Why do you identify as a feminist?

It was when I was growing up in the sixties. When I was told that I had few choices, I continually heard things like 'girls can't do that, over and over, throughout childhood, girls don't play team sports, girls don't know how to fix things. Yet, I could do those things, I was simply not permitted to do them.

When I reached high school, and my marks were good, I was told that I had several choices; Marry, be a School Teacher, Nurse or a Secretary. Coming from a working class family those were my only choices. My family would scrape and save to put my older brother through school to become anything he wanted, but somehow even though I was a straight A student, I could not have what he as a C student took for granted. It made me angry to be treated differently from my brother. Why was I not good enough, why could he drive the family car for example, and I could not? I was told that girls were not good drivers. Over and over in childhood I heard this, ad infinitum.

Eventually I moved away from home, I worked and put myself through college then university. At the jobs I held guys were constantly saying things like "Man, that's an *** I'd like to get into." "I'd eat crackers in your bed." Right to my face, as if somehow I was only there for them, as if I was just a body and nothing else, no brain, not a thinking or feeling person. I hated being treated like that, without any respect. During those times there was nothing I could do about those things, nothing to stop these people from treating me like that. I quit several jobs because I just couldn't take that kind of treatment, if you spoke up, they simply laughed you down. If you went to your boss, he laughed it off as well, as if it were nothing.

When I was at University I began to hear about Feminism, about Women's rights. I read about the struggles of women, what they fought for, what they believed in. I joined the movement, I began to give my time, to march, to protest what seemed like small things at the time. But, they eventually became big issues, not being able to enter a brasserie or bar without an male escort, not being allowed into what were then boxing clubs to work out, so many places simply kept women out, kept them from doing things. People try to limit your life, it seemed to me then and now that the only way to stop that sort of treatment, was to fight against it.

I am not sure I am a feminist, because I don't really know very much about feminism. I am in favour of equality, but completely opposed to affirmative action. Both my parents are professional and they were always equal. Sometimes I am shocked to see how my friends' fathers and brothers treat their mothers, daughters and sisters. I never experienced any sexism at home, my dad helped us more with school work and as a confident, and my mom trained us more with sports, although my dad took us camping, fishing, and taught us survival techniques (including eating insects; he was in the army when he was young, like Bear Grylls). I did encounter significant sexual harassment in the workplace, but I find that discrimination from females towards females is much more dangerous and insidious.

Because after getting some experience in the world, I realized that the whole "do what dad/husband/etc says and it'll all be okay" was a quick route to a nasty life for a lot of women who bought into it.

We've got a ways to go before the dictionary definition of feminism is achieved, and since that's the one I believe in, I stand by the word.

I actually didn't become a feminist until grad school. I was directly inspired by my professors (especially my professor of Modern Rhetoric, from whom I later took a class on Feminist Rhetoric).

Now, it is my wholehearted belief that women are not at all treated equally across the world, and that this is not just a matter of individual discrimination, but a systemic bias built into many different institutions (education, politics, knowledge making, etc.).

It was a gradual process. My parents were pro- civil rights. (But my mom was a traditionalist when it came to feminism - didn't like the radical, bra burning stuff.) I was pro civil rights. At first, in college in the 70s, I found aspects of women's rights too opposite of what was "obviously normal", but my commitment to civil rights and thinking through positions meant that over the years I came to back, more and more, most positions of feminism.

Yes, once my "consciousness was raised" (I guess it really was), it became more and more apparent that many things weren't right in the way women were treated. So I became pro-feminist.

it rather is an exceptionally complicated question to respond to, as I dont think of a survey has been taken. notwithstanding, of properly-customary feminists: Dworkin grew to become into molested as a baby and then abused with the aid of her exhusband. Sojourner actuality grew to become into overwhelmed and raped with the aid of her 'proprietor' (as a slave) Alice Walker grew to become into no longer abused or raped yet grew to become into shot contained in the attention with a BB gun with the aid of her brother (!) (all off Wikipedia - seek Feminism, and consider out surprising figures - those have been rather some the v few rather who've been abused) maximum feminist figureheads have not been sufferers of abuse with the aid of guys, or no longer publicised abuse besides, yet I have no thought regarding the less vocal followers of feminism. i'm able to declare for myself, i've got no longer been sufferer of any abuse. yet i've got confidence for the ladies who've, and dont choose for there to be any attractiveness of rape or molestation in society (nevertheless for sure, no ones arguing that this stretches to condemning harmless men - a straightforward trial is significant for all of us who believes in human rights, no longer to show feminist or no longer)

when i was a child i thought everything was fair, everyone was equal

now that i've grown up a little more i started to notice that things werent so nice after all

its kind of sad... yeah so i noticed that there was alot of sexism too and it started to bother me

im not a feminist but i do support them :) ohh if we were all children again..

I'm feminist because I was raised to believe I could be anything I wanted, and that no boy was better than me. Meeting my husband in law school, who was active in feminist causes (he works for NOW) was also an eye-opener.

My father was very sexist, he abused everyone in the family and my mother was too involved in trying to be a good wife to do anything about it.

I like femes