I wouldn’t really say I was a feminist - not a staunch one at least. I firmly believe that women should be treated equal in and out if the workplace, they should be free from sexual innuendo and inappropriate touching/groping and a whole raft of other things but a part of me believes the word feminist has been a little hijacked these days - don’t get me wrong I think the world needs to change but we don’t need to make all men the bad guys.
Women my age will remember the “good” old days - the days where women had to wear skirts and heels (my daughter cannot believe this), they had to know their place and not talk back, had to put up with the nonsense that men thought was appropriate behaviour. I did not put up with that nonsense and always gave as good as I got - I used to get into trouble all the time at work for “talking back” read that as giving as good as I got!! Unfortunately men did not know how to react when I did this - they got embarrassed themselves and complained!! Go figure!!! At the time I didn’t think anything of my behaviour - didn’t think about what I was doing - just realised I didn’t want to be talked to / treated in that manner!
I am extremely lucky in that my amazing daughter - age 18 - and I have the relationship we do - we talk about everything and she is always very honest with me (sometimes scarily so but I would rather have it that way than not). Her latest adventure was on Black Friday (the last Friday before Christmas and the messiest) - she was hit upon time and time again by drunk men - not boys - but grown ass men old enough to be her father - propositioning her. This makes me soo angry and frustrated and makes the feminist (or mama bear) in me jump right to the front - I want to grab these so call men and bang their heads against the wall, amongst other things!! Why would they think propositioning a child be appropriate? My daughter being the mouthy descendent of her mother gives as good as gets - she asks these men if they are married - if they have daughters - asks their daughters age - asks how would they feel if a man as old as their father propositioned their daughters - asking their daughters for sex and a whole raft of other requests. Some of these men stopped and thought about that and apologised - I applaud those men because unfortunately- even in this day and age it is still seen to be ok to treat a girl/woman as an object for sexual gratification!! The men that laugh and keep going - you should be ashamed of yourself - utterly ashamed. I want my daughter to live in a world where she can go on a night out and not be pestered / propositioned every five minutes - where she can go out with her friends and drink and laugh and dance and have fun without feeling intimidated by men.
So while I wouldn’t say I was a staunch feminist- it is times like this I am infuriated at some men’s seemingly acceptable behaviours. It’s times like this I want to rise to my feet alongside my sisters and stand strong against these behaviours - I want to make sure everyone knows these behaviours are not acceptable and should not be tolerated.
We can’t change this overnight, it would be great if we could but, there is no magic wand for this. All I can hope is we raise our boys to know right from wrong in their behaviours and respect women,
Peace out dudes 😍
