Response to "A Day Without Feminism" and More
I think I connected with the piece titled “A Day Without Feminism” on a more personal level because I had experienced these things. While I will say I’ve never had to deal with the schools being more geared towards boys or being excluded from male dominated classes or careers, I do have an idea of what this article is talking about. We still have a lot of progress left to make.
I was raised in a family that was democratic politically, but uber conservative personally. When I turned 12, I was no longer allowed to wear shorts to school because they were “inappropriate” even when they were of a proper length. I was also told I had to or couldn’t do certain things because I was a girl. For example, I was taught that men were incapable of cleaning and cooking so the woman was always the one in charge of that. Men worked outside and that was much harder so they deserved to be waited on hand and foot the minute they walked through the door. I remember how my dad was the only name on the bank account and how my mom wasn’t allowed to spend money unless he had approved it, even though she made more money than him. I was constantly told that when I grew up, if I wasn’t pure, no real man would want to marry me. I also heard the phrase “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free” consistently as a reminder of this. I was taught in school this was also the case and instead of learning about the female body, I was told that sex is only pleasurable for a man so that’s really all that mattered. I was told it was a woman’s job to look nice and wear makeup because that’s what is considered “professional” even though men don’t have to wake up an hour early to fix their hair and put on their face.
The idea that these are all okay ways of thinking demonstrate just how far behind we actually are. I have often heard the excuse about biology causing these thoughts so I enjoyed Kimmel’s bit about how even though there is this “biological evidence,” from a social standpoint, there’s so much more to it. It sickens me to think some people believe rape is just a way to make sure the rapists genes carry on. The Caveman piece was also interesting to me. Once again, it shows how in our culture, we’re taught men need to spread their seed however they can even if that means being unfaithful or resorting to rape. I have actually watched a documentary about the whole “choosing partners based on fertility” concept and I do think it is interesting. I cannot understand completely how that works though because it seems like every person eventually finds a partner, including people who do not fit these standards what so ever. I also enjoyed the “guyland” idea because for the most part, I’ve witnessed this myself. Boys/men do put on this rude, anti-gay attitude right around 17-23 (sometimes earlier, sometimes later) where they feel the need to ogle any attractive girl in the perimeter, similar to how I pick out a steak at Kroger. This doesn’t always happen but I do think he is onto something. This article also addressed one of my biggest pet peeves which is that men are allowed to be unfaithful because that’s biologically okay, but women are not. As I was reading this section, I couldn’t help but think of my new favorite TV show “Satisfaction,” which really addresses some interesting points about our ideas of marriage and whatnot.
