* Note: This is from my personal writing journal for my Women's Global Health and Human Rights class at the University of Washington - Bothell.
I didn’t know I was a feminist… until now.
I come from Hispanic parents who even though left their country to give my siblings and me a better life, never forgot their origin; so naturally, they brought their culture with them. Oh, how beautiful our culture is, all the tacos and tamales we got for special occasions, the parties with mariachi, and quinceañera’s (our version of a sweet sixteen). Yet, all that beauty comes with a price, as I imagine all cultures do, because with our culture comes, “machismo”. This attribute in men which made them believe that women had to obey their every word that women had to stay home and take care of the kids because that's what they were meant to do. And if you didn’t, well then you were a bad woman, and no one would ever want you as a wife. So, like Roxane Gay mention in her writing Bad feminists, being called a “feminist” scared me because I didn’t want to be seen as a bad woman.
Ever since I was a little girl my dad made it very clear that because my older sister and I were women we had to learn to listen, when he wanted a beer we had to fetch and when he was hungry, we had to make something for him, so we did. We took care of the younger children, cooked, cleaned, and fetched, like a good girl would, until one day I was I got tired. I got tired of seeing my dad yell at my mother and make her cry because he would come home drunk in the middle of the night, I got tired of being told that I was worthless if I didn’t know how to clean or cook, I got tired of hearing that if I didn’t listen then I would end up alone. The thought of having a life like my mother’s made me sick, but most of all it made me angry. Unfortunately, my mother never finished school because her family was poor and she had to stay home to do chores, in Mexico that was what women had to do. Being poor and a woman made it difficult for my mother to get an education, like many other women around the world I believe. This is an issue because if they cannot get an education, then they cannot get a better job, which helps them get a better income, needed to take care of their health and their families. That is where intersectionality comes in; Kimberle Crenshaw mentions in The Urgency of Intersectionality, that to fix a problem you first have to be able to see it. If no one is looking and understanding that these women are experiencing an issue that violates their human rights to education, then it will never be fixed, at that is not okay with me.
I was smart and my mother knew that because my teachers always seemed to notice and never forgot to mention it during those parent-teacher conferences. So, all she ever asked from me and my older sister was to finish our education because a man can leave you, but your education cannot, and if you cannot support yourself than you’ll always rely on someone else, and that was what scared me the most. I wasn’t going to depend on anyone, especially not a man because I was smart, I had the opportunity to get an education and work for anything I wanted as most men do, I guess that’s what most deeply roots me to feminism. I believe that everyone deserves an education, especially women who have been denied the right to for so long. I still don’t understand why though. Why wouldn’t you want women to learn? I always liked school, maybe not the school itself or friends that came along with those schools, but learning, the process of learning something new made me feel free like I could do anything in the world. This makes me feel happy and it allows me to focus on other aspects of my life, like my health and I think that everyone deserves that opportunity.
I’m a feminist because it makes me angry and sad to see that so many girls in the world don’t get to go to school because it’s not in their cultural norms. I’m a feminist because I think that women can work in whatever profession they choose because we’re all human. I’m a feminist because I don’t think that a woman has to stay home to cook and clean for their husbands and children, we are much more than that. Just because I think this way that doesn’t mean I judge anyone who prefers to stay home and take care of the family, that’s perfectly fine if that is what they want.
Reference list:
Gay, Roxane (PDF). Bad Feminist. The Virginia Quarterly Review, Vol. 88, No.4, The Female Conscience (FALL 2012), pp. 88-95 Published by the University of Virginia.
Crenshaw, Kimberlé (2016, Dec 7). The urgency of Intersectionality, Ted Talk.
I didn’t know I was a feminist… until now.
I come from Hispanic parents who even though left their country to give my siblings and me a better life, never forgot their origin; so naturally, they brought their culture with them. Oh, how beautiful our culture is, all the tacos and tamales we got for special occasions, the parties with mariachi, and quinceañera’s (our version of a sweet sixteen). Yet, all that beauty comes with a price, as I imagine all cultures do, because with our culture comes, “machismo”. This attribute in men which made them believe that women had to obey their every word that women had to stay home and take care of the kids because that's what they were meant to do. And if you didn’t, well then you were a bad woman, and no one would ever want you as a wife. So, like Roxane Gay mention in her writing Bad feminists, being called a “feminist” scared me because I didn’t want to be seen as a bad woman.
Ever since I was a little girl my dad made it very clear that because my older sister and I were women we had to learn to listen, when he wanted a beer we had to fetch and when he was hungry, we had to make something for him, so we did. We took care of the younger children, cooked, cleaned, and fetched, like a good girl would, until one day I was I got tired. I got tired of seeing my dad yell at my mother and make her cry because he would come home drunk in the middle of the night, I got tired of being told that I was worthless if I didn’t know how to clean or cook, I got tired of hearing that if I didn’t listen then I would end up alone. The thought of having a life like my mother’s made me sick, but most of all it made me angry. Unfortunately, my mother never finished school because her family was poor and she had to stay home to do chores, in Mexico that was what women had to do. Being poor and a woman made it difficult for my mother to get an education, like many other women around the world I believe. This is an issue because if they cannot get an education, then they cannot get a better job, which helps them get a better income, needed to take care of their health and their families. That is where intersectionality comes in; Kimberle Crenshaw mentions in The Urgency of Intersectionality, that to fix a problem you first have to be able to see it. If no one is looking and understanding that these women are experiencing an issue that violates their human rights to education, then it will never be fixed, at that is not okay with me.
I was smart and my mother knew that because my teachers always seemed to notice and never forgot to mention it during those parent-teacher conferences. So, all she ever asked from me and my older sister was to finish our education because a man can leave you, but your education cannot, and if you cannot support yourself than you’ll always rely on someone else, and that was what scared me the most. I wasn’t going to depend on anyone, especially not a man because I was smart, I had the opportunity to get an education and work for anything I wanted as most men do, I guess that’s what most deeply roots me to feminism. I believe that everyone deserves an education, especially women who have been denied the right to for so long. I still don’t understand why though. Why wouldn’t you want women to learn? I always liked school, maybe not the school itself or friends that came along with those schools, but learning, the process of learning something new made me feel free like I could do anything in the world. This makes me feel happy and it allows me to focus on other aspects of my life, like my health and I think that everyone deserves that opportunity.
I’m a feminist because it makes me angry and sad to see that so many girls in the world don’t get to go to school because it’s not in their cultural norms. I’m a feminist because I think that women can work in whatever profession they choose because we’re all human. I’m a feminist because I don’t think that a woman has to stay home to cook and clean for their husbands and children, we are much more than that. Just because I think this way that doesn’t mean I judge anyone who prefers to stay home and take care of the family, that’s perfectly fine if that is what they want.
Reference list:
Gay, Roxane (PDF). Bad Feminist. The Virginia Quarterly Review, Vol. 88, No.4, The Female Conscience (FALL 2012), pp. 88-95 Published by the University of Virginia.
Crenshaw, Kimberlé (2016, Dec 7). The urgency of Intersectionality, Ted Talk.
RSS Feed