Learning to be a feminist...

I've been pretty anti-feminism growing up. Ask people who have known me a long time, they will tell you that I used to outright say that men were superior to women, better-looking, smarter, stronger, better everything.

Awful, I know.

But growing up, the women in my life were the people that hurt me the most. Whereas the men in my life (my father especially) protected me and cared for me. If I were to meet two people, one man and one woman, my gut reaction would be to trust the man and fear the woman. In my mind, I will naturally deem women untrustworthy if I don't make a serious effort to do otherwise.

That being said, I'm beginning to realize how dangerous that thinking is. For one, my sister is a hard-core feminist. She frequently rants about how women are misrepresented and harmed by our culture and throughout history. She doesn't sit quietly when people demean women whether it be outright or subtle. Even if you say something like "give her the girl toy", one of her catchphrases is "items don't have a gender". She recently introduced me to her non-gender conforming toy seal. I love that about her. When she cares about a cause, she doesn't just think about it from time to time, she lets it inform her decisions and interactions with the world around her. I look up to her in that sense, and I'm so excited to see how this part of her develops as she learns to be slightly less abrasive and gains more wisdom.

Also, being in Cambodia has opened my eyes to the extreme side of anti-feminism. The patriarchal parts of American society struck me as annoying at times, but nothing more. I would shrug off things like cat-callers or the wage-gap, telling myself it was just how things work. But here, you see what happens when that sort of culture is brought to the extreme. Here, men can have as many partners as they want, but if a woman dares to talk to another man without her husband's okay, he is allowed to beat her and leave her without any repercussions. Even worse, these women are then considered worthless for not pleasing their husbands. Most of them have to resort to prostitution because in the culture's eyes, they lose all value as a human without their husband. This isn't rare, this is common practice.

There's a saying in Cambodia-
Men are like gold; if you drop them in the mud, wipe them off and move on.
Women are like paper; if you drop them in the mud, throw them away.

I'm beginning to realize that I cannot be for women in some circumstances and not others. Being beat to death is worse than being cat-called, but it comes from the same motivation. When we devalue an entire group of people for something they cannot control, that is damaging. Whether that devaluing of them leads to something annoying or something deadly, it still is not okay.

I told one of my close friends that I think I'm becoming a feminist. She was a bit annoyed with this and talked about how "those" feminists are so extreme and demean men, some even saying that we should try to live without them entirely. I'm with her, I think that's ridiculous. I, for one, am very fond of men. But I don't think the extremists of any movement should stop us from seeing the good in the movement itself. Most days, I like to call myself a Christ-follower or Christian. I would like to be able to say I'm a Christian without being homophobic, misogynistic, or racist. I'd like to take back that title from the people who have misused it. I'd like to do the same with feminism. To me, it's not about burning bras or hating men, it's about seeing people as whole, valuable human beings regardless of their gender.

So here I am, learning to be a feminist. It will take some discipline on my part to change my natural thought processes when it comes to women, but I think it's worth it.