When I asked my house of girls at university if they were
feminists, all but one replied no. The truth is, for me, they were all
feminists! This is the reason why I would want to cover the community of
feminists for London360. It is to simply really get down to the core meaning of
the word 'feminist'. Nazrene Hanif outlines the misconceptions of feminism well
in her article 'The Fall of the F Word', and the problems women still face
today with equality. The equality battle, indeed, is what fuels the argument of
feminism. Almost every university in the country is laden with sexist lad
culture, and as Hanif states, women are still inferior to men in the workplace today.
So my understanding of feminism is easier to accomplish: that if a
woman is doing what she wants to do, based on her own choices and decisions,
she is practicing feminism. This is why my house of girls were feminists. They
were all studying at a university of their choice and completing a degree of
their choice. Dissertations on Samuel Beckett and projects on DNA methylation
aside, if a woman was happily baking cupcakes (like me on a Friday night) in between vacuuming the carpet out
of her choice, she is still practicing feminism. I feel covering this community
would open the eyes of the young female readers and viewers of London360,
helping them to understand a true meaning of feminism. Feminists today are
often tarnished with the media's portrayal of feminism: that they are all
men-hating lesbians with hairy legs. If I could show, from the media, that this isn't the case at all, then I can
influence the most impressionable minds, and perhaps then the F word can be
said with pride rather than shame.
