Many girls are afraid of calling themselves feminists. Far too many think a feminist is an angry manhating woman. It isn’t.
A feminist is a person who wants women and men to be equal.
Feminism has been with us for many centuries. One of the first British feminists was Mary Wollstonecraft.

I’m sure that many of you have heard the word feminism. But I’m not sure that all of you know what it means. Some of you probably don’t know a thing about it, and some of you know a little but don’t care. Whatever what your answer is, I’m going to write about feminism.

There are many people who don’t really know what a feminist is and far too many think it’s an angry woman with bad experiences of men, and therefore she hates men. But that’s wrong.
I myself am a feminist and I can tell you that I don’t hate men! We are live in a male-dominated society. The idea that feminists hate men comes from men who are afraid of strong women. They are afraid that women are going to take too much space from them and therefore they work against women. This is going on all the time, everywhere.
But it’s hard to notice if you don’t care. So, a feminist isn’t a manhating woman. It’s a woman (or man) who wants the same possibilities for both women and men.

The idea of feminism is taking away the sex roles and giving the same opportunities to both boys and girls. I have just the same right to a wellpaid job, to wear whatever I want, to be respected and to participate in politics as a boy.
Taking away the sex roles means that you don’t teach your children that:
If you are a girl you have to wear pink, be pretty, not take space and your place is in the kitchen. And if you are a boy you have to wear blue, be tough, "show the world who you are" get a wellpaid job and take care of your wife and children.

A feminist doesn’t want to end up in the kitchen. We want to get as far as the boys.
Everywhere, on TV, in magazines, in newspapers and so on, women are looked upon as objects and nice jewels to look at. The man is a subject and the woman is an object. A feminist doesn’t want women to be objects, she wants both men and women to be subjects.
Feminism is almost a belief because it believes in women and wants them to take a bigger part in the community.

In 18th century women started to think about their situation. They started to realize that they were looked upon as less important than men. Feministic thoughts began to shape.
The feministic thoughts increased in the 19th century. Women started to protest against their low position in the community. They got results but small ones and in a low speed. Even now many things aren’t as good as we wish they were.

A famous feminist in Sweden in the 19th century was Fredrika Bremer. This year she was born 200 years ago. There was also a group who called themselves Suffragettes and fought for women’s liberation and right to wote. There were Suffragettes both in Sweden and Britain.
Many girls are afraid of calling themselves feminists. The word has almost become an insult and is associated with "bad" girls.
The word has an unpleasant ring and it is because of the men that I mention before.
Being afraid of calling yourself a feminist is probably due to that you don’t care to find out what it really means because you are told that it is something bad.

In some countries it isn’t accepted to be a feminist. In Sweden it is. We have two political parties who have feminism on their party programme. In our bigger cities, Stockholm and Göteborg, there are many organisations for feminists. For people like myself who live in a small town it is a little harder to get heard. We don’t have so many organisations here.
But one the whole you can say that Sweden has gone pretty far when it comes to taking feminists seriously.

Feminism is a subject which comes up rather often. They talk about it on TV, you can read about it in magazines and newspapers. It’s very accepted to talk about in Sweden, almost popular. And it is an important question. It’s about 80 years since women got their right to vote in Sweden. It is not such a long time ago.

In the 19th century the Suffragettes were wellknown in Britain.
They fought for women’s right and didn’t hesitate to use violence. Many of the members in the organisation got arrested several times.

A wellknown woman who fought for women’s right was Mary Wollstonecraft, (1759-1795). She was one of the first feminists in Britain.
I can say that the demonstrations for women’s rights were much more violent in Britain than in Sweden in those days. The British police used cruel methods to stop the Suffragettes.
When I compare the Swedish Suffragettes and other Swedish feminists with the British, I find that British feminists were much more militant than the Swedish.

That were in the old days. How is it today?
It is a hard question for me to answer because I don’t know much about modern feminists and feminists my own age in Britain. So I have to leave that question for you in Britain, and in Italy to answer.
- Is it accepted to be a feminist in your countries?
I hope you all are feminists. If you say: no I’m not, think about the question:
- Don’t I want women and men to be equal?
Now I leave the answers to you.

© 2001 Freeway
Writers: Lina Brännström (sp02-02@park.se)
HTML by: ONy (olle@park.se).