At the bar I work at, our only male bartender greets me daily by saying, “How is my favorite man hater today?” Yet again said light hearted but in the back of my mind I know that the realistically he is serious.
In the eyes of the uneducated, feminism is all about man bashing and bra burning. For me it is different, I am a feminist but in the way that I don’t see things as our society would like for me to, I can see through advertising and the idea that I am feminine by the clothes and makeup I wear. That sexy is thinness and that the body I have at this very moment does not hold up to societies beauty ideals. That I should be quiet and dainty, which even if I was quiet I could never be dainty.
What I find attractive in other women is independence and being strong willed. Being your own person and not being a girl who feels lost without a man holding her hand. I understand that most women are brought up believing that they are to wait for the man of their dreams, but I never had that opportunity. I have had to learn how to get what I want on my own, the week after I turned 16 I was told to get a job unlike my brother who was always given my fathers credit card to fill his gas tank and was never told to do the same thing if he wanted spending money.
Now I am not going to say that my father didn’t ever help me out financially, since it has been very different but during my parents divorce I had to have a job so that I could graduate from high school since I lived outside of district and had to drive to school. I live with my mother now but I have never had a guy around to lead me through life, hold open doors and do all of those nice things that girls are suppose to be use to.
There are girls at work who will talk with me about the topics that I am thinking about at any given moment and they will always let me know that they are not like me. It’s strange that even women seem to think that the idea that being a feminist is a bad thing, probably because they to have been told that we are man haters. It seems like the people who are most likely to make change in the future are filled with the idea that feminism is wrong/bad.
I just like the idea of looking at the world as a skeptic, I am aware that can be bad at times, but I think its far worse to wear blinders and never wonder if the information you are given or how your world around you is being run might not be right.
My Women's history professor was a soft-spoken, married, catholic feminist. She did not hate men or exaggerate fact, but told history as it was. Not all feminists hate men, burn bras or are ungroomed. Some people will never come out of their safety nets and see things as it really is.