MCOM #2: "tell me something you're passionate about"

I get this question a lot. And I'm about to tell you a little something about myself.

I'm a feminist.

Here's the problem with the society that I live in: "feminism" is thought of as a 4-letter word. When the word "feminism" is brought up, people instantly start thinking of radicalism and man-hating. I have a hard time with this. Because guess what? Feminism isn't being anti-makeup and anti-stay-at-home-moms and anti-men. Feminism is equality. If you want, you can call it that. But the fact that I've been on countless dates where I've been asked, in a surprised tone, "oh, so you're a feminist?" is actually appalling. OF COURSE I'M A FEMINIST. ARE YOU NOT??? Feminism is gender equality. Simple as that. It shouldn't be a big deal to say that you're a feminist. But for some reason, people make it a big deal. Please please please appreciate this video of Emma Watson:

So what does it mean that I'm a feminist? It means that I believe that people should be able to choose what they want to do with their life without the judgement of other people. That's it. Just because I want to be a stay-at-home mom with my kids when they're little doesn't mean I should judge women that choose to work {whether out of financial obligation or just because they choose to work}. And vice versa. If a woman is a stay-at-home mom, you can't truly call yourself a feminist if you judge her decision. But basically, I'm a firm believer in letting people do what they think is best for their life and not judging them for it. After all, I sincerely hope that people treat me with the same courtesy.

But feminism is so much more than whether or not a woman works. But I've decided that this is not the blog post for me to rant about my problems with society and the expectations of women {why the heck have we decided that women look better with black tar on their eyelashes??? ...that is me being anti-makeup, not feminism being anti-makeup, I promise} Why are there still places in the world that a boy's education is valued more than a girl's? Why the heck does human trafficking exist?? People, the world needs feminism.

The whole world. Not just part of it. The other day I was in a car and one boy looked at me and said "America doesn't need feminism. Sure, parts of the world does, but we're good here" FALSE. Remember that judgement thing I was just talking about? That doesn't just happen outside of America. America needs feminism. BYU needs feminism. Every human being on this planet needs feminism.

This brings us to the Women's March. Because people know that feminism is a big deal to me, I've been asked several times what I think about the Women's March. Let me tell you, if I didn't have intramural tennis last Saturday, I would have been there! And instead of trying to tell you why, I stumbled upon this blog post. While she has a lot of statistics that aren't backed up with citations, I love the general idea of the post.

Ok, here's one last little video I adore:

Ok. I don't have time to keep rambling about feminism, but people, I like feminism.