My Feminism

The belief of many, or at least some of the “jokingly” chauvinist male or deluded females that I consort with, is that feminism is irrelevant.  I would argue that it is not.  I can sit in any high street coffee shop and observe the victims of the The Feminine Mystique or objectification.  I myself have tottered off to meetings in a pair of high heels which hamper my ability to walk and cause pain with every step.  Why?  Because I allowed myself to be seduced by the media’s representations of “successful” women and bullied into buying irresponsible shoes by a friend too meek to forge her own personality but strong enough to attempt to subdue mine. 

As a young woman who has grown up in during the Third Wave of Feminism it is easy to take for granted the opportunities I have.  After all, the protesters of the First and Second Waves engaged in the hard fight to secure the female right to vote, to pursue education and engage with our destinies.  I feel my generation has become complacent, all too ready to submit once more, firm in the belief that there is someone else out there who is fighting for our rights.  But what if there isn't?  What if we are merely being lulled into a false sense of security by the world in which we live, the communities which we belong to?  There is no choice but to use our own voice. 

"To be nobody but yourself- in a world which is doing its best to make you like everybody else - means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting."
E.E Cummings

In feminism I have a true passion, and potentially a vocation if I apply my skills as writer successfully in the advancement of sexual equality.  At the moment I am making it my purpose to research those who trod this path before me so that I may develop my views further.  Hopefully, one day I will have made a difference.

Faye Stone