WHY FEMINISM IS STILL RELEVANT TODAY

Hello! Firstly I’d just like to start this post of by saying a huge thank you to everyone who subscribed and messaged me saying nice things about this. I really appreciated it, especially because I was so nervous to post for the first time, so thank you so so much.

Before Covid-19 brought an abrupt end to my year 11, I remember talking to my friend and essentially the conversation was her saying there’s no longer any need for feminism, because women are not really oppressed in society and me saying yes, they are. And before the conversation became quite heated (which it was close to doing), it was brought to an end by her saying something like “no one cares anymore” and me responding with “well i care”. So, I’ve decided to dedicate this post to her.

Let’s look at women globally, in 2015 the world bank recorded that out of the 173 countries they included in the study 58% have laws which don’t allow women to do certain types of jobs and 18 of the countries give husbands the power to decide whether their wife can accept a job or not . In the US, according to the Centre for American Women and Politics, 26% of women are a part of the US senate and only 23.2% are in the US House of Representatives. Feminism strives towards helping women achieve political, social and economic equality and bettering the quality of life for women globally.

With the movement growing larger and becoming more diverse as the days go by, more attention is placed on the persistence of the gender pay gap, and the effort to eradicate it. Many still deny its existence after the 2010 equality act but the matter is still around right now resulting in women undeservingly earning less than their male counterparts. More attention is placed on the fact that we need to do more to combat the shocking amount of domestic abuse around today, which doesn’t just affect women. Men are conditioned into believing that if they speak up about the abuse it makes them weak and many who find the courage to do so are often turned away.

The amount of times I have gone onto the comment section of an Instagram post or even Tik Tok, which I’ve progressively been spending more time on, and seen someone write “this is why women belong in the kitchen” with excessive amounts of laughing emojis or call women “dishwashers” and laugh as though they’ve come up with the best insult in history- which they haven’t.

I’ve heard other women say they think it’s an abomination that women can vote because we are simply “too emotional” and therefore can not make rational or logical decisions, I am genuinely confused at how you can not see an issue here. Some women have literally been manipulated by a patriarchal society into developing the attitudes of a misogynist. The belief that women have to work twice as hard as a man to succeed is still prevalent and not entirely untrue. I mean who can say for 100% certainty that women are truly perceived as equals to men and treated as such, no one, because they’re not.

Young girls bodies are sexualised and they are manipulated by the media into believing that they have to alter their bodies to appear truly attractive and bag a rich, hot boyfriend. Magazines plaster their front pages with the ‘best and worst beach bodies’, slamming women for having rolls, cellulite and stretch marks and men for not having “rock hard abs” as if that’s not entirely normal. Feminism today strives to destroy that idea and teach young girls and boys that there is no perfect body type and the best thing you can be is happy, healthy and confident in your skin.

Regardless, feminism has come a long way since the suffragists. I must acknowledge that because you can’t dismiss these achievements in order to justify why feminism is still relevant but instead use them to solidify the argument. Their actions led to prominent reform and proved to us modern day feminists that if we continue to show the world we will not stand for the problems within our society, past and present, with a fierce resolve we can reach a place of true equality.

So, if I was able to go back in time and give an actual response of value to my friend who said “no one cares anymore” I would summarise the above and say that is why we still need feminism.