A Call for Feminism : Part I

"Are you a feminist?" my friend asked me.

I admit that I hesitated. It's no secret that I'm very conservative, something that popular culture often doesn't tie with feminism, the banning of brassieres, and putting men in their place.

"Yes, I think I am," I replied.

Certainly feminism has come to have those negative connotations of hoardes of angry lesbains crying out for equal rights and the crushing of their male counterparts underfoot. However, feminism does and should mean so much more than that to any self-respecting woman. It's standing up against those who tell you that you're not good enough or not smart enough by right of being a woman or that your position in life is to make men happy by being pretty and sexy.

Many women will dismiss my cry for feminism. After all we got our rights with the amendment that allowed women to vote and with the demonstrations in the 60s and 70s. Women are equal! We've tossed away our corsets, we go to school with men, act like men, and are in the workplace with men. We're home free! The glass ceiling has shattered and come crashing down about our feet!

In my opinion, however, we might be in worse shaped than ever. Our world, and this country, is in a crisis for feminists and here's why. As bad as a situation in which women know they are unequal is, it becomes dangerous when women think of themselves as free and are meanwhile still in the bonds of a society that degrades them.

Walk down the street or watch television. Women's half-naked bodies are posted everywhere you look. Not that women don't have the right to be beautiful or sexy, but not at the expense of rendering them as sex objects. Listening to the lyrics of many popular songs, it's scary to be a woman; all this talk of sex and drugs and buying love scares me stiff. Women are taught to make themselves appealing so that men will want them. Men are told that women are there to pleasure them and that once you're tired of one, you can always find a newer and hotter version. This sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Many women say that they make themselves sexy or appealing for themselves. But, frankly, I don't believe them. It feeds the sexist machine and furthers the opinion that women are only good if they're attractive and what men want them to be. That, my friends, doesn't sound like freedom, but a form of willing oppression.

Next time, I will talk about two very influential women who were both exemplary figures in their time (and now of course) and see what they have to say about women's often self-inflicted bondage to the social sexist stereotype.