women
women
GUESS WHAT? YOU’RE A FEMINIST! By Lindy West Guess what? You're a feminist. If you are a person alive in the world, other people, both men and women, have told you that all feminists are hairy, reactionary, undersexed, man-hating bitches who need to quit cryin' (because we have suffrage now! And Roombas!). HOWEVER. THAT IS OBVIOUSLY STUPID. Feminism is not a radical movement or a fringe movement or an embarrassment or a fraud. Feminism is simple. The "patriarchy" does "exist." To identify as a feminist is to acknowledge that women are people, and, as such, women deserve the same social, economic, and political rights and opportunities as other styles of people (i.e., men-people). To be a feminist is also to acknowledge that the world is not, currently, a fair and just and safe place for women to exist. Because it is not. Obviously (see: everything ever). To deny these things makes you, at worst, a bad person who hates women.
“There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.” Madeleine Albright
MALE PRIVILEGE: IT IS REAL, AND IT IS TOTALLY BOGUS! By Lindy West Privilege is invisible. If you have no idea what male privilege is, there's a good chance you are currently benefiting from male privilege. That's how privilege works. Essentially, due to the social and political power structures that dominate the entire earth, shit is easier for men. Women make less money, exert less political influence, have their clitorises cut out (actually really truly — Google it), and are widely thought of as property and treated like poop. Privilege is real, and anyone who tells you otherwise is Ann Coulter.
WOMEN DO NOT EXIST FOR THE PURPOSES OF YOUR BONER! By Lindy West A lot of heterosexual men get very angry when women don't look the way they think women "should" look. But guess what? "Should" is not a thing. Women's bodies are none of your business. Women's body hair is none of your business. What women weigh is none of your business. What women wear is none of your business. Whether or not women want to fuck you is none of your business, unless they do want to fuck you, in which case you should go for it (high-five!).
“Feminism is not a dirty word. It does not mean you hate men, it does not mean you hate girls that have nice legs and a tan, and it does not mean you are a bitch or a dyke, it means that you believe in equality.� Kate Nash
PINK HAS BECOME LAZY SHORTHAND FOR PRETTY, QUIET, AND FEMALE – ISN’T IT TIME THAT CHANGED? By Chloe Hamilton
I miss having pink hair. I wish I could say I didn’t. I wish I could tell you I was embracing life as a blonde, and that of course I don’t mind the fact that people no longer approach me in the street and ask me what dye I use, and tell me how fabulous I look. But that would be a lie. I hate to say it folks, pinks do have more fun. There’s one thing I don’t miss though. For the year and a half I was pink, too many people took my choice of hair colour as a sign I no longer identified as a feminist. I’ve been a feminist ever since I picked up my first Spice Girls album. I was brought up by strong, shouty women, and it’s hard not to let that rub off on you. Feminism was handed down to me. It was in my blood as well as on my CD player. Now I’m an adult, I read about it, I write about it, and I argue on social media about it. Guys, I am a bloody feminist. But the minute I dyed my hair pink, all previously hard-won battles about equal pay and sexual politics went out the window. Apparently I could no longer feel strongly about the emancipation of my gender because I favoured a cheery raspberry hue. There can be no doubt about it; pink is a feminist issue. Are girls more partial to pink because their parents have dressed them in it since birth? Am I fond of the shade simply because society has conditioned me so? Does liking pink make me a bad feminist? Writer Hannah Pool, wrote that she considers her passion for pink to be a “feminist failing”. How depressing is that?
My mum never dressed me in pink. In fact, she dressed me in anything but. As a child I wore greens, browns, blues, reds, and yellows – every colour under the sun. But not pink. It’s hard to argue that toy manufacturers didn’t force the colour on me though. I used to dress my dolls up in frilly pink dresses, the type my own mother never let me wear. Boys and girls toys are shamefully segregated, even today. Cars, bricks, and guns for boys; dolls, kitchens, and crafts for girls. And there lies the rub. Pink is used, to its detriment, to pigeonhole girls and exclude boys. The colour has become lazy shorthand for girl and now everything about it feels, well, girly. And because of the damaging way we treat anything female, a thing that’s deemed “girly” is considered somehow second-rate. The colour has been judged pretty, quiet, and inoffensive – just like women. We all need reclaim pink, and fast, lest it do any more damage. Dress our girls in it and dress our boys in it. Give our children choices; offer them all the colours of the rainbow. And if they (boy or girl) plump for pink, embrace it! Pink is a strong colour, it’s vibrant, it’s happy. It’s the colour of love and life. There’s nothing wrong with the hue itself, just the negative connotations we’ve attached to it. It’s time we reversed those. And, as I said to anyone who questioned my feminism while I sported the shade, you can like pink and still feel strongly that men and women should be equal. Fancy that, eh?
“It is time that we all see gender as a spectrum instead of two sets of opposing ideals. We should stop defining each other by what we are not and start defining
ourselves
by who we are.� Emma Watson
PERIODS ARE BLOOD RED, IT’S TIME WE STOPPED SANITISING THEM WITH DIFFERENT COLOURS By Chloe Hamilton I’m currently on my period. Is it odd that I feel more at ease writing those words down than I do proudly whipping out a tampon from my bag and striding with purpose to the bathrooms at work to insert it? I think so. It’s not that I’m uncomfortable about periods. Ask any friend and they’ll tell you I am only too happy to explain to them, in intimate detail, the exact nature of my womb ache. But, from the moment I tentatively unwrapped my first sanitary towel, society has taught me to hide my monthly bleeds. Tampon adverts sell me “discreet” sanitary products; tampons that I can stuff up my sleeve or into my bra before nipping quickly to the toilet. TV commercials depict period blood as a lurid blue, not the raging red we women are only too familiar with. In the world of advertising, periods are clean, tidy, and easy to control. In reality? Periods can be messy and they’re always, always blood red. The belief that periods are women’s business, things that we should endure in secrecy, silence, and shame, is old fashioned. It’s time to drag menstruation – in all it’s gory glory – into the 21st century.
“I’d like every man who doesn’t call himself a feminist to explain to the women in his life why he doesn’t believe in equality for women.” Louise Brealey
Photography, Illustration and Editorial Design Rosie Irwin
Articles and Quotes Lindy West Madeleine Albright Kate Nash Chloe Hamilton Emma Watson Louise Brealey