Oh, How I Love Being a Woman!
It’s Women’s Month and I am loving the support I have been seeing for women in a lot of spaces and career paths. I have been grappling with the reality of what it means to be a young woman in the modern day 21st century world seeing as a lot of things have changed over the years and many things are not what they used to be. The emergence of feminism which is defined as the advocacy of women’s rights based on the equality of the sexes has stirred up a lot of conversations, policies on diversity and inclusion both online and in real life opening doors for women to be regarded in male dominated spaces. However, in recent times, there has been a lot of questioning the authenticity of the movement and how personal agendas are getting in the way of what feminism really means.
After a long and enlightening conversation with my sister about the intricacies of what it means to feminist, I realised that a lot of people are clearly misinformed or miseducated about what it means to be feminist. If in our celebration of women, we are not thinking about, acknowledging, honouring, welcoming, inviting, bringing into spaces beyond our immediate circles, communities and spheres then we aren’t really celebrating women. We are celebrating just some women and not all. Over the years, oppressive systems have tried to silence women who speak up about the inequality faced over the years and to deny this is to deny the reality of society. Feminism creates a safe space for women to thrive and celebrates both their strengths and weaknesses. It is not the idea that a woman should be able to take over a man’s work and debunking the idea that a woman’s place is in the kitchen or anything of the sorts. It is the ability of the woman to choose what works for her. The safety is in the choice. Feminism provides the freedom to choose.
"I think, for a long time, people felt that to be a feminist meant somehow to reject everything to do with femininity – that you have to in some ways kind of appropriate a man to be a feminist – but I don’t think so at all," she says. "Femininity and feminism actually do complement each other. Women should be allowed to have a broad range of what they can be, of who they can be, of how they can present themselves. I think femininity is one of those options and I love femininity."
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
I am grateful for the women throughout history who have done the work to get us to this point, whose fight for freedoms have released us and made way for us to build tables where our seats have already been bought, paid for and prepared for us. To the women in my life who hold space for me and love me, whose hearts hold my hand. To the women who speak up about injustices faced in the hands of the world giving their truth wings so that we in turn can thrive from their resilience.
My hope is that we all see and acknowledge systemic oppression in a patriarchal society when it comes to women and move to tackle these hurdles from a place of love. That we respect, recognise, and honour the lives of women to be just as important as men and that we should all be feminists.. Happy Women’s Month!