My Feminism






I have always found myself at cross roads. Why you might ask?
Let me start from the very beginning. I'm a complex person with oxymoronic attributes. I'm both gentle and fierce, sweet and difficult, nice and direct. I'm a combination of opposites but you have to know me to know it, for they all work out to make Me.

When it comes to feminism, I used to turn away, not because I didn't believe in it but because my idea of it is so different from what I hear of it that I chose to turn away. I love to write, to read and to stay home all day, I hate to cook or be domestic yet I'm no tomboy. I can't play a single sport to save my life, not even if I tried. So you see I was at a crossroad. I was not accepted by my more female friends for I didn't care about shoes or bags or makeup or anything feminine. I was not accepted by the tomboys as I did not particularly understand boys or love sports. Either way, I was a stand out.
Mind you, I love everything romantic and I want to get married and have children but I did not like or even pretend to like cooking. My friends just used to laugh and say I would understand later, my parents assumed I'll outgrow it and others just didn't get it. I on the other hand could not understand why I had to pick one over the other, I do not like makeup or cooking or housework but I love babies and families. How does that affect the other?

Over the years I have had to fight for this simple right over and over again. I did not agree with the feminists who put careers over family, I did not understand the non-feminists who placed their husbands above all else. Here I was once again stuck in the middle never quite accepted by any group. What I have learnt though is that feminism is not about mutually exclusive ends; it is just someone who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes and yes I do believe that. So what if my feminism cooks for her husband? What if my feminism submits to her husband? What if my feminism hates feminity but loves children? What if my feminism is another form in itself?

We need a culture of inclusion not segregation, of acceptance not discrimination. We need to learn to love ourselves first in order to love others. It's the only way to be truly better. I'm a feminist learning to accept her feminism.

WaleAyo.

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