(I promised the english version of this reflexion a little time ago, here it is)
It’s quite funny to analyze mass marketing reaction facing actual tendencies.
One example : after the beautiful speech Emma Watson did at the UN, now we can find a lot of online shop (and not only online I guess) selling the famous t-shirt “This is what a feminist looks like”
Yippee, awesome t-shirt, almost made me want to wear one !!
Yup… or not. And I would say not at all.
There’s no use showing on a t-shirt people that you consider rightly women to be equal to men.
No use showing on a t-shirt that you’ll do, in every moment, what is necessary to make this equality be, and last.
When I’m at work, when I see how some of my male colleagues are acting with their female colleagues, and when I put that versus my own behavior, I just tell myself there’s still a lot to do, and wearing a t-shirt is obviously not enough.
In fact, to be brief:
Yes a woman have the same rights than a man: she can focus on her professional career, not to get married, not to give birth, she has the right to abort, she can have her own sexual preference, she can wear whatever she wants without suffering daily sexual harassment from men, who are so stupid they don’t even notice it, she has the right to say “NO” to The Crocodiles*.
She also has the right to have a staff representative who’s got enough balls (if it’s a man) to talk about sexual harassment or sexual discrimination when the situation demands.
But she also has the right not to wear pink if she doesn’t like it, to play “boys” games and sports, and to have parents that will tell her that “No, Princess is not an obligation when you are a little girl”.
Women have the right to be free, as far as men are, not more, but definitively not less.
To my opinion, being feminist is just being human.
*check that awesome blog (sorry in French) : http://projetcrocodiles.tumblr.com/