a truth universally acknowledged

clap-yourhands:

thedenialtwist:

I will never understand people — especially women — who say they hate feminists. You hate people that advocate equal rights regardless of gender? Really?

I think this is really interesting. Until fairly recently, I’d always considered myself a feminist- it makes me angry when men put women down for being a woman/ they get lower paid jobs, less opportunities etc and I think it’s great that people are doing things to combat that, i’d be the first to get involved with anything like that, but sometimes I can’t help but think this “feminist” label generates hate. When we start looking at things in terms of a group or label, then we start picking out and looking for faults in things. There was a phase I went through where I was obsessed with “being a feminist”, and I found myself getting angry at everything men did, seeing it through “feminist” eyes, undermining what they do, finding reasons why women were better, but at the end of the day, it didn’t make me any happier, in fact it made me bloody angry half the time. We should stop trying to feel superior about things and pick faults in things: if you take it that all people are made equal, then you live like that, and if a problem comes up where it doesn’t seem that way, then you tackle it instead of finding problems in everything, that’s my view. Up until I was about 15 and I didn’t really think too deeply about gender position, it never even crossed my mind that I, as a girl, could ever be considered lower than a boy. I try and take on this attitude now. I was, and am, confident that I can go and get a job wherever I want to, I can go to university, within reason, where I want to and I can have as fullfilling a life as anybody else and not have to worry about gender inequality getting in the way. I think in some ways that living in this “feminist” bracket can sometimes mean that, although you’re fighting for gender equality, this principal is always on your mind and judging equality becomes everyday, so maybe you start questioning whether you’d get a job over a man or whatever, which is never good because I think confidence truly is the way you get places in life- if you don’t have some faith that you’re going to get something, you never will. You could say that being oblivious to gender quality issues is being defeatest and a disgrace to the female sex, but I know it’s not. We’re not “women”, we’re not “feminists”, we’re individuals. Maggie Thatcher got to the top, so did Deborah Meaden, and the unemployed bloke living off benefits his whole life with half his teeth missing in my am dram group didn’t- there’s no set gender run formula as to where we’re gonna end up. Yes, it might be harder for women to be successful, but how do you measure success? For some women it’s being the prime minister, for a whole lot it’s being a mother and a carer- it wouldn’t be my first choice, but there you go, we’re all different. We shouldn’t try and aspire to be “equal” just because we think it’s right because that’s just compromising what we might truly desire. Too many labels weigh us down, close our minds and make us unhappy- a package and not ourselves. We’re trying to be free but then then this feminist principal is caging us in. What is equality? in my view, we’re only not equal if someone’s not as happy as the person next to them. Sorry for this rant but, to end on a cliche, just be yourself and do what you want to be, cos god knows, in this age, in this country, you can honestly do whatever you want to do. 

Equality and success are very hard words to define. 

But being a feminist, and being involved in a feminist group have opened my eyes to a lot of shit that is really bad for a lot of women, whatever definitions you use for equality, and I’d like to help change that when I can.

For me, the label is just useful. I wouldn’t say that referring to myself differently has changed my views. The worst thing about the word “feminist” is the perceptions people have of it - as in, bra-burning, men-hating, short-haired lesbians. 

(Source: legendaryblack)