Thursday, March 03, 2011

Feminism: Still relevant?

On CBC tonight, among the forthcoming programs announced was one addressing something to the effect of ‘Is feminism still relevant in 2011 or has it become the new ‘f’ word’. And so I posed the question to some young women friends: Is feminism still relevant to you?

‘I think it is. Women may no longer have the glass ceiling at work, but it’s still taboo for women not to do all the household duties. If men do the household work they get negative attention from their peers.’

‘There’s a double standard. I bought the house and my boyfriend moved in – we got all these comments about me being a ‘sugar momma’ – if he had bought the house we would have got none of this. Why is there this reverse sexism? I’m not happy with the situation – although I’m proud of myself at the same time.’

‘To be feminist to me is to be seen equal to a man, to have all the equal opportunities as a man – work-wise, politics. I don’t want to have to double-day, to work all day and then come home and work again. Even in the bridal magazines they warn women that your work load increases by 75% after you get married.’

‘I don’t think feminism is dead, but I think women still want to be wined and dined and all that. So there is a double standard. I still want men to hold doors open for me, but I want to be successful on my own and not have to compete twice as hard as a guy for my job.

‘At work, women in my age range don’t get hired because management assumes that soon as they make us permanent, we’ll go on mat leave.’

‘Yeah, I’ve been in a job where they seemed to skew hiring towards women who weren’t going to have a family.’

‘I think there is still a need for feminism, especially in 3rd world countries where women don’t have the privilege of going to school and there are still practices of female circumcision.’
‘I think feminism still needed, but it isn’t so straightforward – we want equality, but we also want that special treatment from men.’

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