3 things I hold to be true about feminism | #Fembruary

Over on doitfortheirony, Jacky made February #fembruary, a month for opening up the discussion about feminism in a casual, conversational environment, which is something that isn't always easy given the stigma that comes with openly declaring yourself feminist or simply taking a feminist stance on certain issues. Feminism is something that has become important to me over the past couple of years, and I would have kicked myself if I didn't join in. Today I want to share with you, three things that I hold to be true about feminism (emphasis on the I).

|| Feminists are not born, they are made || 

This may seem self-evident but you'd be surprised at how prevalent the assumption is that some people are just born thinking that men and women should have equal rights, and whilst others are just born thinking that men are inherently better, and that's the way it's always been, and that's the way it's always going to be. No, that's the result of a patriarchal society, a society in which the men hold the primary power and predominate in all areas of society. You might have noticed that whilst women are told to 'stay in the kitchen', male chefs dominate the restaurant industry or how (some) male politicians try and regulate female reproductive systems whilst doing nothing to regulate their own - all of that, and more, is the manifestation of the patriarchy.

We're all born into patriarchal societies (with the exception of a few remote tribes here and there) so the only way to be a feminist, is to educate yourself and become one. Even a person who is born to the most open-minded, feminist, equality-orientated parents will only go so far in their thinking if they don't read up on feminist issues, find out what the problem is, where the problem even came from and explores for themselves what the solutions could be. That's why feminism is for everyone - there are no class barriers, no financial brackets: just information about the world in waiting to be discovered and understood, and in most cases, changed. 

|| Education is the greatest weapon against the patriarchy || 

I recently came to the realisation that education is a necessary prerequisite to feminism. Education world-wide for men and women of all levels of society is necessary for the understanding that equality between both sexes is important. The patriarchy thrives on men and women being uneducated, and therefore ignorant. It tells a man that he is better than his female counterpart, that he is stronger, superior and deserving of more, and that should a woman try and raise herself up to his level, she is wrong, she is to be laughed at, she is to be put in her place. Without at the very least primary, or even secondary education, it is difficult to see how a man would question this - why he would give up this power that was given to him, why he would allow his position to be taken away without much, and often violent, resistance. Similarly, how are we to expect an uneducated woman who has been raised and taught all of her life that she is inferior, that her place in life is in relation of the men around her, this is how it is and this is how it is always going to be, to question the only thing she has ever known?

It is not mere coincidence that the feminist movement is often seen as a middle-class one, because it is often they who are educated to the degree of being able to question what is around them and say "Don't you think there's something wrong here?". Though that is not to say at all that only middle-class educated women can be feminists.

|| There is no one-size fits all feminism || 

I am sick and tired of the attempts to clump everyone who identifies as feminist into one category, whether positive or negative: there is no single, all-encompassing, feminism. That's ridiculous. Yes, there is the common denominator that feminism is the belief that men and women should be regarded as equal and have equal rights. However, when it comes to specific issues, context becomes extremely important, to the point where you could argue that each individual person has their own feminism. A black woman and a white woman will not have had the same life experiences, nor will a Christian woman or a Muslim woman; someone born into poverty will have had different struggles to those born into money (and the latter's struggles are no less valid) as will someone who is born into Indian culture or someone born into North American culture. What feminism looks like to different groups of people will look completely different. Even my sister and I, having been pretty much raised the same, because of the differences in friendship groups and education systems, find ourselves with different views on what feminism means to us. The same applies for male feminists - men who want equality for the women in their different societies, cultures, races and religions will be faced with different challenges. And all these differences do not take away from the fact that they are all feminists.

This is also known as 'intersectional feminism' but sometimes I find it's easier to boil it down to: there is no one-size fits all feminism. The differences in people conceptions of feminism doesn't mean that anything is wrong with feminism itself. There is no one-size fits all religion or political system, so why does feminism have to be any different?

What are some things you hold to be true about feminism?