Becoming a feminist changed my life.
For me it was like finding home. It was fiercely intellectual. Fiercely compassionate. It was fiercely just. Feminism showed me that the world I’d viewed from the margins, which excluded me, could be inclusive. It told me I was not broken, that I was okay. It told me to believe in myself, to realise who I thought I was, wasn’t necessarily who I was. It told me to speak up and to claim space. It told me that every breath I drew, every step I took was a radical political act, as a feminist woman in the patriarchy. Feminism allowed me to see not just the play, but the puppets, the puppet makers and most importantly who was pulling the strings. And why.
I was 17. I was conventionally beautiful in the way society applauds as some sort of achievement; tall and willowy and blonde. I left home to attend university and also found myself at a modelling agency. While I studied psychology, semiotics and Derrida at uni, at the agency I was learning to walk the right way, how to hold my mouth, how to be looked at. It was like the human version of dressage. Instinctually it felt wrong. I felt wrong. As beautiful as I was, I was certain I was not. I was not thin enough. My nose was wrong. My hair wasn’t right. My self-confidence was non-existent. Instead, my self-loathing was an aching chasm where my country girl’s heart used to be.
At university I was learning about the male gaze. About how the ideas of what it meant to be female and male, feminine and masculine were social constructs. I learnt about the patriarchy. I learnt that women had only got the vote less that 90 years before I took my place at an academic institution. And it was 100 years since women were first able to access university. I learnt that women were objectified and that was an intrinsic part of our value in an oppressive system. I looked at myself in the mirror; miserable and lonely and self-hating in tiny bikinis and stilettos, with a slash of red lipstick, and I thought WTF?
I became a feminist that day. It wasn’t a group. We don’t have secret ‘man-hating feminoid’ meetings. It’s not a religion or a cult. It’s not a hierarchical organisation. It’s a way of thinking. Feminism is the word for waking up. Waking up to realise the structures of our society were built to favour men and disadvantage women. That the world I lived in was not built on ‘natural’ principles, but systemic control and oppression. It was not inherent, so it could be changed. It must be changed. I breathed in hope and love and I understood, on a cellular level that this was a life’s mission – for me, for my mother, for my daughters, for my sisters, and for my sons. This was the ‘women’s work’ that I would do. Not the washing and cooking and ironing and child bearing, but this; truth telling and change making. My feminism was evangelical. It made sense.
I was Bluebeard’s wife. I had taken a key and I had found the room where the bodies were hidden. I had put myself in danger. Once you have glimpsed inside that room, you cannot go back. If hidden, the key will bleed through in your pocket. Once you know where the bodies are – everything changes.
Some men are scared of feminism. And they should be. Feminism disrupts power systems that favour men, systems that see only one per cent of all rapes end in conviction, systems that see us dying in our homes at the rate of one woman every week, that see us hold only 30 per cent of the world’s wealth, that see us earn nearly 23 per cent less and do nearly two-and-a-half times the unpaid work in a home. And do almost 60 per cent of the world’s voluntary work.
I say, ‘This is wrong!’ and they call me a ‘man-hater’. I am a feminist who pushes for peace and non-violence and for equality. My feminism is about making the world a more just place for women and non-binary people, and in the end, for men too.
While we are killed, predominantly by men, men are killed by other men. Or themselves. We’ve noticed your suicide rate is almost double ours. Toxic masculinity is killing men too. The patriarchy is broken and we are all living in the ruins.
My feminism is the antidote. It is the machete that cuts a path where there was none. It is the light that shines into darkness. It is the blanket on the shoulders of the injured. My feminism is a breath of fresh air. It is joyous, and funny and self-reflective and kind. It is warm and nurturing. But it is also angry. And it’s had enough.
My feminism is amazing. It links me to my tribe and also to a broader community I have never met and reminds me that we are in every street, every town, every country in the world, standing in quiet solidarity… so beware. Or be excited. Intentional, radical, and accidental feminists are everywhere.
Happy International Women’s Day. Hug a feminist. We still have much work to do.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
