A Joke

It was recently International Women's Day, and to celebrate, our school held a "Women's Day Gallery", discussing the inequality and uneven gender gap that exists between men and women.

It is a wonderful idea, but already I was getting slightly antsy about it. Not because I disagree with any of the ideas the people were expressing, I even wrote a few pieces for them myself. No, it was because of the other people who I knew were going to see the gallery that I felt antsy.

You see, at my school, it is common for boys to scream terrible things about girls in plain sight, such as one of the boys in my grade telling everyone like it was some sort of pleasurable thing that he "wanted to have bend little Snow over and have sex with her from behind", the version presented here one that removed many other profane things he shouted at the public locker areas. Little Snow, by the way, is a student who is in elementary.

And of course, no matter how educated you are, at our school, being a feminist is a joke, and being someone who is not is somehow very cool. I say I'm a feminist, for instance, and immediately I become someone that the boys are afraid of, someone who just wants a matriarchal society. It's not just students who are teased about being a feminist; teachers are as well.

Yet it wasn't until International Women's Day that I truly realized how much the boys at our school, and perhaps in all of society in China, remain ignorant to the true qualms of feminism.

It was during class, when one of the boys came in, and the boys began discussing the Women's Day Gallery in voices loud enough to be heard by everyone over the softer chatter. They were saying things and I didn't really notice them until there was a huge burst of laughter, and I turned to see what was so funny. Apparently, it was a statement of fact that had the boys bending over in laughter.

"What? Feminism is equality!" A boy was proclaiming, his face turning red as the others around him laughed unkindly.

"Oh, poor, poor you." One of the boys twittered. "You live in such an ideal world." Another one, who was substantially louder, was jeering. "Feminism! Feminism is not equality. That's why all of the posters say equality instead of feminism. Duh!"

Others chimed in. "Yeah, feminism is nothing about equality." "It's about women wanting to take over." "Ha! I can't believe you believe feminism is equal rights!"

It was shocking to me, because I had always thought that the reason why they were rude and disrespectful to women was because they were misogynistic, but in an instant, I saw where I went wrong. These boys weren't women haters. They were really just, well, ignorant. Of course, some of them knew feminism was about equality, but most of them seemed to truly believe that feminism was some sort of plot in which women planned to take over the world!

So just in case there is still any confusion, here is the definition of feminism from the Oxford English Dictionary:

"Advocacy of the rights of women (based on the theory of equality of the sexes)."

Happy International Women's Day!