Joanne Talks... Feminism & Equality
Hi everyone!
Today, I am starting a new series. It's called 'Joanne Talks...' and it's where I talk about important topics or just topics I have opinions on.
I am kicking off this new series with the topic,
Feminism & Equality
So, this is a topic I have been thinking about quite a bit recently for whatever reason. It is a very talked about topic in our society recently and I have views and opinions on it.
I want to start by saying that I don't think of myself as a feminist but I am all about having equal gender rights. Whether I am a feminist because of that or not, I want equality between genders. I think it's great that feminism is happening in the current times and the amazing progress that has been made already and feminism has been around for a long, long time. I feel like we have progressed from decades ago which is brilliant.
The reason why I wouldn't call myself a feminism is because, sometimes, men can be the underdogs in certain situations. One thing that I have been thinking about is 'International Woman's Day', which is an amazing thing and I am all for it, but I hadn't heard of 'International Men's Day' as it never gets spoken about (I searched to see if there actually was one, and there is). Why don't men get the hype for their day like women do for theirs? I know this could seem controversial but I feel that that is not equality because I never knew about International Men's Day.
But I do think that it is wrong, especially in this day and age, that woman are seen as the lesser sex in some situations such as wages and jobs. Women and Men should be entitled to the same jobs, because women can do whatever men can do, and pay should be equal. One story that came out pretty recently a man in sport saying that women tennis players should get less prize money as opposed to men when winning tournaments. Women train just as hard as men and they sell out as many tickets and fill up venues like men do, so why don't they get as much prize money for doing the same thing?
When thinking about certain jobs, people often fall into associating a certain gender to a certain job. For example, when thinking about a police officer, which gender do you think of? I automatically think of a man but I know that women make brilliant police officers too. Also, when thinking of a nurse, which gender do you think of first? For me, I automatically think of a woman but, again, men make brilliant nurses too. I know it is wrong of me to automatically go straight to one gender but I think we all do that and I think this isn't helped by the media. But why do we associate certain jobs to a certain gender? Men and Women can do whatever job they want, regardless of their gender.
Sport, in my opinion, has a big divide between men and women. When thinking about it, one sport I find particularly unequal is Volleyball and, in particular, Beach Volleyball. Women who play the sport are seen as just 'eye candy' for men to watch. When the Olympic's were in London in 2012, I heard comments flying around by men saying "oh I hope I get tickets to the Women's Beach Volleyball". Do these men go just to appreciate the sport? I'm not saying it's just men that do this, because it definitely isn't. Women gawk at men who play sports shirtless also, but again, are those women going to appreciate the sport? I'm not saying that everyone goes to these events just to gawk at the players but I feel that that plays a factor in why people want to go to these events. I could go on all day about inequality in sport but I will leave it at that for the time being.
A point I want to make is the 'Free The Nipple' campaign. This is about women not being allowed to walk around shirtless while men can. I agree with this. Why is one set of nipples bannd and one totally fine to walk around uncovered? What makes a woman's chest that much different to a men's, other than the fact that a woman's breast has milk in it and are bigger chested than men. Breasts have been over-sexualized which makes them 'banned' when uncovered. One set of nipples should not be superior to another, they're all the same.
One last point I want to make is about when I was a teenager, I always thought it was strange and 'wrong' when a boy put a kiss at the end of a text or status or whatever but what makes a kiss, an 'x' or two at the end of a text a woman's thing? When did this become associated with a woman? I now realise that this is a totally normal thing and I don't care if whoever puts a kiss or not at the end of a text, male or female.
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I could go one but I will leave it there. For my final words, men should not be treated as the more superior gender because all genders should be equal. What makes one human more different than the other because of the bits and pieces that they have? So whether I am a feminist or not, we need gender quality and we should have it in this day and age. The big question that still remains is... why don't we have it yet?
Until next time, happy reading. Bye xx
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