Why I’m a feminist, or THIS IS WHAT A FEMINIST LOOKS LIKE

First and foremost, I call myself a feminist because my vision of the world includes men and women on equal ground. I reject those attempts to try and make “feminist” a dirty word, making it seem like braless, unshaved women who think men should be kept underground. To me the word feminist represents a vision of equality, one which women still are striving toward, regardless of what undergarments they wear, who they sleep with, and whether or not they shave. I’ve met some people lately who don’t seem to understand that this is still a struggle we women face daily. Here’s what I mean, and this is just off the top of my head, by no means an exhaustive list.

I’m a feminist because:

• I (and all people) should be able to walk down the street not fearing rape. Most men have the privilege not to fear being forced against their will to have sex with someone else, and this may be an altogether unfathomable concept for many men. However, it is rare that I am able to walk down a street at night not aware about the lighting, the other people walking, and calculating the best, safest route home.
• I (and all people) deserve reproductive rights: the right to choose what happens to my own body. I’m talking about the right to abortion (if that’s what I so choose), and I’m talking about the right to choose when and how (at least partially) I want to have sex.
• I am a feminist because it is unacceptable that 1 in 3 women is sexually assaulted in her lifetime. If you think you don’t know these women, it’s because they aren’t talking, not because it didn’t happen. 1 in three: that’s either your grandma, your mom or your girlfriend. It’s your classmate, the women on the street, the woman next to you on the bus. It’s a third of us: the numbers are clear.
• I (and all people) deserve equal pay for an equal job. I still can’t believe this is denied to women.
• I (and all people) deserve to be respected and not have my perspectives discounted because of my gender.
• I’m a feminist because “woman” is a dirty word in our culture. I watch “The L Word,” “Sex in the City,” and virtually any other pop culture movie and hear women -- ages 20 to 65 call themselves and be called “girls.” What is this? Are we so afraid of our womenhood that we can no longer freely use the word ‘woman’ to describe ourselves? That it feels weird to use it to describe myself is motivation for me to keep using it. Woman isn’t a ‘politically correct’ word: IT IS WHO I AM.
• I’m a feminist because I’m tired of this bullshit standard of beauty that’s constantly being fed to me and that I am compared to. Belittling me will not make me buy your stupid product.
• I’m a feminist because I’m fucking pissed off that men feel justified honking, whistling, yelling, and making kissing noises at me on the street.
• I’m a feminist because it’s so hard to find a significant other that respects me. For not being a feminist, for not being outspoken, I am used and abused. I must speak up to be respected: this is what experience has taught me.
• Also, I know that being a (passing-as-white) woman, and being a feminist in the United States is probably a whole lot easier to do than most of the rest of the world and probably a lot of women of color in my own country. I am also a feminist in solidarity with these women; though we have vastly different experiences, we share the common experiences of womanhood.
  

For if I do not call myself a feminist, that means I accept the current state of women, and I simply, utterly, and to my core do not. It should not be a struggle for half of the world population to achieve basic rights: of respect, of choice, and of equality. These rights are still being denied to us women, and we all must work together to bring them to all people. This is feminism.