : Something that puts a smile on Danielle's face (and, judging by the comments, Talia's as well)!

"Hello, Ms. President." (Is that so hard to believe?)

Is she the next "Ms. President"?

I think I've said this before, but the Yahoo! Homepage is literally one of the first things I see when I get up in the morning, and whenever I see a featured article about a woman who's made an impact for reasons other than parading around on some reality show with a puke-orange tan (ooh, am I bitter?), I feel a jolt of excitement and curiosity. Click! 

Today's featured article was about Geraldine Ferraro, "who in 1984 became the first woman vice presidential candidate on a major party ticket [in the United States]." She passed away on Saturday.

I'll be the first to admit that I abhor politics.

I know, I know, as a liberated woman I should want to educate myself about this stuff, but . . . I don't know. Maybe 10+ years of learning about male presidents, male politicians, and a male-dominated political system has left me without many strong women to look up to (It certainly irked me that in my World History class last year, 95% of the women we learned about were concubines or mistresses).

Nevertheless, this article really touched me.

Maybe because Ferraro sounded like an amazing woman: dedicated, inspiring, a pro-choice activist (though controversial), and a "dear human being".

Maybe because she had a dream not unlike my own, to see a woman inaugurated as the President of the United States of America.

Or maybe it was because I was shocked by the user comments at the end of the article! Usually Yahoonians are like venomous moths, making rude and vulgar remarks in the safety of their anonymous cocoons. But nobody told Ferraro to "go make them a sandwich." Nobody told her to "get back in the kitchen." And, astoundingly, there wasn't a single trace of "Wanna hear a joke? Women's rights."

All the comments I saw were ones of admiration. Sure, a few people admitted they hadn't always agreed with Ferraro's viewpoints, but they seemed to have immense respect for her anyway. That really says something about this woman's character.



Women like this inspire me beyond belief.



All of this political talk got me thinking about why the United States has never had a woman president. According to this list of Women Presidents from 1945-2011, places like Argentina, Bolivia, Iceland, Haiti, the Philippines, Ireland, Ecuador, Finland, Indonesia, Chile, Brazil - I'm running out of breath here - have all had women presidents.

Why not us? Why not the oh-so-progressive United States?

Though I don't appreciate some of his more snide remarks ("Every time I think about it - which isn't very often - I think how wrong it is that we have never had a woman president . . ."), the man in this 60 Minutes video makes some interesting points.

For example, there are currently more women in the US than men (151 million vs. 146 million), and more women take advantage of their voting rights. Shouldn't that mean that women exert a prominent, influential amount of political power? Could it really be, as the man in this video suggests, that "even women don't vote for women"?

I don't have an answer for that one. All I can say is:



Can I haz this shirt?

You better watch out the day a woman finally gets elected president, because my heart is going to explode. Not one of those dinky explosions, either - I'm talking nuclear.

But I want to make it clear that I would not vote for a woman simply because she and I share some commonalities (think: ovaries, breasts, that glorious "time of the month"). For someone to win my vote, they'd have to be strong and diligent, decisive yet compassionate.

I think some people think feminists are biased - that we somehow hail all women over all men - but isn't that a load of utter bullcrap? I mean, I would rather be friends with a guy who was kind and honest than a girl who was a dirty rotten liar.

So while I'm saying that I long for the day a woman takes a seat in the Oval Office, I want it to be the right woman, because you can bet she's going to get twice the flack for being "of the female variety" than Bush ever got for talking like a drunken monkey.

Ms. President is going to have to be strong, and brave, and lay down the law. She's going to have to be tough, but fair, and remember where she came from so she can empower a new generation of girls to stand up for themselves. She's going to have to have thick skin and an unwavering sense of justice and and and and . . .

But I have no doubt that she can do it, because there are billions of these types of women in this country. They just need to hurry up and get their names on the ballot!
___________________

Mini-Rant: I'm not even going to tell you how difficult it was to find pictures for this post. I typed in "Ms. President" to Google Images and got Paris Hilton; I typed in "girl American flag" and got chicks in bikinis. Ah, society.

Men of Quality Respect Women's Equality



Where have you been
all my life, Beardy?

This is an excerpt from "Feminism: The F-bomb that Horrifies Men" by Catherine Ford of Troy Media. It was published on March 13th, 2011.

Want to see apoplexy? Drop an F-bomb into a conversation.

As soon as a woman says she’s a feminist, watch the boy-men and mamma’s boys, the braggarts and blackguards, the weak and the puffed up turn red in the face.

Try it. It’s one of life’s little pleasures if you’re a woman.

It’s also an excellent way to sift the wheat from the chaff in the male gender. Men who are secure in their own selves, men who are grown-ups, men who make the best husbands, boyfriends and just-plain-friends embrace feminism. It frees them to be real people, not the cardboard cutouts of masculinity promoted in action movies and cartoons. "

Read the rest of Ford's article here!

We Cannot Sit Back Down (Gender Equality Speech)

The future of feminism.

I wrote this for my AP Language and Composition class. We had to pick an issue that we're passionate about (in my case it's gender equality) and write a speech that mimics Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have A Dream."

I’m so happy to be speaking to you today. My generation—and possibly yours, as well—has been accused of taking many things for granted, including prior triumphs for women’s rights.

They say that feminism is dead; perhaps we need to dispel a few things. I know that this conversation will substantiate the strength and determination possessed by our nation’s youngest activists. I know that this conversation is one for the history books.

More than a century ago one of the first women's rights conventions was held in New York state, immortalized—in the feminist arena, anyway—as the Seneca Falls Convention. Influential activists such as Susan B. Anthony, Amelia Bloomer, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton gave lively presentations in front of a crowd of 300, concluding with a re-write of the national promise made seven decades earlier: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal."

What these 300 women—and men—had was a simple dream: a world in which both parties would be treated equally, in society and under the strict peripherals of the law. The women, it seems, were tired of being seen as sub-par and treated as sub-human. The men, tired of seeing their mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters reduced to the status of livestock.

What these people wanted was justice. What they got was a world against them.

It took nearly 60 years for the United States government to take those like Anthony, Bloomer, and Stanton seriously, but finally on August 26, 1920 what I can only describe as the glorious 19th Amendment was ratified, and women were allowed to enter the political sphere as undisputed, legitimate, registered voters.

This is very similar to my school's motto:
"Failure is not an option." Is it just me,
or is this button freaking awesome?

To say that our progress has halted would be a gross miscalculation. In the past five decades women have seen the legalization of birth control and laws like Roe v. Wade. Women have worked their way into the bloodstream of universities and hospitals, police academies and the military. We are slamming gavels, writing novels, catching criminals, running, jumping, performing, dancing, literately and figuratively building bridges.

When one thinks of things this way, it’s almost too easy to say that we have come “far enough.” Perhaps men and women really are equal. Perhaps we need to just keep quiet, and quit while we’re ahead. Perhaps feminism really is outdated. Perhaps it really is “the dreaded f-word.”

You can think any number of those statements, but you would be wrong. Because what I’ve neglected to say is that while women are going to school, saving lives, and dispelling old myths about womanhood, they’re doing so on $0.77.

$0.77 for every dollar that a man makes for doing the same job. (That number is even lower for women of color.)

Sit there with a straight face and tell me that feminism is dead when:

Forty years after the fact women are being denied birth control and fed misleading information about their sexual health.

Forty years after the fact federally funded abstinence-only programs are feeding young girls (yes, only girls) slogans like “You are... a beautiful rose. Each time you engage in pre-marital sex, a precious petal is stripped away. Don’t leave your future husband holding a bare stem. Abstain.”

Forty years after the fact women have higher rates for depression and eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia.

Forty years after the fact women’s bodies are continually degraded in all areas of the media, and violence against them is often glorified or ridiculed.

Forty years after the fact little girls have to suffer broken hearts as they’re told they’re not strong enough, smart enough, worthy enough...

...and yet when we do stand up for ourselves we’re called prudes, whiny, mannish, and a thousand other things that probably aren't appropriate for this speech! We’re told to sit back down!

But now is not the time to sit back down. Now is the time to stand up on our tip-toes, extend our arms to the sky, and confess to the world that we are sick being called whores, sluts, and bitches. We are sick of people taking one look at us and automatically assuming we’re secretaries and nurses, not CEOs and brain surgeons. We are so sick of being seen as less than a sum of our parts.

My greatest dream is that one day, I’ll have a little son and daughter of my own. When my son asks me what it means to be a man, and when my daughter asks me what it means to be a woman, I’ll be able to tell them the same thing:

“The world is going to try to tell you what to do, how to be, and what to think based on the body you’ve got. But what all of those people have forgotten is that we’re all just people. People who cry, bleed, feel the ache of sorrow, and the sweet embrace of pure joy. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter what you are in life, but how you live it, how you love yourself, and how you love others.”

Life should be a cat's game.

I truly believe that if we come together—every gender and every race, every age and every creed—we will be able to stop the vicious cycle of gender stereotypes and degradation. If we learn to love and respect each other based on internal qualities such as compassion and understanding, and pay less attention to outer qualities such as the absence or presence of breasts, we’ll all be able to live better lives.

I’m not an intensely religious person, but I’ll never forget that little saying that goes something like Eve was taken from Adam’s rib. Not from his foot to be trampled on, nor his head to be above him. But from his chest to walk beside him.

Right beside him.

Should men and women be treated equally?

"Turns Out You Gals Are Useful After All!" *shakes head*

The question “should women be treated differently than men?” has unnerved people for centuries, but it’s become especially prominent since the women’s rights movement of the 1960’s when women proved (at least on a more public scale) that hey, we’re people too. But in order to analyze such a broad question we have to break it down, because in its natural state it could be interpreted (or misinterpreted) a thousand different ways. For the sake of my argument, I’m going to assume the question states: “should women be treated differently, given unequal opportunities, and/or succumb to gender roles strictly because they are female?” And to that my answer is heck no.

People have always had the uncanny ability to discriminate against each other. Our foremothers and forefathers were guilty of it just as we’re guilty of it today, even if we don’t like to admit it, or like to pretend that we’re all upstanding citizens. But when you get an eclectic group of people together a hierarchy is almost always going to form, and usually for the most ridiculous reasons. After Africans were imported to North America to be used on cotton plantations and for other drudge-labor, white folks got it in their heads that these “barbarians” were inferior intellectually, morally, and spiritually. The same thing happened with the influx of people from Asia during the mid-1800’s; obviously because they looked different they were bound to cause trouble, rape our daughters, and be useless for anything other than getting out mustard stains at the local Laundromat (please note the sarcastic inflection of my voice). Adolf Hitler is another fine example of someone who had a seriously skewed perception of life’s pecking order; he believed that Jewish people were to blame for everything from economic troubles to Germany’s defeat in World War I. All of these examples were horrible shadows in our past - the types of things that, every once in a while, make me ashamed to be an American - but we can’t forget that sexism, one of the oldest forms of discrimination, is still alive and kicking.

In the beginning, when population densities were low and people spent most of their time hunting and gathering just to survive, there was general equality between the sexes because everybody played an important role in society. If men stopped hunting, everybody would starve. Likewise, if women didn’t forage for berries and other vegetation people would still be in trouble, because finding enough meat was never a sure thing. It wasn’t until the advent of sedentary agriculture that people were “freed up” from their responsibilities and left to pursue other fields. But when men and women inevitably filtered into different roles - men busying themselves crafting weapons, hunting, and going to war; women with tending fields and taking care of children - a clear pecking order was in the works. And despite the fact that more than 99 percent of male and female genetic coding is exactly the same (Brizendine), women are still feeling the repercussions of that ancient hierarchy, haunted by the term coined by Simone de Beauvoir nearly four decades ago: “the second sex.”

One of the most frustrating parts of being a woman is being talked about - or rather, defined - by our gender. As a sixteen-year-old high school girl I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard people (mainly guys) saying “girls are all prissy, high maintenance, emotional, and gold-diggers.” Since when does the fact that I have “unmentionables” determine what kind of person I am, whether I’m strong or unstable, intelligent or ditzy? Frankly, it’s insulting. And it’s no better than assuming that all African Americans steal things, that all Asian people are bad drivers, or that all guys want only “one thing.” You cannot take a group of people (and mind you, there are roughly 3 zillion women in the world) and pin specific traits on them. It doesn’t work that way. And assuming that a sixteen-year-old boy has been lucky enough to meet even 0.00001% of the world’s female population, who is he to judge what trait’s all women have or not have?

The expectations for women in our society are pretty much set in stone. As women, we are expected to be pretty, delicate, soft, and cooperative. We’re not usually expected to speak our minds; it’s much more convenient if we’re seen but not heard. We’re taught from a young age that girlhood revolves around shopping, clothes (Target was recently blasted for selling padded bras meant for six-year-olds), makeup, and boys, and that our talents are much better spent in nurturing others than in scientific or technical fields that might take us away from our domestic duties. Marya Mannes may have said it best: “Nobody objects to a woman being a good writer or sculptor or geneticist if at the same time she manages to be a good wife, a good mother, good-looking, good-tempered, well-dressed, well-groomed, and unaggressive.” In short, there is so much pressure on girls to fit into this Barbie-like mold of what it means “to be a woman,” that it can be incredibly damaging to our self-esteem and peace of mind.

One of the most poignant aspects of our so-called “womanhood” is how much of our net worth is derived from how we look. There’s a two-to-one ratio of depression in women compared to men, but these trends don’t surface until girls reach early adolescence (Brizendine) when pressures to be “hot,” “sexy,” “desirable,” and maybe even “easy” reach their peak. During this tender age, if a girl is a tomboy, has no desire to talk about boys, would rather boldly argue her points than sit passively, or in any way goes against the “norms” for girls her age, she may have a really hard time fitting in with her peers.

But this isn’t just a women’s issue, this affects men as well. Think about it: with pressures to date, get good grades, carve out a reputation, and do otherwise unsavory activities, adolescence is tough enough. But when people don’t fit the “mold” that society has deemed appropriate for them (a role that’s existed since the dawn of time), that can be devastating. For example, do you honestly see a boy who would rather knit than play football getting a whole lot of respect from his peers? Of course not, because boys are supposed to be macho, tough-as-nails, adrenaline-pumping machines, not spineless, flower-sniffing twinkle toes . . . Do you get my point? These stereotypes are killing us. And if men and women are treated differently (i.e. unequally) based solely on their genders, this only reinforces gender roles which are damaging to all parties involved.

A sad reality for women today is that even if they encompass all the (wonderful) qualities associated with being a woman - empathy, compassion, helpfulness - these qualities are grossly devalued in our society. In fact, today’s biggest insults are ones that attack people for their (stereotypical) feminine qualities. “You’re a wuss.” “Be a man.” “Boys don’t cry.” “You throw like a girl.” When the biggest insult for a boy is to be called a girl, and the biggest insult for a GIRL is to be called a girl . . . Well, that’s when we know things have gone too far and we’ve got a problem on our hands. I’m talking a global-warming-sized problem. An economic-deficit-sized problem. A mind-blowingly HUGE problem because half of the world’s population is being attacked for something they can’t control and shouldn’t be ashamed of!

But through careful societal manipulation and advertising we’re lead to believe that aggression, boldness, physical strength, and dominance (stereotypical male qualities) beat out honesty, cautiousness, and mediation (stereotypical female qualities) every time. If we continue to let it be okay to treat women differently on the bases that we were born with a vagina - and don’t deserve every single right that men have - the gap between traits that are considered positive (male) and traits that are considered negative (female) will continue to grow, and everybody will be at a great disadvantage.

One gross misdemeanor that would make any feminist (including myself) cringe is when common courtesy is mistaken for “being a gentleman.” Boys my age complain that (all) girls expect them to hold doors open for them, pull out their chairs, and fork out their wallets every time the bill comes around. I’ll save my you-can’t-categorize-all-women-like-that speech for another day, but it’s unfortunate that “common courtesy” is all too often confused with “a man’s duty.” Don’t hold a door open for me because I’m a fragile woman who needs to be tended and cared for, hold it open for me because I’m a person, and it’s the polite thing to do. Just like I’m going to hold the door open for the next person, regardless of whether they’re a man or a woman.

Up until now, we’ve discussed strictly emotional aspects of sexism: how boys and girls feel when they’re typecast, how infuriating it is for a woman - a woman with unique thoughts, feelings, and ambitions - to be stereotyped because of her gender, and how devastating it is to be told the things you can and cannot do, all because of the parts you were born with. For some of us, the fact that there are people suffering because of gender stereotyping is reason enough to consider sexism a hot-button issue. But for others, all that “mushy stuff” isn’t good enough. These people (usually the same ones who think all feminists are hairy man-haters) want tangible proof, and unless we can show them exactly when, where, and how women are stereotyped and degraded they’ll never be satisfied. Well, I will be happy to enlighten them.

According to Deborah Siegel in Sisterhood, Interrupted, “Women own only 1 percent of the world’s assets, continue to make up the majority of the world’s poor, [and] are disproportionately victims of violent crime.” Speaking to that last item, we girls are constantly reminded how dangerous the world can be and how it’s our responsibility to protect ourselves. But isn’t it funny that disproportionately less time is spent teaching young people (i.e. males) why domestic violence is wrong, or how it can be prevented in the first place? In an extreme example of how little people acknowledge the all-too-real threat of abuse, “The South Carolina House Judiciary Committee voted in 2005 to make cock-fighting a felony, but tabled a bill that would have done the same for domestic violence” (Valenti).

I could write a book on how unfairly women are treated in the professional world, but I’ll start with something called the Glass Ceiling Effect, as explained by Jessica Valenti in her book Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman’s Guide to Why Feminism Matters:

It’s illegal to discriminate against someone because of their sex (or race, color, national organization, or religion, for that matter), but it still happens all the time. The Federal Glass Ceiling Commission found that one of the reasons for discrimination is a “difference” barrier that “manifests through conscious and unconscious stereotyping and bias.” So basically, the people who do the hiring like hiring people who look like them. And if it’s a white guy doing the hiring... Well, you see where I’m going.

As of 2007, women represented 16 out of 100 U.S. senators, 71 of 435 representatives, 20 percent of college professors, 17 percent of law firm partners (Seigel), and men continue to outnumber women six to one in top corporate jobs (Valenti). Not to mention that equal-pay-for-equal-work is still a joke, “because for every dollar a man earns, a women still earns only 77 cents - an increase from the 59 cents she earned when the second wave of feminism began, but still far from equal” (Siegel). And if all this weren’t enough, an article in a July 2006 issue of The New York Times reported that “unemployed men do less work around the house than women who have full-time jobs”; a 2005 study from New York University found “the more a woman weighs, the less her family income and occupational prestige”; and reputable publications around the country are printing articles with outrageous titles like “Don’t Marry Career Women” and “Career Women Make Bad Mothers” (Valenti). We just can’t win, can we?

What’s worse, men are rarely (if ever) discriminated this way. When have you heard of a man being refused for hire purely because he was a man? Men have been fired for being “too fat” and “too gay” (just a couple of the many stigmas we “imperfect people” face) but never because of their gender. In fact, if we were to create a fictional world where some men earned less than other men because they were, say, shorter - most people would just laugh. Even though the scenario mimics perfectly how some women are treated (i.e. the short men would be earning less for biological factors completely out of their control), we all know that this would never happen in real life.

So when do we stop talking about that instance of office sexism when a woman’s behind was treated like a piece of meat, and start reporting it? When do we stop accepting less pay for doing the same jobs as men (or, if that doesn’t affect us personally, start standing up for women who are in that position)? When do we stop letting others dictate the types of fields we enter, the top positions we apply for, and the passions we have? When do we stop letting terms like “bitch” and “slut” define women in this country? And when will we finally realize that heck, we’re worth fighting for?

This is where feminism comes into play.

If you’re like most Americans, the word “feminism” conjures up several images in your mind. Maybe you picture hippie ladies burning their bras and letting their untrimmed facial and underarm hair flap in the wind. Maybe you picture radical women plotting their next attack on mankind (literally), or socially-inept, angry-at-the-world shut-ins as they mutter curses under their breath before sitting down to a meal of little puppies. There are so many misconceptions about feminism (thank you, media!), that it’s really frustrating for young women who want to be an advocate for women’s rights, but don’t want to be labeled as any of the above stereotypes. In her comprehensive novel Feminism, Christina Fisanick explained:

According to a 2005 poll conducted by CBS News, it is a tough time to be a feminist. Although the majority of women polled believe that the women’s movement had helped improve their opportunities above those of their mothers’ generation, 70 percent of them did not consider themselves to be feminists. This data reflects what has become a growing number of women who have distanced themselves from the label “feminist.” It is not uncommon for women, especially young women, to begin sentences about the rights of women with the phrase, “I am not a feminist, but . . .” Regrettably, feminism has become the new f-word.

Pat Robertson, a right-wing political spokesperson and host of The 700 Club, even went so far as to say feminism is “a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.” Wow. Please take a moment to stifle your incredulous laughter, or regain consciousness (whichever comes first).

Thanks to the media (and lovely right-wingers like Mr. Robertson) Feminism has been distorted almost beyond recognition. This idea of a man-hating subculture of women surely isn’t what our grandmothers had in mind when they picketed for equal job opportunities and reproductive rights. At it’s core, feminism is simply “the movement toward full political, economic, and social equality for men and women” (Baumgardner). But we might relate better to the phrase made famous by Cheris Kramarae in The Feminist Dictionary, “feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings.”

Feminism is generally described in three stages or waves. The First Wave initiated in 1848 at Seneca Falls, New York with the first formal women’s rights conference. Women who joined this movement were often part of the thriving antislavery movement; other times they were inspired by local Native American cultures that afforded women extensive rights, like land ownership and the right to vote. Second Wave feminism was dedicated to equality under the law and in opportunity, and “beginning in the sixties and continuing into the seventies, laws were passed guaranteeing equal access to education (Title IX), outlawing gender discrimination (Title VII of the Civil Rights Act), and coining phrases for date rape, domestic violence, and sexism - serious problems that used to just be called life” (Valenti). Though Second Wave feminism is often criticized for exclusively favoring white, middle-class women, modern-day feminism (or Third Wave feminism) has been shaped by women of all races, nationalities, religions, abilities, and sexual orientations, making it increasingly relevant to all of our lives.

However, there’s still a lot of controversy surrounding “liberal feminism” and how it might corrupt the integrity of the initial movement of the 1960’s. In short, there are some women who believe female empowerment is all about flaunting their sexuality. “Only thirty years (my lifetime) ago,” stated Ariel Levy, author of Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture,“ our mothers were ‘burning their bras’ and picketing Playboy, and suddenly we [are] getting implants and wearing the bunny logo as supposed symbols of our liberation. How had the culture shifted so drastically in such a short period of time?” Levy went on to say:

What was almost more surprising than the change itself were the responses I got when I started interviewing the men and - often - women who edit magazines like Maxim and make programs like The Man Show and Girls Gone Wild. This new raunch culture didn’t mark the death of feminism, they told me; it was evidence that the feminist project had already been achieved. We’d earned the right to look at Playboy; we were empowered enough to get Brazilian bikini waxes.

However discouraging this new wave of “chauvinist women” may be, we can’t forget the hordes of women who still want to represent the integrity of First Wave feminism. Women around the country (and the world) are gaining momentum as an extremely positive and influential force; we are the enlightened ones who know sexism and gender discrimination is fundamentally wrong, and we’re the ones who are trying to do something about it.

There are some people out there who believe feminism is irrelevant in this day and age. “Women got their 19th Amendment,” they say, “isn’t that good enough?” While women have come a long way (I certainly appreciate the fact that I’m not barred from wearing pants), we still have a long way to go. Women still have a great deal to fight for because, to be honest, women are not seen as equal to men. Not on a whole, anyway. Now this doesn’t mean that all women are oppressed, that all women are unhappy, or that I’m not appreciative for the rights we do have. But there are plenty of women in the world who are suffering unnecessarily for things beyond their control, and as part of the glorious group that is the WAWOW (Wickedly Awesome Women of the World) I have to do my part to better the condition of women everywhere. Because the day we stop standing up for each other, the day we sit down and throw our hands up in the air, the day we stop fighting for the rights we know we deserve - is the day we agree with everything we’ve ever been accused of.

Works Cited
Baumgardner, Jennifer, and Amy Richards. Grassroots: a Field Guide for Feminist Activism. New York, N.Y.: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005. Print.

Brizendine, Louann. The Female Brain. New York: Broadway, 2006. Print.

Fisanick, Christina. Feminism. Detroit: Greenhaven, 2008. Print.

Levy, Ariel. Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture. New York: Free, 2005. Print.

Siegel, Deborah. Sisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women To Grrls Gone Wild. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Print.

Valenti, Jessica. Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman's Guide To Why Feminism Matters. Emeryville, CA: Seal, 2007. Print.

Weiner, Jessica. Do I Look Fat in This?: Life Doesn't Begin Five Pounds from Now. New York: Simon Spotlight Entertainment, 2006. Print.