There’s something I want to say out loud, well not out loud since this is a written blog not a video blog, but there’s something I want to explicitly state: I am a feminist. Most of you have probably picked up on that already, but I want to go into why I personally am a feminist. So, without further ado and in no particular order, here are 20 reasons why I, Emily Randolph-Epstein, am a feminist:
1. I am a feminist because without feminists women would still be considered no more than the property of their male relatives with no voice of there own. It was feminists who won women the right to vote and feminists who insisted women belong in the workplace.
2. I am a feminist because someday I want my children and grandchildren to live in a world where women don’t have to plan their evenings around not getting raped.
3. I am a feminist because everyone deserves to be paid based on the quality of the work they do not based on the fact that they might someday get pregnant.
4. I am a feminist because no one but a woman can decide what to do with her own body.
5. I am a feminist because I am a woman and I want to live in a world where women are the legal equals of men in all things.
6. I am a feminist because there’s the false stereotype of the angry, man-hating feminist. I don’t hate men, but I am angry. I’m angry that I have to do a threat assessment for every man I walk past on the street. I’m angry that I have to micro-analyze every look I’m given, every smile: “Is he just being friendly, or is there some hidden malice?” I’m angry that I’m likely to never make as much money as my male equivalent. I’m angry that I can’t plan a trip around the world without factoring in the fact that I’m a woman.
7. I am a feminist because we still blame the victims of sexual assaults more than we blame the perpetrators. No matter what we wear, no matter how we act, no woman is asking to be assaulted.
8. I am a feminist because every time a female writer posts something on twitter about feminism she gets bombarded with hateful comments.
9. I am a feminist because a woman can get fired for being a too aggressive leader. All to often, what’s admired as leadership and assertion in a man is considered bossiness in a woman.
10. I am a feminist because so many of my decisions are based on the fact that I’m a woman. I’m so aware of the fact that I’m female that it gets in the way of living my life. Are men always so aware of their maleness?
11. I am a feminist because somehow it’s a big deal that Hillary Clinton is going to be a grandmother. I’m betting a good majority of our past presidents were grandfathers and nobody ever called their ability to be president into question based on the fact they had grandchildren.
12. I am a feminist because my mother has encouraged me to be one.
13. I am a feminist because once, when we had a house guest and something broke, he told me, why don’t you wait till your father gets home and he’ll fix it. My father can fix a bicycle, but that’s about as far as his handiness goes. In my house, the women are the handy ones.
14. I am a feminist because we have “strong” female characters, but we don’t need “strong” male characters because everyone assumes that the male character is already strong.
15. I am a feminist because even though there are more and more strong female characters in film, television, and books most of them serve to further the male hero’s heroic journey.
16. I am a feminist because I ran out of books to read about independent-willed, strong-minded, kick-ass girls when I was in middle school and had to start writing my own.
17. I am a feminist because the first thing most people do when they see me is comment about my appearance. When I was younger, I deliberately dressed in ugly, frumpy clothing so that people would have no choice but to comment on the book I was holding or ask me a question about my interests. But that backfired because, kids being what they are, I was bullied because I didn’t dress fashionably. A woman’s worth should not be placed in how she looks.
18. I am a feminist because if a woman refuses to have sex she’s a prude, a tease, or a shrew, but if she has sex she’s a slut.
19. I am a feminist because schools focus on controlling how girls dress, rather than on teaching boys not to objectify their classmates.
20. I am a feminist because the world still needs feminists, because women aren’t yet equal to men. We’re getting closer, step by step, but we’re not there yet.
I have more reasons as to why I’m a feminist, but 20 is a good even number and I’d hate to be accused of going on a crazy feminist rant.
Thank you for reading.
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