Feminism for Dummies

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How it started...
I used to be the girl that (literally) made all of my guy friends sandwiches and made jokes about how I belonged in the kitchen. Feminism and women's issues were one of the last things I ever thought I would care about. I thought feminists were annoying and made a big deal out of issues that didn't matter. I still had the right to an abortion, so I never thought about needing to protect it. If I made a women's rights joke to my friends, I would get a laugh. I was living in this bubble where I needed to fit in with the guys and maintain the prejudices that are so far ingrained in society that I didn't even know they existed - when they affected me every day.

In my sophomore year of college, two of my friends decided to take a night class to cover a Literary elective and wanted me to take it with them. (Night classes are essentially the worst thing in the world if you don't have someone to commiserate with.) Much to my dismay, they wanted to take "Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies" ...sounds fun, right? For some reason, after a lot of complaining, I agreed to join them. I figured it would be a good place to have a laugh at the professor and some of the crazy shit women wrote essays that made something out of nothing.

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Clearly, that's not what ended up happening. I wasn't able to ignore facts anymore. My professor showed us through movies, essays, novels, books, scientific studies, and advertising just how severely intertwined gender roles, stereotypes, and oppression are ingrained in daily activities, traditions, and the very structure of society. I feel the need to list everything like that because people don't realize that these issues are absolutely everywhere. How is it possible that a society as advanced as our has such little respect for women? Just the other day, someone from my high school retweeted a parody account that she hates feminists because they get angry over nothing and should just "get over it" and make their man a sandwich. How is thinking like this productive for anyone? Does she like having the right to vote? - because she has feminists to thank for that. (I unfollowed her immediately, in case you were wondering.)

I'm just so sick of it being socially acceptable for women to be put down in any way possible. If someone were to post something overtly racist on social media, everyone would jump down their throats and no one would think they were overreacting. But, somehow, telling someone that they posted something sexist means that you're a raging feminist bitch who makes "something out of nothing." I just don't get it.

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It makes me sad when I go onto Tumblr, a place I thought was built on acceptance and being an individual, and most posts with the #feminism tag on them are complaining about feminists! There are even Tumblrs that are dedicated especially to "Women Against Feminism." If you like being subservient to your boyfriend or husband, by all means continue to do it - but saying you don't need feminism is essentially saying you don't want equal rights. You want to make less money than men, even if you deserve more? You want to keep your opinion to yourself instead of voting for political figures you agree with? You want young women to look towards photoshopped models and actresses so they feel shitty about their own bodies every day? You want girls and women to be raped just because they walked outside at night?

Feminism doesn't sound so bad, sign me up!
Watch Killing Us Softly 4 and Tough Guise if you want to see the videos that singlehandedly made me a feminist. Another amazing one is Miss Representation, which you may have to rent or buy to see. I promise you'll look at things a little differently.

I apologize in advance (only not really) for the amount of feminist posts that will inevitably happen on this blog. Before you go, if I haven't convinced you yet, at least look at the video below to see how the media failed women in 2013. For every step forward, we make two steps back.