AMBER MATTICE
Life & Arts Editor
Okay. Okay. I’m not here to push an agenda or force my opinions on anyone but I would really like to know why the frick-frack anybody would say in the 21st century that feminism isn’t needed anymore.
In lieu of the recent election and the ignorance displayed by both the president and vice president, I would like to formally introduce the idea that feminism is still incredibly important in today’s society.
It’s important to remember that feminism means equality between everyone regardless of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity and everything else that adds to a person’s character. It’s also important to realize that it is called feminism because it is the feminine traits in human beings that people often criticize and undervalue.
After the Women’s March on Washington, among the incredible amount of support from individuals across the globe, people began to demean feminists and call out feminism as a radical ideal that people should push to the side and give up. We cannot allow this to happen.
There’s a reason people are marching and standing up against the patriarchy. And it’s the fact that it still exists. So when I go on Facebook or Twitter and see articles being shared about why so and so is a female that is “so over feminism” or why women need to shut up about feminism because it’s the 21st century, I just shake my head.
Because it is the 21st century and I don’t understand why feminists still need to justify what they’re fighting for and I don’t understand how people still think that feminism is a movement against men or that feminism doesn’t include everyone. I can tell you right now that feminism is not feminism unless it is intersectional, so why is it so hard for people to see that all we want is equality? We don’t want to be content with having more rights than we did in the late nineteenth century when first wave feminism was a thing. We want equality. Plain and simple.
Don’t get me wrong, I know that there are radical feminists out there who demean men for being men and disclude other races and nationalities from their feminism, but that isn’t what the movement is about. I know this rant is nothing that hasn’t been said before but I’m going to keep spewing these definitions and radical notions until people finally get it.
So I’m writing this for the girls who don’t think they are more than their pretty faces.
For the boys who don’t think they can be both boys and beautiful.
For the girls whose voices are soft like flowers but are as powerful as a hurricane.
For the boys whose bones are made of steel but whose hearts play the softest song.
For the people who don’t feel comfortable being perfectly themselves.
And I will keep writing this over and over again for the people who tried to write this before me and were silenced and, with shaking hands, were forced to give up.
Until people read this and actually listen.
Until there is total equality. Plain and simple.