A few days ago, having a random conversation with my friend about how I would have been actress in another world (key words, in another world, I am not an actress and do not possess any undiscovered acting talents) and he asks me why I said ‘actress’ rather than ‘actor’ because female actors nowadays want to be called actors not actresses. So here I am wondering to myself, what is feminism anyway? Is it about getting gender sensitive words correct, is it about women identifying to girl power, is it about women having equal rights with men? Is it about women expressing their bravery and not being afraid to face issues head on?
On a different occasion, I step into the elevator to find myself the only lady in a group of about five men. One of the men in the elevator asks me whether I feel threatened my response ‘Why would I be?’ What I haven’t told you up to now is that I am not feminists, but I have nothing against feminism, I just feel that deep down inside my heart I am not a feminist. But questions like whether I feel threatened as the only female an elevator full of men makes me understand the need to treat women as an equally able, equally threatening gender, I suppose this is the whole point of feminism, getting to be treated as human beings, rather than as the prettier weaker gender.
I am for the idea that we should all be treated as human. I mean, isn’t humanity about treating people equally regardless of their gender, culture, race among other things? Shouldn’t humanity be about respecting people and giving them credit for their bravery, intelligence and hard work rather than assuming they inherited what they own. I know for a fact that women are hardworking, brave, strong human beings. Yet every day I look around me and see people being presumptuous about women, lauding them for their beauty only and I am left wondering to myself, is it even worth it to keep believing in humanity when almost everybody else is sexist?
I do not think I can sufficiently answer the question of whether we should all be feminist but my thoughts are , let’s all be Human.
