I Call Myself A Feminist: The View from Twenty-Five Women Under Thirty

by Victoria Pepe

We need feminism because girls are shot in the head for going to school. We need feminism because women are burned alive for refusing to submit to grotesque male desires. We need feminism because women are under-represented in every sphere of life except being wives and mothers. We need feminism because one in five women in the UK experiences sexual violence and is usually blamed and shamed for it. We need feminism because we are taxed for our bodily functions. We need feminism because women’s bodies remain politicised, scrutinised, fetishised.

‘Feminism has fought no wars. It has killed no opponents. It has set up no concentration camps, starved no enemies, and practised no cruelties… Its battles have been for education, for the vote, for better working conditions, for safety on the streets, for childcare, for social welfare, for rape crisis clinics, women’s refuges, reforms in the laws. If someone says, “Oh, I’m not a feminist!” I ask, “Why? What’s your problem?”’

Why? Because words are the fabric of everything. They can win elections and start wars, and make people fall in love. Words can save lives and words can save marriages. Words are a comfort and words are a weapon. Words are the heart of life.

‘The problem with you feminists,’ he said, ‘is that nowadays I feel like I can’t say ANYTHING – even if it’s a joke. You just get hysterical about everything.’ And there – in one fell, sexist swoop – he proved my point. Thanks for that, dear.

Women and girls are so often not given the permission to be. We are told what it means to be us. We are instructed, given a set of rules that we must follow, and when we don’t the consequences are insurmountable. We are put into small boxes and squashed, because allowing a woman to be herself is a threat to those who want to continue to have the power in society. We are constantly worried that if we cannot fulfil the impossible expectations placed on us, we have failed. And to that, I say: bullshit. I want every girl to have the permission to be human.

I grew up in a society that taught me to be attractive and sexy, to shave and pluck my body hair, to wear the right things, to be good in bed and please men sexually – basically to be as fuckable as possible and to define my worth by this.

Sexual violence and rape aren’t about sex, they are about power and control; if someone feels entitled to use another person’s body for their own sexual gratification then they prioritise their own needs over the other person’s in an unequal power dynamic. This is why, although sexual violence can be perpetrated by anyone towards anyone, it is perpetrated most frequently by men towards women: because patriarchal structures in society encourage men to prioritise their own needs over others’ and to see women as sexual objects that they are entitled to use in order to satisfy these needs.