Girls about how they became feminists
We are changing and starting to look at many questions in a different way. A few years ago, the feminist movement seemed to be something radical - but now many of us have reconsidered our views, saw in our ideas about women an internal mis-line and began to advocate equality. We asked familiar girls about how their views changed over time and how feminism affected their lives.
It is difficult to say at what point and because of what happened. This, of course, was the result of a long process, which, admittedly, has not yet been completed. However, I can definitely say that I am now and I, two or three years ago, are completely different people.
I have never been homophobic, but I often allowed myself to discuss and condemn strangers to me for being veiled or choosing a life partner. I was not a fitness fascist, but about ten years ago I had a folder with photos of skinny models “for inspiration” on my computer, I sat out on all possible diets, and all the trips to the fitting rooms ended in tears. I was embarrassed to be beautiful because I wasn’t very good at it, my relatives said “What is it on your face?”, And in magazines they wrote that for a bright lipstick you need a perfect face tone. Now I have a dozen of red and dark lipsticks in my bathroom, I use them without powder, without a layer of tonala and without regard to the opinions of others.
After many years of trying to force myself to go in for sports, I chose something that helps me feel better and improves my mood, and stopped looking at food as an enemy. I still think badly about people, but more often it is connected with what they say and how they behave. I have not ceased to be interested in their appearance, but every day I see dozens of interesting and beautiful people around me. I never thought about equality until my own life experience showed me that each of us is still judged by gender, age and appearance.
Ten years ago, all the words about self-love seemed to me banal to come from dubious psychological practices. Then it turned out that everything is very closely connected: as soon as you choose what you want and need, it is you who are around, gradually begin to appreciate and respect your choice. You, in turn, respect the choice of other people, regardless of whether it concerns clothing, hair color, relationships or life path.
On the one hand, it was surrounded. Thanks to my work and social circle, the last few years around me were people who every day destroyed my stereotypes about superiors, the women's team, female friendship and friendship between men and women. On the other hand, the matter is trivial in growing up. My mother said that after 25 years, she seemed to have been sleeping around the eyes, and she began to see and realize much brighter and clearer. I, in my turn, was terribly afraid of my 30th birthday: at the age of 25, it seemed to me that without children and a powerful career, my life failed. This summer I turned 31: I still have neither children, nor a powerful career, but I have never felt better and stronger than now.
I want to say that I was always a feminist. But this is not true. Up to twenty years, I adhered to moderately patriarchal views. When I was a child, I was never inspired to grow up and get married, for example, I could do it, I could not do it, but marriage was not considered the ultimate goal of my existence.
Both parents convinced me that I should always have my money and my favorite thing. At the same time, the real picture of my family looked different: housework in which the mother was engaged was not considered work, all decisions important for the family were made by the father — he consulted with his wife, but he always had the last word. He had real power. When conflicts occurred, I always wondered why the mother would not file for divorce. Later I understood - she did not know how to manage her life on her own. Then for me it was the first important bell.
It was not feminism, but rather a turn in the right direction. The process has already been launched - it just took time and fertile soil. I was strongly influenced by the worldview of my partner, who opened my eyes to such phenomena as the "glass ceiling", domestic violence and domestic sexism. This process is still ongoing for me. For example, I recently learned to openly call myself a feminist, without any equivocation and attempts to choose another word, as if the word "feminist" is something shameful.
It took me a while to start speaking out loud. And - funny - to agree that I am also a woman. And when a person says: "All women are fools," and then adds: "Well, except for you, of course," do not feel secret pride (except me!), But tell yourself that you have been insulted, that there is no "except you "that" all women "applies to you too, and if you keep silent you will agree with this.
A very important thing I learned is to call things by their names and see everything as it is, without speculation and distortion. When the first-grader pulls the girl by the hair and does not let her pass - this is not “he fell in love”, but violence against her. When society decides whether to give birth to you or have an abortion, raise children or build a career, live with men, with women or with cats - this is all violence against your free will. I, like most women, still find it hard to talk about it out loud. But I am learning.
Not to say that I had a sharp "appeal" to feminism. But gradually I realized that I shared many ideas of the current - although I am far from radical feminism and do not engage in activism. Just at some stage of growing up, I stopped tolerating some things. For example, I began to pay attention to advertising - to how the female image in the mass media is being exploited and positioned.
Once, on one of the federal TV channels, the heroine of a healthy lifestyle program advertised vitamins for hair and skin and said something like: “As soon as I started to lose weight, my skin and hair condition worsened. In addition, the situation at work became tense, the cuts began I was afraid that they would cut me too. I started taking vitamins, and, oh, a miracle, my hair, nails and skin came in order, and at work things went uphill. " I was stunned. What does this mean? So that you are not cut at work, be beautiful and take vitamins for this? Such a message from the TV screen sounds, to put it mildly, strange. But, what is most interesting, my relatives also saw this advertisement, and nothing alerted them. This is how the stereotypes and patterns are laid down in the minds of people, and then you cannot get rid of them.
In addition to the fact that I began to pay attention to the manifestations of sexual objectification, I began to watch videos with those who promote feminism. I was most influenced by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi with her bright and sharp speeches on TED Talks, Emma Watson and her campaign for gender equality HeForShe and, of course, one of the most influential popularizers - Beyonce. All this influenced my views on life and helped me to take a fresh look at the possibilities of my development (especially with regard to work) and to understand what I want in family life.
I started my own business - a startup about traveling in South Africa - and suddenly I realized that in a professional environment I am surrounded only by men. At first I liked it - sort of like the only girl, you can feel like a princess. And then my eyes began to open. At one of the start-up events where I had to perform on stage, the business coach asked me to wear “something shapeless”. The argument was that at the last event where I was wearing tight jeans, a short jacket and heels, the audience, 90% made up of men, stopped listening to me as soon as I appeared on the stage. I was indignant and put on a dress on a figure. As it turned out, everyone listened to me with no less attention - two months after the speech, I closed the first round of investment in my business.
I live in an English-speaking country: expressions like "jump into bed" in cases when it comes to the beginning of a new professional relationship, here in the order of things. This happens again because most entrepreneurs and investors are men. I once sat in a meeting with three potential investors, the only woman in the room. And here one of them, describing the possibilities of our deal, says: "Well, if we jump into bed with you, we will greatly help the development of the business." At that moment I felt very embarrassed, but said nothing. I regret that I didn’t have enough spirit - I still have a complex in me that makes me afraid to seem like a “crazy feminist” and be silent. I'm working on it.
This also affects the relationship. I moved from Moscow to South Africa at the age of 21. South Africa is a former British and Dutch colony, so the white population has quite progressive ideas about gender roles (with the exception of the province, of course). I came with purely Russian views: a man always and in spite of everything has to pay. A woman must endure unpleasant trifles in the relationship "for the sake of marriage." As a result, four years later, when the relationship ended, I found myself in such a situation that I had no idea how much my life was worth - after all, the boyfriend paid for everything. Only in half a year or a year did I realize how deeply I pushed my own self, how badly it spoiled our relationship, and how the balance was broken because of the attitude that a man must pay by all means.
I build my new relations on the principles of free will - this is for me the essence of feminism. A woman not only owes nothing, but does not expect from a man what he supposedly should. Everything can be negotiated, and there are no gender roles. I realized that it was simply pleasant for me to cook my boyfriend for dinner, and he was pleased to pay for me in restaurants - we discussed this after I paid, and he asked to leave this privilege for him. Thus, the most classic manifestations of gender roles, but performed voluntarily, bring much more pleasure for both of us.
I had an interesting experience in the field of work. I was looking for two new people in the company and decided that I would definitely hire girls, because at that moment we had only some guys working. I found them, and one turned out to be a lesbian, and the second - a black African and young mother. It would seem that the triumph of minority rights advocate. It was not there - both were terribly unprofessional, three months later I had to dismiss them. I learned the lesson - you cannot make positive discrimination, because you can make the wrong choice and miss a good professional.
The biggest challenge is to change the attitudes of my family members. Parents and grandparents lived all their life with the idea that a woman is really happy only in a family, and I still cannot change their idea of life. They look at me with a sympathetic look, and my stories about what an interesting life I have and how happy I am, react skeptically, suspecting lies. But there is a guy to appear - all questions are only about him.
As for contemporary art and media, everything seems to be in order here - I, of course, notice any violation of women's rights, but with me it is noticed by another hundred thousand users who make a scandal before I have time to click on the Share button. But I can't read things like “Quiet Don” anymore - it just becomes bad because of the attitude towards women. This must be the main change - all the women described in the works created before the seventies of the last century are now terribly sorry.
In general, at the end of 2016, conversations about how you got to feminism seem to me as relevant as questions about how you matured to the idea that it’s not good to steal table silver at a party. I, apparently, always shared the ideas of feminism, and always consistently did not support the carriers of the opposite point of view ("Aaaaa! Baba speaks! What should I do?"). I have always seemed unfair to unequal pay depending on the gender of the employee, the estimated and sexist positions of some friends and business partners, who, being very stupid people and effective professionals, allowed themselves, as the composer Sergei Troitsky would say, "wild carts about heifers" and the like.
The fact that the ideas of feminism are a matter of the physical survival of my family, I realized when my son’s biological father, who had been relinquishing practically all his obligations to take care of him for three months, tried to take him hostage. The few men and the monolithically rallied women around me are proof that these very ideas are living and winning. Girlfriends, policemen, women from the social service, colleagues, shop assistants from the store and just strangers to me personally, but no less valuable from this, friends on the network actively demonstrated that we really can. Here I would like to thank each of them again. Of course, I have seen enough of various misinformation atavisms, but their number is so insignificant that I simply would not like to spend editorial kilobytes on them. And in the end, we remember that Themis is also a woman.
For most of my life, I had little thought about the problems of gender inequality. Feminism seemed like something outdated - I imagined angry women in black and white photographs from the protests of the 1960s. Feminists were considered to be caricature characters that prevent men from holding the door in front of them. But at the same time I kept asking myself questions regarding my gender, and could not find an answer to them. Why do I feel embarrassed and inappropriate when I take the initiative? Why do people always try to teach me life and explain to me what I already know? Why in our society (especially felt in school) is there only one way to be beautiful and popular?
A few years ago I made friends with a girl, a foreign correspondent working in Moscow, who always said that she was a convinced feminist. Then it seemed radical. During one of our conversations, she managed to formulate the essence of her beliefs in a very simple language: she said that feminism is about choice, self-esteem and unwillingness to objectify yourself. I didn't have to explain anything anymore. Then, when I began to read more about the history of the feminist movement, I understood where my old prejudices came from and why I was wrong.
Now I feel more confident, calmer and bolder than before. It is foolish to believe in ideologies and to think that they will solve all your problems, but it is clear that, for example, you should not worry if you don’t meet any public expectations. It became easier for me to accept other people, I ceased to consider women as rivals and judge them. It became much easier with men too: they don’t have to demonstrate their beliefs at every opportunity, like Justin Trudeau, and quote The Second Sex, but if they aggressively react or defend Domostroy in a conversation about feminism, then it’s not go.
Attitude towards art has also changed. I studied at the journalism department of Moscow State University, studied the history of world literature, and never noticed that almost all classical works were written by men. This fact completely changed my perception of literature. I do not propose to burn Tolstoy, but now I am trying to read more books written by women — for too long their opinion was considered insignificant, and I don’t want to repeat this delusion.
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