I wasn’t introduced to the concept of feminism until I was in college. I didn’t thoroughly understand why we needed it. I spouted some pretty misogynistic stuff back then. Thankfully, the internet was still starting to grow on people and none of that stuff exists anymore. These days, I consider myself a feminist.
It’s kind of hard to be one though.
I didn’t delve that deep into the feminist literature. I understand that there’s radical feminism, traditional feminism, and other types that are out there but the very main concept is this: support women everywhere.
Be pro-choice! Remove the wage gap! Stop giving us gender roles! We don’t need to “submit” to a husband to live our lives fully! Stop thinking it’s required for us to have babies! Make up is optional, if you want to wear it, go ahead! If you don’t like it, that’s fine! Catcalling is sexual harassment!
Just because it’s a woman doesn’t mean she’s a bad driver! Let the girls play with cars and let the boys play with dolls! Women can be both sporty and feminine! Stop making skimpy armor in games, they barely cover anything! Stop objectifying women!
There are so many rules. Most of it I can follow through properly. I am a woman. I have to live through catcalling, gender roles, being judged for wearing too little, and people saying my personality is “too rash” for a woman. It sucks. I call them out on all of this, if I can.
But what if sometimes, I judge other women too?
There are girls on my newsfeed in Facebook, IG, and Twitter who are just impossibly beautiful. They get a lot of likes on their photos, people comment on how beautiful they are, and they basically have their shit together (or so it seems).
I feel horrible whenever I think of stuff like:
“It’s just because she posts skimpy photos.”
“She’s not even that pretty.”
“That photo looks horrible.”
Or whatever it is that comes out of my mind. I never say it out loud, though. I mean, who would?
It sucks because I try to suppress these thoughts. I feel like they’re so unfeminist-like. Of course, I also always think:
“Wow, she’s pretty!”
“I’m happy for her!”
“Yeah, you go girl!”
So you see, my dilemma now is that I’m only human. Sometimes I really will think these thoughts but brush them away anyway. And honestly I think it’s okay to have these thoughts sometimes because not acknowledging them would be worse. Not acknowledging them means never resolving them.
So yes, sometimes I have these negative thoughts and I think about them, think about why it’s not right, why I feel that way, and I move on. It’s kinda hard being a feminist when no one really tells you what to do with these negative thoughts about other women when you’re supposed to be all for supporting women.
Then again, if you do make your negative thoughts known, there’s this possibility…
But what if someone is unaware of their un-feminist like statements?
The latest story is this woman named Bianca. She posted a photo of her apparently not wearing any make-up and challenged women to do the same. She was harshly criticised for that post because:
- She was wearing make up.
- She said it wasn’t necessary to wear make-up every day to feel beautiful.
The link to the Facebook post can be found here.
It kind of sucks because at first, I didn’t really see anything wrong with the whole post until other people started pointing it out. However, so many Filipinas judged her to the point of cyberbullying about the wrongfulness of her statement.
So tell me, how are we supposed educate people on feminism when they’re burned at the stake?
I support feminism whole-heartedly. I support women as much as I can. I hope women everywhere do their best and are given the best opportunities to advance the human race as much as possible.
Sometimes I just wish people weren’t so harshly criticized for being uninformed or being ignorant of what feminism is about.
Bowl of Soupy 