It goes without saying I'm a feminist. I'd like to say a feminist by default, I went to an all-girls secondary school for seven years so the concept that women were capable of doing anything they set their minds to and any woman that was the first at doing something or achieved something monumental was drilled into our heads at every school assembly. So it's not a new fancy term that has been popularised across media platforms in recent years to me, it's just a standard part of life.
I'm all for female liberation and female empowerment, but sometimes I feel like some women in the western world take the cake by slapping feminism onto anything they do that doesn't promote the actual definition of feminism which is promoting equality between the sexes. I don't believe that getting your kit off and promoting promiscuity is on the same level as campaigning for all girls to have a standard education because the population of illiterate women is at a high in developing countries.
Also, I really dislike how anything Taylor Swift does involving her all female squad suddenly makes her a feminist icon. Like cool, you have a group of female friends and you guys want to seem like badasses, that's dope but what does that actually do for womankind? Sometimes it just seems like feminism is this new shiny label that everyone in pop culture wants to have. I've even seen twitter bios of girls proclaiming they are a feminist, which is great but isn't every woman? Maybe I'm biased and lived in a feminist bubble without even realising it, but why wouldn't you want to be a feminist as a woman? Like it's common sense - don't you want equality? Don't you want to earn the same level of respect as your male counterpart? I don't get how it's something that now is to be proclaimed as your label, which seems to come across to make you look socially aware of societal issues and intellectual.
Some people have a truly warped perception of what feminism is. Before anyone bashes me for any kind of shaming, I'm only sharing my opinion. If you want to get your kit off on social media and proclaim why should your nipples be censored when a man's nipples aren't - your life and your choices. Or praising women in pop culture for embracing their sexuality by stripping off and being more sexualised because they feel men do the same, then you do you. But don't act like it's a iconic feminist movement for all of womankind. I'd like to see these people who feel they are promoting this iconic feminist movement do something that actually benefits womankind, for the women that need it the most and focuses on real issues that are out there that need that kind of attention.
For example, 93% of girls in Northern Nigerian are illiterate. Do you know what that means? That means that a mother who is prescribed some medication will have to ask her 7 year old son to read the instructions for her to use it since she cannot read or she can't help him with his homework or send a letter because she doesn't have the skills to write. This means women can't make informed decisions about their lives, it strips women of their independence, of a very basic human right. Imagine if that was the same for England and how isolating and confined that would be to not have those skills? It limits your options and will surely limit how you view yourself? In South Africa, president Jacob Zuma's alarming comments said in his defence at his rape trial which was acquitted in 2006 that the victim was to blame because she was wearing clothing that was giving him the signal that she wanted to have sex.
Undeniably, The West can overlook their privilege when it comes to women's rights and be distracted from real issues. This isn't to say that the western world doesn't have real issues when it comes to sexism where feminism is needed, this week it was reported that 63% of young women face sexual harassment in the workplace . These are the real issues I want to see more of the media and pop culture behind. Things that directly have a negative effect on women's social and economic growth and equality in their lives.