Feminism and Femininity

Typical case of feminism gone awry:

Stacy is a young lady who considers herself a feminist and she has friends who are feminists also. 

Stacy wants to get married and have children. She wants to love her man and be pampered by him while doing same. She even wants to be a stay-at-home mom but out of fear of what her friends will say and also out of fear that she'd seem weak or less feminist, Stacy would keep quiet. Stacy would slowly deteriorate inside while putting up a stoic front. 

Does wanting all these things make Stacy less of a feminist or weak?

No. 

Stacy is simply feminine feminist. Feminism simply put is equal rights to choices and opportunities. And being feminine is embracing your femininity; the things that makes you a woman. 

Yes. 

Things like motherhood, cooking, raising children. Yes.  I said it. These things are natural to women, not men. There are specific things that come natural to the male gender too.

 

If our ability,  and their inability,  to carry a child for nine months or their struggle with being homemakers, and the ease with which we blend into the role, doesn't make them feel less, why should their ability and our inability to do some things bother us? 

Why have we decided to see everything feminine through negative lens? 

You can be feminine and still believe in equal rights for women. 

Don't get it twisted though, equal rights and opportunities for women doesn't mean that men and women are equal. In some things we are, in others, we aren't. 

So we cannot truly say we're equal, can we?

 

Feminism should mean "Equal rights to choices and opportunities" not "men and women are equal."

Equal: Adjective: The same in all respects. 

No. We're not equal. We compliment each other. 

Equal: Verb. To be equal to, to have the same value as. 

Yes. We are. No gender is beneath the other. We should all be valued alike. 

Equality: The equal treatment of people irrespective of social or cultural differences.

We hustle and the fact that our hustle, most times, differ from that of the male gender's doesn't make it any easier or less of a hustle. Just different. 

Rather than embrace our strengths as homemakers who can also excel in the professional world, most have been made to hate these strengths while men embrace their strengths to hustle and try excelling in home making and raising kids. 

Whether we like it or yes, we are equal but not in all things. In some aspects, the woman is superior, in others, the man is. 

Our problem stems from the belief that we can do everything a man can. 

We cannot!  Yes. We cannot! And that does not make us inferior. After all, men cannot do some of the things we can. 

We are not less. We are not beneath. Staying at home and deciding to be a mom doesn't make you weak. 

Do you have any idea the strength that goes into raising kids? It just reestablishes the fact that you are strong and have the capacity to decide for yourself what you want. It just means you've decided to embrace your wiring. 

The whole point of feminism is to stop either sex from oppressing the other. So if you stand and say you want to be a stay at home mom and dedicate your life to your family, don't let anyone tell you you're less of a woman or that you're weak. 

Feminism, first and foremost, is about choice. 

Part of the reason the married-with-kids route has been criticized is because for most of history, marriage wasn't as much of a choice as it was a necessity. Women had to get married to be able to move out of their parents' house and start their own life. They had to get married to be taken seriously, because being a single woman came with a whole lot of unfair stigmas.

As long as getting married and/or having kids is a real choice, and something you're entering into on your terms, fabulous! 

That's what feminism's all about. 

It doesn't matter if you decide on working like a slave to make sure your family is well taken care of, as long as no one's breathing down your neck and oppressing you to do these things, so long as these are your choices. Great! 

We can sometimes get so caught up in the performance of feminism, that we forget what feminism is — it's not how you live or how you look, it's choosing how you live and how you look. Most importantly, feminism is fighting so that everyone has the freedom to make those choices, regardless of their gender, race, sexuality, or economic situation.

Whether you're a girly girl or a tomboy, a sissy or a bro, or none of the above, doesn't make you a feminist. 

What makes you a feminist is taking action to dismantle a system that has told us being a woman means being less than. If you happen to do so in sky-high stilettos and a frilly dress, from the living room where you're making sure your kid doesn't eat paint, all the better.

Even as most of us fight for gender equality, I'd like us to remember that at one point or the other, no matter how privileged or underprivileged we feel each gender is, there are times where you'd be disadvantaged and unable to do something peculiar to the other gender. 

For life to truly become better, what we need is equity. This means impartiality, justice, fairness. Giving everyone what they need to survive.