We Need Feminism Because…

We need feminism because women shouldn’t be valued by whether they are or aren’t considered conventionally attractive or within societally acceptable weight limits.

We need feminism because there are still far too few women in the hard sciences and heavily mathematical fields and far too many girls being discouraged from developing critical analytical skills during their crucial pre-adolescence.

We need feminism because girls should not be subjected to mindless fluff in magazines that purport to target their demographic, just like women (these girls’ mothers, even) should not be subjected to similarly mindless fluff in magazines that purport to target THEIR demographic.

We need feminism because I am sick and tired of so-called “women’s interest” magazines that are filled with a never-ending litany of “beauty” treatments, expensive fashions, tacky accessories, and other things that are supposed to make a woman “beautiful”, yet there’s hardly anything in those same magazines that is of any real intellectual value or worth.

We need feminism because we don’t need to be subjected to any more fiction that insults our intelligence, nor should we find it necessary to buy these pieces of literary trash because we’re supposed to.

We need feminism because girls should be encouraged — if they wish — to wear overalls and baggy shirts and get dirty and scraped up in the course of friendly play, just like boys should be encouraged — if they wish — to wear pink blouses and leggings and learn how to cook and sew.

We need feminism because it should not be a surprise that my blue collar laborer dad did the bulk of the cooking when I was growing up because he was better at cooking than my mom was, nor should it be a surprise that he encouraged me to help him out when he was doing fix-it jobs around the house.

We need feminism because I shouldn’t have to apologize for my goals and aspirations.  I should not be viewed as a lesser woman because I embrace American-style capitalism and want to make lots of money, nor should I be viewed as an unfeminine monster because my first childhood hero was Alex P. Keaton.

We need feminism because we American women have been patronized by both political parties, neither one truly working for our best interests.  We need to strip off our blinders and stand up with backbones as strong as steel, demanding that some political party truly work for our best interests as Americans AND women.

We need feminism because it’s our body and our choice and we shouldn’t be forced to give up our choices — ALL of them.

We need feminism because it’s insulting to both genders when virtually every single commercial I see involves men making messes and having fun and women having to clean up after the men and having to do all the worrying.  We are well into the 21st century — this ridiculous gender rigidity should not still be condoned.

We need feminism because of how woman-hating mommy blogs are.  They hate women who want to be working mothers, they hate women who either choose to or have no choice BUT to feed formula to their babies, they hate women who wait too long to become mothers, they hate single mothers, they hate women who don’t use their children in the service of some random series of competitions regarding development and the like, they hate women who don’t buy the “right” baby-centered consumer goods, they hate women who take too long to lose their “baby weight” or who never lose it in the first place, they hate working class mothers, they hate mothers who rely on homespun familial-based wisdom instead of the latest psychobabble in book form, they hate women who don’t want to be “hot mommies”, they hate women who aren’t vacant trophies, etc.

We need feminism because we will always need feminism.  I have been a feminist since I first read Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique in 1989, when I was 10 years old, and feel that we have never been so much more in need of feminism than we are today.  It’s sad to say, but I feel like I had more choices and was freer to be an individual as a 10-year-old girl some 23 years ago than is observable for a 10-year-old girl today.