Being a Better Feminist

I am a feminist. Obviously.


I sometimes find it hard to believe that some people aren't - fix that: lots of people aren't. I forget, in my (mostly) lovely left wing bubble that we are still,  for the most part, a minority. But women's issues are not left wing issues, they're not even just women's issues - they are everyone's issues. I forget that not everyone agrees and it baffles me, then I remember.

I am a young woman - one of four sisters, raised in an all female house by a single mother. I am a voluntary leader in the world's largest all female organisation, I studied on a uni course with predominantly female students. Women, as you can tell, play an enormous part in my life. Feminism comes naturally.

I remember calling myself a feminist first when I was in sixth form - liking the label but not really knowing what it meant. It was rebellion, it was protest, it was bra burning (I have done none of these things). I knew I wanted to be a feminist but I didn't know how.

It was at university that I really took the label on board. I had one lecturer - a woman whose feminism was often preceded by the word "raging" - from whom I learnt so much. She seemed a little mad but I would go to her classes and find myself excitedly nodding along to every feminist tangent she went off on when she was meant to be teaching us about journalist codes of conduct.

She led a unit on gender and sexuality in literature and I remember in one early lecture she asked how many of the class considered themselves to be feminists. In a room of 50+ people there were less than a dozen hands raised. I would like to think that more would participate if they were all asked again, two years on.

I like to think that we've come a long way in a short space of time, yet it still feels like something we have to admit to, to feel ashamed about.

I am a feminist but I know I could do better.

Feminism isn't about taking the label, adding it to your Twitter bio and leaving it as that. It's a learning process more than anything. I don't think I was a very good feminist when I joined the proverbial club but that's okay because I am learning and trying.

I didn't know about privilege and intersectionality a year ago and it's still something I could do better. I have days when the internal misogynist whispers comments about other women in my ear and I'm trying to do better at pushing him away. I need to do better at not laughing at sexist jokes I find inappropriate just to be polite and I need to do better at spreading the word to real life people who need it and not just people online who know.

Women are wonderful and they deserve better - all women of all colours, ages, classes, sexualities, abilities, backgrounds, cultures, religions. That's a fact.

Feminism isn't an opinion. It's not something you can disagree with. We are trying our best but I think we could do better. I know I could do better.