Feminism.

When I was a little girl, I wanted to be the president, a firewoman, a teacher, an astronaut, a cheerleader, an artist and a writer. Now all I want is to be happy. And left alone. And to know where I stand in this world full of hate and domination. I dream of days when I can be "ME". I want to write something that means something. I want my words to speak for themselves and I want others to feel what I felt when the words birthed. I want to be heard. But I know I'll never be able to write what I want to write in the way I want to write it -- by screaming it loud! I remember reading somehere that its "unacceptable" to get past the elitism of the academic club. All one is able to do is spit out rhetoric. It would be a crime to write anything but a nice, well-thought, linear, paragraphed, calm, and collected five-page essay on an assigned subject due on a specified date. Which means nothing.

Today I feel like exploring "Feminism". Ah, am I imagining you rolling your eyes all the way to Istanbul or is it just my wacky imagination,eh? First and foremost Feminisn is NOT male-bashing as oppossed to what you might actually think. Now that this is cleared. Moving On. I think that many young women are hesitant of the feminist label due to the baggage it carries, stereotypes and distortions that still abound. Sad, but true. Feminists are often labelled as strident, bitter, man-hating, unattractive and -- a "homosexual". When ever a young woman decides to identify as a feminist -- basically a woman who stands up for hereself and other women, she is immediately labelled as a "lesbian". Sheesh.

I remember a not so far away time when I felt alienated and disgusted when I encountered the run-of-the-mill randomn acts of sexism. I did not know where or who to turn to. And even though I knew I was right about everything, somehow everyone else thought I was wrong. Sexual harrassment is alarming. Everywhere. In schools, the work place, outside, on the streets, precisely everywhere. There is no authority to turn to and even if there is, one is hushed and is made to feel like an idiot when she is told " Can't you take a joke?!" Often it is a male counterpart. And I want to scream my guts out that NO I CANNOT! I scream and scream and we make a wailing wall, all of us screaming at the top of our lungs, screaming for our lives, and no one is listening, nothing is changing. Everything is staying inside of me.

I believe its all about the Programming. Women are programmed to smile, look pretty and apologize for having a different opinion. Her only job is to cook, pretty the house, wash, dust, clean, scrub, love, nurture, reproduce, AND look like she walked off the cover of Cosmopolitan WHILE doing all of the above mentioned chores.Yes, Programming. Its the subtle work of an unequal world that even the best of feminist believes cannot overcome. I, Me, was once told by a man to," Lower your voice when you talk to me." Over a petty issue of difference in opinion. And imagine my surprise when "I" apologized and said the unthinkable, "Sorry." And thats it. I backed off. What I should have done was scream even louder and say,"Get out of my goddamn face and lets talk like humans!" Why should I have to apologize for having a divergent opinion? And why did I apologize, as many of the other women who encounter this, every single day of their lives? Weirdly enough, I read an exact same replica of an artice where another fellow-feminist goes through the exact same thing! Understand: Its not his actions that I am criticizing; it is mine. He bullied me. But the response was my own. Somewhere my sexist programming kicked in and I said, "Sorry." One doubts the existence of this sort of progamming but once you are the victim of it all despite your hardcore feminism, you start seeing the somewhat invisible pattern. When you rebel for something you believe in but are told that you are causing trouble and immediately you regret it. Thats programming. When you keep silent despite the fact that you know the answer,thats your programming. When a man tells you to shut up, and you do, and you apologize -- programming again. Sexism still prevails when you are told in the work place, being a woman, to opt working for less hours and concentrate more on your "beauty sleep". See, the subtle programming makes you lazy. Vulnerable. Listen for the attacks. They are quiet. They are subtle. When they "suggest" you to not come back at all after your maternity leave, obviously re-enstating the fact that its "for your own good". Please, stand up for yourself and fight back. Understand the pattern and be sharp to point out AND fight sexism wherever you see it. You have a mind of your own. They do not make the decisions for you. An essay on feminism tells me that todays workplace is a battlefield. It was really nice to grow up thinking this is an equal world. But its not.

My mother often worries about my "feminist" ideas and contemplates that I should behave more like the teenager that I am. She questions: " Fatima, what is it that you don't like about boys?" Silence. "You know, they are not all the same." I tell her about this article that I read in which the writer encounters the same circumstances with her mother and I try to explain it to her that girls and boys are socialized differently, and theres nothing exact that I don't like about boys, except for the way that they interupt me when I talk and take up too much room when they sit! These conversations usually begin due to her heartfelt concerns over the fact that I am turning into a freak as the days go by and more than often end in me yelling that she will never get me or me admitting defeat by saying something like : "Yeah, mom. You're right. You're always right about every single thing." I try to radicalize her and make her see the light. Its working. Slowly , but its working. I often wonder were there biological differences that made men superior? Could women overcome their stigma as "the weaker sex?" Is a woman's place really in the home? Answers, respectively : I don't know. I hope so. No way.

Yes, I AM a bitter girl of nineteen. I'm sure that men who hate women and are oppressive, are indeed cowards with an extortionate amount of testosterone and very little brain power. I want the woman of today to fight to end patriarchy. It is not fair to the women when men reach cosmic orgasm through their oppression. It is not fair to women when they have to fake orgasms just to satisfy the egoes of men? Imagine my surprise when I considered and re-considered erasing the jotting down of the former sentence thinking about what people might think?Damn, it sounds a bit too bold for people's taste..! This is MY programming. See. I decided that I dont care. I might be a nobody but I have every single right to voice my opinion. And so do you. Prior to my prefeminist epiphany, I was always lost for words and did not know how to address the issue. Lucky for me, through writing I try to discover this whole other world out there and become part of a dialogue that includes anyone who has anything to say. I took a bite out of the cake that said Eat Me, and now I'm growing and growing and growing. I transformed from a masochist to a feminist. Now I know all kinds of word. Words like revolution, freedom, independance, equality, self-respect and reproductive freedom. I completely understand the meaning of phrases like destroy patriarchy and run with the wolves. In the words of another fellow feminist writer: "Words of Empowerment. The one word that they all fear ( and well they should), I wear like a badge of honour, my pride, my work, my glowing tiara. That word is 'Feminist.' "

I watch television and this is all I ever see, the screen filled with pretty, 10 feet tall, lily white, long-haired teenagers who are supposed to represent me. They are not me. Why do I live in a society where the only "meaningful" articles I read in a magazine are about finding the right boy, why it is so important to wear a natural shade of lip gloss, how to get the perfect summer bod in a week, 10 ways to please your man, how to fight the flab and blah. I wish all of us would toss such "literary" forms of reading into the trashcan. It is because of this programming that the unsuspecting minds of beautiful young women are tampered with. Lets paint a picture. I read it somewhere and it hit home with me. Lets see what it does for you. Senior year: Sunday mornings you burn your skin. Rubbing hot wax on your arms, and then for half the day your arms are baby smooth. Or you use rotating silver coils to rip out the hair from the roots or use bleaching cream. You stand in front of the mirror, burning and stinging and knowing full well that the boys in your class will never think you're beautiful anyway. In a nutshell, feminity consists of having long-ish hair, wearing skirts, high heels, putting on makeup, walking gracefully, slow strides, soft, meek and gentle. This nutshell is important because a woman's attractiveness to a man is the primary measure of her worth. How often have you heard people giving you credit for your beauty rather than your talent? How often is an "ugly" woman subjected to verbal abuse by men and women alike? Why have you often heard comments about women sleeping their way to the top? Like sexual attractiveness is the only way that she could achieve such glory? Why is it that when women state their opinions they are labelled feminists like its an insult? I hate the fact that a woman's worth is gauded by her appearance alone. Why is it that we have to live by the norms and the standard set by this society? I quote Gloria Steinem: " For women... bras, panties, bathing suits, and other stereotypical gear are visual reminders of a commercial, idealized feminine image that our real and diverse female bodies can't possibly fit. Without these visual references, each individual woman's body demands to be accepted on its own terms. We stop being comparatives. We begin to be unique."

And often you will think about the fairy tales your mother read to you when you were small and you will surely drool over the idea of a knight in shining armour, no matter what your age is. You feel a void and incomplete, as if something is missing. And you think to yourself maybe only a man can save me. Maybe if you do enough crunches at night your stomach will be flat,and they'll love you till the sun shines oh-so-bright. You crave for attention.(Why? Is'nt your own existence enough?). I have one name for you : Gloria Steinem. She says : "Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry." And I love her for that. Feminist and journalist, Gloria Steinem was a key figure in the women's movement from 1969. She founded Ms. magazine, starting in 1972. Media's favorite spokesperson for feminism, and she was often attacked by the radical elements in the women's movement for being too middle-class-oriented. She was an outspoken advocate for the Equal Rights Amendment and helped found the National Women's Political Caucus. I have had the recent honour of reading some of her work, her books and I carry it like a prayer book. Reading it. Understanding. Fighting. Struggling. Savouring. Yes, Gloria Steinem is indeed godsend. A messiah for every single young feminist. Often she has been dubbed as being 'obnoxious', 'snooty' and 'too pushy'. I giggle my self to death over these claims. Not only is she a feminist, she is a human rights activist. She says: "This is no simple reform. It really is a revolution. Sex and race because they are easy and visible differences have been the primary ways of organizing human beings into superior and inferior groups and into the cheap labour in which this system still depends. We are talking about a society in which there will be no roles other than those chosen or those earned. We are really talking about humanism."

All of this rant is to tell you that I refuse to be silenced anymore. In my ambitious moments, I visualize a world in which there is no simple categorization by sex, no gender, only people. I dream of a world where I am no longer stared at and made to feel self conscious. I imagine a world in which I am at home.We can finally be heard and help each other finally be who we are, what we were meant to be. We walk through life together, as women, in all our individualistic ways. I guess THIS is what makes women so strong and fearless. What makes feminism so powerful and feared. This is what makes an individual. This is Me. And listen very closely for the jerk who will tell you to lower your voice. Tell him to get used to the noise. The next generation is coming.