Women’s History Month
March is Women’s History Month.
I never was a feminist until I had a wife and daughters. It’s not that I didn’t believe in equal rights for everyone, I did, but I didn’t grasp how different our experiences of the world are, and failing to grasp that, I didn’t understand the need for a political and social movement.
It shouldn’t be controversial that men and women are treated differently, and those differences aren’t necessarily traumatic, but it bothers me that anyone would try to limit what my daughters can do, or who they can be.
And those limitations don’t necessarily come from men. When I dress my daughter in t-shirts with rockets or dinosaurs, it isn’t the little boys that ask why she’s wearing “boy colors.” It’s the girls. It’s women, never men, that greet her by telling her she’s pretty. None of these are meant as slights or insults to my daughter. The adults are being friendly. The children are simply honest. But I fear that a life time of social pressure to be pretty, or to be a proper girl, will take its toll.
And that’s why I’m a feminist.
