In 1911, International Women’s Day was honored for the first time after countless women’s rights campaigns and activism walks, after long fights for equal rights; and the question people tend to ask today, in the 21st century, is whether or not we still need feminism.
Whenever the topic of feminism is brought up around me, a good number of women I know state that they are not feminists. Why?
Well, the definition of feminism has been washed out, misunderstood, and reworded over the years. In the beginning, feminism was about women’s rights and suffrage. Evidently, women can vote now, they’re allowed to receive an education, get married to whomever they wish, and be treated as human beings by the majority.
However, just because bills have been passed, it doesn’t mean that there’s a complete social equality.
I’m fact, this is only an argument that can be used if you’re an American living in the US. However, the US isn’t the world, and I’ll go more in depth on that in a second.
Many young girl’s confidences are destroyed at an early age. Whether it has to do with body image, talent, or their peers, so many girls give up their hobbies, interests, and aspirations after a while. Girls have mostly unrealistic expectations placed upon them, from staying crazy thin to being crazy intelligent.
We have to be perfect, diet the right way, do our hair the right way, apply our makeup the right way, dress the right way, socialize the right way, don’t joke the wrong way, don’t be too loud, don’t be too quiet, be good at what you do, but don’t be a narcissist, don’t be insecure, you’re allowed to achieve, but you can also be judged unfairly.
As per example, whenever I hear about female celebrities most people that dislike her have their biased reasoning based on her past relationships, her relationship status, or how attractive she presents herself to be on TV and social media.
When a male celebrity does the same exact action, not even 50% of the individuals that were berating female celebrity for those reasons speak up.
But not that we should, and not that anybody should even care about who a celebrity dates to such an obsessive level, or that anybody should even care how much weight someone gains, or how they decide to do their hair, or how they like to dress, and yet the majority of society does.
Women aren’t an extension of men. This is common sense, everybody knows it, however not everyone acts like it, and actions tend to speak louder than words.
Considering it is International Women’s Day, it’s also important to mention the other side of the globe, and not limit our knowledge to simply American woman’s problems.
Many young girls are not allowed to go to school, and an alarming number of young girls are being put into child marriages from the ages 9-17.
In Afghanistan, little girls are stopped from going to school every single day, and can be met with violence due to the Taliban’s rule.
Women in Africa are excluded from their country’s economy, becoming solely dependent on the men to provide for the family.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, barely any women can have access to good jobs.
So, there is still gender inequality in the world, and those were only an example of it.
Let us not ignore misogyny, let us embrace and take advantage of the days where we shed a light on the things that aren’t talked about as much as they should. Let’s take International Women’s Day as a day to learn.