Why I Became A Feminist, Pt. 7
by Guest Blogger
Why am I a feminist?
To put it simply, I was raised that way. I was never taught that women are inferior, or that there was anything a man can do that a woman can’t (well, apart from getting prostate cancer). I was taught to learn about the world by studying it. So I studied it. And what did I see?
I saw my parents, who have, as far as I can tell, a perfect, egalitarian marriage. For years, they both worked hard so my brother and I never really wanted for anything. Furthermore, they both had the same kind of job, working at Microsoft. OK, so their actual jobs weren’t the same, but I didn’t know that in elementary school.
I saw my classmates in school. The girls, it seemed, were no worse than the boys. I went to such a small elementary school that we had co-ed PE – again, no noticeable difference. I had both male and female teachers. All the evidence pointed to girls being equal to boys.
And then I read a book. It was a photo history of the women’s rights movement in America. From that book, I learned about the history of discrimination. There were other, similar books that I read. One was a history of World War II, including the Holocaust. Another was about the civil rights movement. The lesson I learned is this: discrimination is evil.
Incidentally, I’m male. I don’t consider this to be important.
- Meshakhad
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The “Why I Became a Feminist” series is open to anyone who identifies as feminist and wants to share their story. Please email me at rottenlittlegirls @ gmail.com and I will consider publishing your piece in this series. I’d love to have a broad range of voices and experiences.
Check out the rest of the series!
We had a similar upbringing. My parents are both active feminists. I can remember a time when I thought sexism was ancient history. I was wrong!!!
I had no idea that discrimination even existed against women until my late teens. I was pretty academic, but boy was I ignorant. Even after learning in history about the Suffragettes, I took the matter very lightly, and it wasn’t until I studied feminist literature later in school that I really became drawn to feminism!
Thank you for sharing Meshakhad, and you are right, being male should not be important. What is important is that you are for gender equality which is not the case with a lot of men I have met, sadly.