Tag: feminist

March #InkRipples: Feminism, Title IX, and Aging

March 7, 2016 / Katie L. Carroll

I guess I was born a feminist. When I say “feminist,” I mean someone who believes women should have equal rights to men (for further discussion on this, see my post “Females in YA: Part 9 Feminism”). What girl isn’t born a feminist? And for that matter, what boy isn’t? I have a hard time believing a boy could be born and suddenly think, “I am a far superior being than any girl and deserve to be treated as such.”

But then we (both girls and boys) are exposed to our parents’ ideas, beliefs, and prejudices; and then our peers’ ideas, beliefs, and prejudices (and by extension their parents’ I/B/P); and societies’ I/B/P. So somewhere along the way, many of us become non-feminists. Or maybe we stop thinking that feminism is still important or relevant.

I think this was me in middle and high school: though I never stopped believing women deserve equal rights to men, I just didn’t see the need for feminism anymore. Admittedly I fell into the trap of thinking being a feminist meant I had to be a radicalized bra-burning, man-hating woman. And I also believed I was being treated equal to my male peers.

Here’s the thing I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older: It was an earlier push for equal rights that granted me the ability to be apathetic about it. I grew up playing sports in a post Roe v. Wade world and post Title IX era, which states, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”

That created an environment where my fellow female athletes and I were often celebrated along with our male counterparts because we were just as successful, or even more successful. We were treated with respect and won awards and accolades. We wore our own letter jackets, not our boyfriends’. Not to say we never heard the comments about “playing like a girl” or where our “place” in the world was, but I always felt those comments were from people of an older generation who had no clue. They were antiquated ideas, outdated. Or so I believed at the time.

As I’ve gotten older and my horizons have expanded beyond my (maybe progressive) hometown, I’ve seen a bigger picture of how women are being treated in the U.S. and the world. It’s not a pretty picture. I’ve also been educating myself about the gender pay gap (see “There’s A Gender Pay Gap At Every Age, And It Only Gets Worse As Workers Get Older” by Shane Ferro), sexism in the tech industry and Hollywood (see “Why are women leaving the tech industry in droves” by Tracey Lien and “The Women of Hollywood Speak Out” by Maureen Dowd), and the cost of staying home to raise children (see “When Being A Stay-At-Home Mom Isn’t a Choice” by Jillian Berman).

I see the assault on a woman’s right to make choices about her own body and the rampant and disgusting sexism in this year’s presidential election, and the importance of feminism is more obvious to me than ever before. I have a desire to be more outspoken in my mindset of being a feminist. I sometimes feel alone in this because sexism isn’t rampant in my everyday life and in the live’s of many of the people I know, and there isn’t necessarily an immediate need for us to rise up and demand equal rights. I’m lucky to live in a place where my rights as a woman are protected…for now.

It’s that “for now” that gives me pause and drives me to a greater call. I want the next generation of women to feel secure in their rights and that they are considered equal to men. I want them to feel this way their whole lives, not have a sense that their worth erodes as they get older, which is something I have begun to feel and I’m only in my mid-thirties.

Feminism is a topic I have many, many thoughts on, far too many for one blog post. I know, too, that it’s a divisive topic. I’ll be revisiting it throughout the month here on the blog. Coming up soon, look for a post about how my first novel ELIXIR BOUND ended up having many feminist viewpoints in it, initially without a lot of intention on my part.

#InkRipples is a monthly meme created by Katie L. Carroll, Mary Waibel, and Kai Strand. We pick a topic (March is all about feminism), drop a ripple in the inkwell (i.e. write about it on our blogs), and see where the conversation goes. Be sure to check out Kai’s and Mary’s posts this month. We’d love to have you join in the conversation on your own blogs. Full details and each month’s topic can be found on my #InkRipples page.

Females in YA: Part 9 Feminism

February 3, 2015 / Katie L. Carroll

Somewhere along the line the word “feminist” got a bad rap, so much so that people seem to be confused about what it really means to be a feminist. Feminism is simply “the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men”. So if you think women should have equal rights as men, then you’re a feminist. No man-hating or bra burning required!

When the heck did feminism become a bad thing anyway? Turns out a simple Internet search turns up plenty of discussion on that topic already. See “When Did Feminism Become a Bad Thing?” by Daisy Lindlar; “Why men have a problem with the word ‘feminism'” by Martin Daubney; and “Feminism: Has it Become a Dirty Word?” by Barbara & Shannon Kelley…just to name a few.

The idea of feminism has been so construed to some kind of men vs. women mantra that even these 10 really famous women celebrities (including Madonna and Susan Sarandon) have come out and said point-blank that they are not feminists. Many of whom go out of their way to say they are “humanist” (whatever the hell that means…can anyone who isn’t a sociopath not be a humanist?), but I suspect that they are actually feminists and are simply under the delusion that feminism is a bad thing. There’s even a hashtag on Twitter #womenagainstfeminism. Really?

C’mon, ladies, let’s get our shite together and take back the word. (Initially I wrote “our word” but changed it because men can be and should be feminists, too.) Still not convinced you’re a feminist? Check out the article “Not Sure What Feminism Is? Allow These Famous Authors To Explain” by Maddie Crum. Even as I write this rally cry, it seems someone may have beaten me to the punch.

In September 2014, UN Women Goodwill Ambassador Emma Watson made a speech about gender equality (i.e. feminism) and launched the HeForShe campaign. Among the things she said about was this:

I decided I was a feminist and this seemed uncomplicated to me. But my recent research has shown me that feminism has become an unpopular word.

Apparently I am among the ranks of women whose expressions are seen as too strong, too aggressive, isolating, anti-men and, unattractive.

Why is the word such an uncomfortable one?”

After this speech, Watson faced both praise and criticism (see the article “Emma Watson’s UN speech: what our reaction says about feminism” by Michelle Smith), and also threats to release nude photos–which didn’t actually exist–of Watson (see “The Emma Watson Threats Were A Hoax, But Women Face Similar Intimidation Online Every Day” by Emma Gray). In my mind, it was yet one more thing to confirm that we do need feminism and that we need to show what being a feminist really is.

So by now you’re probably asking, “Ummmm, Katie, when are we going to get to the part about YA?” Patience, dearies, and you shall be rewarded! Before we get to the YA part, let me point you to one more article, “Teen spirit: young feminist heroes” by Kira Cochrane, showcasing real, non-celebrity young people and their insights on feminism.

Okay, so now we’ve finally reached the YA part of all this. Writers of YA have a huge impact on the lives of teenagers. We can take our own messages of feminism and weave them into our narratives (in a non-didactic way of course). And I, for one, think we not only can, but we should. Let’s not pretend that gender inequality hasn’t infiltrated not only the fictional world of YA but also the real world in which women and men writers are treated differently (see “A Censored History of Ladies in YA Fiction” by Kelly Jensen).

Will feminism be a central issue in every piece we write? Certainly not. But even when we write about something else, like first love or a daring adventure, I think it’s important to understand what messages, even indirectly, we are sending to our readers. Is every character we are going to write be a feminist? Again, of course not. But it’s important to examine our work and wonder if in it we are buying into and maybe even feeding into gender inequality. Let’s not pigeonhole our characters, thereby not pigeonholing our teen readers.

And just in case I haven’t given you enough reading to do already with all those links, here are a few more that make me hopeful for the idea of feminism in YA: “13 Contemporary Novels All Feminists Should Read” by Emma Cueto, “13 Female Young Adult Fiction Authors That Owned 2014” by Caitlin White, and “2015 Is the Year of the Feminist YA Novel” by Kelly Jensen.

Finally, let me state for the record that I, Katie Carroll, YA author, am a feminist.