On Feminism

Today when someone here's the word 'feminism', they think of a crazy, power hungry, man eating woman that's probably a lesbian. Okay, maybe not the lesbian part, but I think i nailed the other part. Anyway, where did this all begin? Feminists weren't always so chastised. Okay, maybe they were. But they weren't thought of as just plain crazy. The feminist "movement" really started before World War II when hussies would go around wearing skirts that showed their knees and when they decided not to marry. Back in those days, they were called spinsters, but it had the same connotation: whore.

The feminist movement didn't REALLY kick off until the 1950s and '60s with Betty Freidan's Feminine Mystique, Helen Brown's Sex and the Single Girl and Gloria Steinham. Friedan did for Women's rights what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr did for Afro-American rights. She took a moderate approach and advocated for equal rights, emphasizing on the equality of all humans. Friedan wanted women to get out of the role of domesticated house wife and servant to the family and do what they wanted.

Now, if Friedan was to Woman's rights as Martin Luther King Jr was to Afro-American rights, then Helen Brown was Malcolm X. Brown emphasized femininity in a way to use as a weapon against "male overlords". She would go on to revitalize Cosmopolitan magazine (the magazine was actually founded in 1886). She advocated for women to do as men were taught to do at a young age, sow their wild oats and when they're good and ready, to get married.

Gloria Steinham is the founder of today's leading woman's rights organization, National Organization for Women (NOW). In the 1960s, she was most popular for her impassioned speeches, her devout involvement in the fight for women's rights, and her co-founding of the first women's rights oriented magazine, Ms.

Now that you have the background. Where do you think the common perception of feminism came from? No, you're wrong! Unless you guessed Helen Brown. Then you're right. Today, feminism has taken a pejorative connotation which has pretty much eliminated the movement's credibility.

What feminism truly is, is more than woman empowerment and more than equal rights. It's just the right to live. The beginning of the movement came at a time when women were the suburban slaves. They cooked, they cleaned, they loved, and that was it. A woman was allowed to go to college to learn a trade that would enable them to better themselves in cooking, cleaning, and loving. What the movement did to women was open their eyes, remove their shackles and be provided with the basic right to a free life

In today's intellectual world, we must revisit the roots of equality among all humans. We have the progression of Afro-Americans, with Barack Obama and Colin Powell. We have the progression of Homosexual rights, with Sir Ian McKellen and Tom Cruise. Now we must accept the true progression of Woman's rights. Rights that secure integrity among the ranks of women, and rights that are equal to that of men.