Feminism is “a socialist, anti-family, political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians” (qtd. in Wade; Mikkelson). At least that’s how it was described by television evangelist Pat Robertson in 1992.
Pat Robertson is entirely wrong, that’s not the intent of feminism at all. This project focused on feminism: what it is, how it came to be, current issues and what we can do to improve women’s rights. The goal of this project was to uncover how the feminist movement has impacted members of our society by exploring literature, articles and ultimately writing an essay on the topic. I’m going to keep this post pretty short and focus on providing context because I feel that the work I did in this project is able to speak for itself. So make sure to open the linked content to be able to see the work I completed. With that, let’s dive in!
Prior to this project I knew very little about the feminist movement. I knew that I’ve always thought the idea of treating women as anything less than equal was absurd and stupid, but aside from that I didn’t know much about the topic. Therefore, we began this project by learning about the history of feminism as a whole (taught by Mr. Harris through lectures and written work), as well as a deeper focus on Canadian feminism, which we learned through articles. In addition to these lectures and articles, throughout this project we read Michelle Obama’s book, Becoming, about her life from growing up on the South Side of Chicago to her role as First Lady of the US. Her book was honestly really interesting to read, and I enjoyed getting to learn about Michelle’s experiences. While reading, we had group discussions for each segment of the book. These discussions were always interesting, and often brought in conversation about current US politics. You can see my notes on Becoming below:
The final product for this project was an essay about a feminism topic of choice. The first step was to create a topic pitch. I went through several drafts, originally focusing on Indigenous women in the film industry, but then due to my planned interviewee not being available, I shifted my idea to be about Indigenous education, then finally I changed it again to my final topic of “why men should give a f*ck about feminism.” The title stems from my plan to incorporate Mark Manson’s The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, which I had just read for a Careers project (you can check it out here). I then began researching and learned a lot about feminism stereotypes, statistics of people’s attitudes towards the movement, and what men think about feminism. I also interviewed Teva Barzilay, my good friend and founder of Seycove’s Feminism Forward club, for my essay.
I then began writing my essay. I wrote many drafts and implemented feedback from Mr. Harris and peers (shoutout to Makenna for giving me so much feedback for every draft of my essay). I’m really pleased with my final essay, and I hope you will learn as much from reading it as I did from writing it! Check it out below!
Feminism is not just a women’s issue—it is a fight for justice that benefits everyone. The time to stand up for equality is now. So, will YOU give a f*ck about feminism?
I hope you enjoyed learning about feminism. Thanks for reading!