Kristies Tumblr thingeeee

One illustration of why: when I first became a feminist twenty years ago, I had an old-school feminist (wearing bright pink lipstick, mind you) ask, “What’s a feminist like you doing wearing a miniskirt?” I said to her, “I got out of the patriarchy because it was always telling me what to do. I’ll be damned if I let anyone else do it, either.” I told her that automatically rejecting everything the patriarchy demanded was allowing the patriarchy to control you just as much as if you did everything it ordered. As long as you were simply reacting, you were still granting the patriarchy all the power. Part of feminism, to me, was the freedom to choose for myself after carefully thinking out the issue, and I wasn’t going to cede that power to ANYONE, ever again. Besides, damn it, I had good legs, and I wasn’t above showing them off.

Source: arewomenhuman.me

Many women are reluctant to advocate feminism because they are uncertain about the meaning of the term. Other women from exploited and oppressed ethnic groups dismiss the term because they do not wish to be perceived as supporting a racist movement; feminism is often equated with white women’s rights effort. Large numbers of women see feminism as synonymous with lesbianism; their homophobia leads them to reject association with any group identified as pro-lesbian. Some women fear the word “feminism” because they shun identification with any political movement, especially one perceived as radical. Of course there are women who do not wish to be associated with women’s rights movement in any form so they reject and oppose feminist movement. Most women are more familiar with negative perspectives on “women’s lib” than the positive significations of feminism. It is this term’s positive political significance and power that we must now struggle to recover and maintain.

Source: iamapatientboy