Full Frontal Feminism_ A Young Women's Guide to Why Feminism Matters - Jessica Valenti [76]
Clearly, some of these issues are enormous and aren’t going to be solved anytime soon. Systematic oppression of women isn’t going to just go away. But we can change our own worlds—and others’, by proxy.
One of the best things about feminism, in my opinion, is that you don’t have to be a professional feminist to take part in the movement. And feminism is something you can be involved in without dedicating your life to it. Granted, once you go feminist, it’s hard to look at the world in the same way—and that does affect your whole life. But just because sexism is pretty overwhelming at times, it doesn’t mean that taking action against it has to be.
So I figured I’d give you some ideas of where to start, focusing on the topics we’ve already talked about. Take them and run with them.
Sex
❂ Get educated. If your school or the school in your local area is teaching abstinence-only education, do something about it. Get involved in the school board. Start handing out condoms in school with information about comprehensive sex ed. Let other students know that you’re getting the shit end of the stick education-wise. Enlist the support of empathetic parents. Don’t let a generation of young people grow up thinking that condoms cause cancer and girls don’t like sex!
❂ Fuck up the double standard. Don’t let people call girls sluts! Engage folks in conversations about why they think it’s cool for guys to hook up, but not girls.
❂ Be proud of yourself; never feel ashamed. Feeling proud of yourself and your sexual decisions in a world that tries to make you feel ashamed is a revolutionary act.
❂ If you’re going to “go wild,” think about why you want to. If it’s honestly for your own pleasure and enjoyment, cool beans. If it’s not . . . think some more. If your friends are flashing their tits for no better reason than a free shirt and some attention, talk to them about it.
❂ Take control of your sexuality. As I said in Chapter 2: Be safe, be smart, and don’t take shit from anyone about the informed decisions you make.
❂ Have orgasms. By any means necessary. ☺
Pop Culture
❂ Don’t believe the hype. Roll your eyes when you see a sexist ad and point out its bullshittery to everyone around you.
❂ Value yourself for what the media doesn’t—your intelligence, your street smarts, your ability to play a kick-ass game of pool, whatever. So long as it’s not just valuing yourself for your ability to look hot in a bikini and be available to men, it’s an improvement.
❂ Call people out on their crap. If you see a shitty ad or a sexist commercial, write a letter to the folks who put out the product; tell your friends to do the same.
❂ Reject Maxim, Playboy, and any other form of pop culture that tells you you’re not hot enough. Start your own magazine that highlights what’s really “hot” about women. Or, if you’re lazy, just snarl in sexist mags’ general direction.
❂ Nominate someone you know to the REAL Hot 100 (www.therealhot100.org), a campaign that’s the antithesis of Maxim’s Hot 100 list. It features women who are hot for what they do, not how they look. Its tagline is “See how hot smart can be.”
Reproductive Rights
❂ Take birth control. Trust me.
❂ Volunteer at your local clinic—whether as an escort, an intern, or whatever—show them your support! And help them raise money. I’ve been noticing that all the billboards I see that deal with the abortion issue are overwhelmingly anti-choice; that’s because pro-choice orgs don’t have the money to put ads out there—they’re too busy providing women with care.
❂ Find out about your local pharmacies’ policy on giving women their birth control and emergency contraception prescriptions. If they’re trying to keep women from their legal right to birth control, throw a shit fit. Alert the media, write letters; if it’s a chain pharmacy, make sure the pharmacist is adhering