Feminism: Misrepresenting the Struggle for Fairness and Equality

"Feminists are just women who don't want to be treated like shit." Su

Before I had ever even heard the words feminism or injustice, I was defying sexism and exercising human rights such as fairness and equality. I attended boy scouts with my brother instead girl scouts- like most girls did, but definitely not all. Boy scouts got to do things that were more survival related; they learned how to start and extinguish fires while girl-scouts learned how to take care of the men. Boy scouts got to go fishing and learn how to gather food while girl scouts learned how to cook the food and sew the clothes that were ripped, torn, or otherwise broken along the way. Boy scouts learned how to be independent while girl scouts learned how to depend on the boys. As a young girl, I learned that gender mattered.

As I grew older, I learned that my gender did more than matter- but that it would play a large role in determining my future. As a teen, I asked my parents if I could play league football and my father told me no because, "I didn't have the right physique". In other words, because I was a girl; because of the way I was born. But I didn't know that this type of wrong had a name: sexism. By continuing to play unofficial, neighborhood football I was practicing my first feminist action. By playing football and joining boy scouts, I was defying socially constructed gender roles for women and acting towards a more equal, fair, and ultimately just society. Even though I was called a tomboy by many people, I was and am still a woman. But ten years ago when I first heard about feminism and sexism, I wouldn't have called myself a feminist due to the simple embarrassment of the label. Feminism needs a new name because it has more negative connotations than it does positive, it's exclusive, and it's vague.