My view on Feminism

There has been a lot of articles in 'The Daily Mail' recently about feminism and i thought i'd share my opinion on it. Of course, i'm not claiming to know alot on the topic since i am only a 13 year old girl, but my view has been collected in this years and its something that's never really been important to me but i though i'd share my view anyway.

I saw in one article that there was a small box with the fact '1 in 7 women don't label themselves feminists' (or something along those lines). The way the fact was phrased made it seem like this was shocking and they should label themselves feminists. I don't think the fact took into account that these people may not be feminists. I don't see anything wrong with women believing in womens rights and being equal but still not labeling themselves a feminist.

This whole issue with men holding doors open  for women is a matter of opinion but i don't see anything wrong with it, i don't feel its demeaning to women in anyway. Its showing respect for women. I feel like its a traditional part of our English culture, because its always been something that's quite British  If people from abroad think of England  especially america, they think of 'Ladies' and holding doors open for 'Ladies' is often associated with this. Its not a massive issue if you don't want the door held open for you but they make quite a big deal out of it.

(We can hold doors open for men too)

I suppose i do see the counterargument that these feminists have, that the women are strong enough to pull it open themselves. We as a nation are quite stereotypical and often we see women as having the more dainty, less physically demanding jobs. To a certain extent this is true because men are usually stronger than women, but women are capable of being strong and doing physically demanding jobs. I can pull a door open and always will, but if a male has gone to the effort of holding the door open for me, then i'll take it. Its a polite thing to do, whether you're male of female. I don't see it any different depending on what gender it is, at the end of the day someone is holding the door open for you, so just take it. Gender is just a way of grouping people, its not anything much more than that.

Obviously i do think women should be treated as equals to men. We should be allowed to get paid the same amount of money for a job as a male does. I read a shocking fact somewhere that says for the same job (forgotten what the job was) and same hours of work, men get paid more for the job than women. I also think we should be able to pick whatever job we want, not be restricted depending on gender. I believe this for both men and women, i think that its right that men can take maternity leave. I'm don't just believe this for women. I just think both genders should be treated equal because i don't see why gender should be such a big issue, its just to differentiate between who can have a baby and who can't. I do get quite worked up about women having to stay at home whilst men work, although its is part of our culture and i understand that. Times have changed and we've become more developed as a species and this is no longer true, i think male or female can be the housewife/househusband. Although women do carry the baby, you couldn't make a baby without a male so he's just as important.

One thing that really pushes my buttons though, is when people say 'Get back in the kitchen and make me a sandwich.'. No, you can make your own sandwich. I'm not going to go any further into it, because i'll write a lot but i just get extremely annoyed.

So maybe, looking back, i am a weak feminist. I do believe in women's rights and being equal but not quite so extreme as others.

Anyway, this was my view on feminism and so on, I'm glad you took time out of your day to read this and i hope it made you think in any way. Or in the best case, shaped your opinion on feminism further. Hope to see you again soon, bye!