Has anyone ever told you that you can be a feminist too?
Have you ever considered that you may already be one?
When I left university and started working for a small start-up, never in my wildest dreams did I predict I’d become good friends with all my male colleagues. I am a staunch feminist, always speaking up for what was right and for other people. And they did too.
Then I mentioned the word: feminism. They all reacted the same way: oh that’s not for me. Of course it was! I told them. But something dawned on me, they had never been called feminists in their life!
The biggest mistake to make is to stay silent when someone should speak up.
I explained the basic concept of the word and what it stands for. If you believe in the equal treatment of women and defend those who have been treated unjustly, then you are a feminist. I went on to explain that there are levels to how far you can go with standing up for these values, but the key point had landed.
3 key things to know about feminism:
- Demands and opinions change over time as different rights become normalised.
- It is not anti-male, it is a movement which welcomes men in allyship.
- Women are pictured as the main focus, but feminists actually speak up for everyone.
“Before you call me fragile, know how much adversity I had to overcome to be here first.”
I would encourage everyone to be more engaged with feminist works and to stay away from the short-sighted narrative that feminism being about inequality which is propagated over social media. Although the movement welcomes men in every conversation, in return it is mostly always men who share misinformation and influence other people to ridicule feminism.
If you are brought into a conversation about feminism in any way, my word of advice would be to know that it runs much deeper than just a simple example. Do not give in to believing what seems logical as it takes a certain degree of unlearning to understand.
