If you are frightened by the f-word, you should probably stop reading this. For all you brave souls, read on; I’m going on another rant.
I am a feminist. It’s taken me a while to get used to the word and to not cringe when I say it. I am a feminist and I am not ashamed.
Tuesday was International Women’s Day and while I was a day early with my acknowledgements – I thought it was on Monday for some reason – I took to Facebook to post another cheesy, let’s-empower-women quote.
Before I had a chance to proclaim my womanly pride, I noticed that one of my Facebook friends posted a status about how there is no need for a day devoted to women.
I’m kind of torn on this issue because it’s so ambiguous.
On one hand, if we stop bringing attention to the problem, it will eventually become a regular part of life.
On the other hand, in order to overcome the discrepancies between the genders, we have to acknowledge that women have historically been given the shorter end of the stick.
There’s a part of me that feels as if we do need a day to acknowledge our brave women predecessors.
We should be able to set aside a day to recognize that there were many women before us who couldn’t even dream of the progress that we have made as a society today.
There’s also a part of me that feels as if setting aside a day entirely devoted to one gender, all the while trying to make both genders equal, is a bit transgressional.
I’m still up in the air about this issue, much like I am with everything else in my life.
The way I see it, there are these days and events to celebrate women like that because yes, there still is a difference in the way genders are treated.
It is really depressing that we have to devote so much time and effort into getting people to treat everybody with respect.
I’ve taken a few women’s studies classes and it’s honestly astonishing how many people are so uneducated about these issues.
I think that’s another reason why we have days like International Women’s Day. It serves as a day to bring light to those issues, a lot of which aren’t even strictly educational.
Like I’ve said before, I feel like a lot of the issues today are focused more on the things that we, as a society, subconsciously and inadvertently do.
Once we, as a society, can acknowledge that women are not on a level playing field with men, we can work toward teaching our kids that people are people, no matter what race, sexuality or gender you are.
International Women’s Day, to me, should not just be confined to one day – we should be teaching about and celebrating women every day. Feminists rejoice.
SAMANTHA GRISWOLD
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