13 Empowering Photos Show There's No 'Right' Way To Be A Boy. What happened when I started a feminist society at school. I am 17 years old and I am a feminist.
I believe in gender equality, and am under no illusion about how far we are from achieving it. Identifying as a feminist has become particularly important to me since a school trip I took to Cambridge last year. A group of men in a car started wolf-whistling and shouting sexual remarks at my friends and me. I asked the men if they thought it was appropriate for them to be abusing a group of 17-year-old girls. The response was furious. For those men we were just legs, breasts and pretty faces. Shockingly, the boys in my peer group have responded in exactly the same way to my feminism. After returning from this school trip I started to notice how much the girls at my school suffer because of the pressures associated with our gender. I decided to set up a feminist society at my school, which has previously been named one of "the best schools in the country", to try to tackle these issues. Dresden Shumaker: Raising a Son Within the Princess Culture.
I grew up the daughter of a feminist.
Mom was always involved with local association of women chapters and always made sure I knew that girls could do ANYTHING. I went to an all-girls school for grades 8, 9 and 10. Those were prime years for defining a sense of self. I was surrounded by teachers and staff that were empowering. I never once had a moment in my life where I paused and thought, “I can’t ____ because I am a girl.” When I found out that I was going to have a son, I was so surprised. Immediately, I had visions of this super-aggressive and dominant child. But a funny thing happened when I met my son — I started to realize how destructive girl power can be to boys. Let me be clear — I absolutely know that there is a need to make sure that girls and women know that what is between their legs should not limit them to achieve anything that their heart is guiding them towards.
There are also a lot of double standards when it comes to proclaiming, “girls can do anything!” He was right. Our Society Urges Girls To Take Up Less Space And Boys To Take Up More, And It Needs To Stop. It’s fairly typical for women to fold into themselves making room for others in public spaces, while many men seem comfortable splaying themselves out.
Where did this behavior come from, asks Soraya Chemaly? I’m guessing that people aren’t going through their days thinking to themselves, “How much space do I displace?” It’s an interesting question though. Especially if you have kids. You feed them and they tend to grow and take up room. To this day, when I sit—in a chair, on a bus, a train, at a desk—I hear my primary school headmistress explain that ladies never cross their legs at the knees. Then, one day, my daughters, active athletes, started sitting like New York Knicks players sitting on the bench watching a game. Saying that we live in a visual culture and that this visual culture affects all of our lives would be the understatement of the century. How bodies look and are used, how much space they take up, is important. Now look at what boys see. Soraya L. Related Links: Hey Dudes, Whaddya Say We Wrap Up This Sexism Thing Together?