I mentioned briefly back in June in my love letter to Twitter about how it has changed my view on so many things, from the way i see and speak about people, to politics and the media. But i think the thing that it has changed my view on the most is the way the world sees, speaks and thinks about women, and the level of gendered insults and misogyny thrown at and around women.
I've also embraced the tag feminist.
It was interesting thinking about myself as a feminist, and how my views on it has changed. I grew up in a fairly typical, although in the country, lower-middle-class white household. Six kids, parents still married. I don't remember ever really thinking about my gender as being something that would ever affect what i did or where i went. Sure, stranger-danger was instilled a bit, but it was the country, there were no strangers. I grew up with dolls, but also played 'war' with my brothers, and was always told that i could do what i wanted.
My mum is interesting though, while encouraging me to be educated and accomplished, i have clear memories of her bemoaning that i wasn't 'lady-like' enough, and she was often rather constant with the fatshaming sometimes... another issue for another day though.
I didn't really encounter feminism in a way that made me want to name it until i got to uni and my attention was drawn to the Wom*ns committee/room/section in Lots Wife. And i hated those people. I hated this idea that we were so different from men, that we disliked them so much to remove the e from the word women as not to be associated with them. I hated the fact that they seemed to have a vendetta against the boys i lived with at Halls because they were massively sexist and horrible people. I, like so many women my age, did not want to be associated with the word feminist because that's the only image we have of it, scary man-hating women.
And I didn't want to be a part of it so much that i think i began to overlook the bigger picture stuff that they were campaigning for, the stuff that Twitter, and actually now Reddit (quite love http://www.reddit.com/r/ShitRedditSays/ but it does make me angry for a range of reasons...), has made me stop and think about so much that it makes me angry.
This year has been a big one for my anger. I realise now it had been a slow boil thing, my thinking about sexism, my changing opinions about the way the world perceives women. Then slutwalk happened and all of a sudden i wasn't quiet any more. The constant comments on articles talking about Slutwalk stating that 'this is the way that it happens' or 'it's just the way it works' or 'well, she put herself in that situation' NO NO NO NO. So i marched. And felt so powerful that day. It might not have had any measurable difference in terms of things changing for the wider society, but i guess it changed me.
I no longer shrink back from being called a feminist, i no longer simply dismiss sexism as something that is 'just the way society is.' Because if it is just that, if it is fine for a woman to be made to feel intimidated and sexually harassed simply because 'that's the way it works' then something needs to be changed and i'm not a silent any more.
I've noticed more and more slut shaming since i went on slutwalk, i notice more and more sexism, and i've started calling people out for it. Almost broke my heart this afternoon when discussing a woman with a year 8, the first thing she asked about them was 'is she pretty?' That the same girl asked me last week 'what makes a girl a slut?' and these girls want to set learning goals like 'be thinner so boys like me'. So within my own little community I'm making a stand now. I want to help these girls recognise that feminism is about equality. That we should be talking about girls and women in ways that isn't how many people they've slept with, or how pretty they are. And it has to start when they're that age, i think.
I'm wary though. I don't want to come off as a feminist that i hated at uni. I think that's potentially more damaging and isolating. I just want to change the way they see themselves and each other. That they value their academic achievements over the battle with their scales. So i suppose it's a softly softly approach with the whole year level, not just the girls. Coz feminism isn't something that's just for girls..
