It isn’t always easy to speak my voice and be heard the way I intended to be. I find myself overthinking. Is what I want to say necessary? Am I being irksome? Or am I just trying to make a point. I am just a teen, but I never felt I was too young to understand. At the age of 8, I heard the word “sexism” spit out of my older sisters mouth when she was reading out an essay she wrote for her eighth grade English class. I asked her what it meant and I got a very vague response back, “It’s when girls aren’t treated like boys.” I remember these exact few words because from that very day I was very interested in learning more about the inequality that exists between the sexes.
For a while, my definition of sexism stayed the same. To me, it was nothing more than women being expected to cook and clean and few of the concepts of Feminism 101. I did not know much, but something so small had irritated me. I remember being scared that I wouldn’t be able to cook well for my future family. It is upsetting to look back at these moments when I felt like I had to abide by society’s expectations for me.
Years later, I am 15 and more knowledgeable of the problems of sexism and how they interconnect with other things such as race. I am familiar with intersectionality and I find it important that everyone is because feminism isn’t helpful if it isn’t intersectional. Intersectionality recognizes that people face multilayered oppression and the problem is bigger than how we may see it from the outside. For example, it is important to understand that a woman of color is discriminated for both her gender and race while a white woman is discriminated for her gender but has the privilege that comes with being white.
Intersectional feminism is inclusive of everyone and no major changes would have been made without it. If white feminism was the only feminism we knew, there would be no changes to the problems that affect people who are not white, able-bodied, cis-gendered, middle class, etc.
This kind of feminism continues to have a major impact. It stands for the empowerment of all women because it recognizes the multiple aspects of identity. Intersectional feminism could only be spread using someone’s voice. I have worked to elucidate intersectionality to the people around me. However, the responses I get make “feminism” seem like a dirty word and at times it becomes very hard to talk about real issues with the people around me. But I never stopped using my voice.
After I was told to “stop” when I spoke about feminism, I didn’t, because I wasn’t going to give up. Believe me when I say it wasn’t easy to get my friends to understand my point of view. However, eventually, I had a breakthrough. They first took interest in Women’s History. I explained to them how for many years women did not have the same rights as men. For example, women did not have the right to own property until the 1850s, while men had been able to many years before. I made sure to not forget to be inclusive and included intersectional feminism and explained how people of color did not get this right until around 1866. After sparking their interest, I continued and told them all about the inequalities people experience around the world.
As time passed my friends became more understanding. From this experience, I take away this, that the most important thing to do when spreading your voice is to not get angry at others with different opinions and to instead challenge different opinions with solid arguments. Focus more on talking about issues rather than winning an argument. Yes, sexist comments may come up and you’ll feel tempted to react in a bad way. However, the spreading of feminism will create more change for everyone. All our voices are powerful and together we can make great changes that can make our world a better place.
