Dare To Be A Feminist

I'm fifteen years old, currently studying for my GCSEs and I feel that sexism in schools is a massive issue. The last thing I want to hear when walking into school on a Monday morning are rape 'jokes' and go-back-to-the-kitchen 'jokes'. Many girls who openly support feminism are automatically...

My daughter was sent home from school with a note one of the last days of school. Along with the note, she was wearing her gym uniform t-shirt. Seems her bra strap was visible beneath her sleeveles...

What happens when girls aren't under the scrutiny of boys? Do they get more girly or less so?

A new study has found that girls at same-sex schoolsfeel greater pressure to adhere to gender norms — and were bullied if they didn’t — than those at mixed-gender schools. Perhaps even more surprising, the same researchers say that girls at same-sex schools evaluated their self-worth based more on social confidence than cognitive confidence — while girls at mixed-gender schools weighed academics more heavily than social prowess.

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“I was quite surprised by the results,” he says. “But do I think that these result would generalize to schools in North America? I do.”

Other experts disagree.

While romance novels may seem to be harmless entertainment, they have a darker side. One study found that women who buy into romantic fantasies tend to choose occupations with reduced economic rewards that require less education after high school.

Such women also show little interest in high-status occupations. Living too fully in an unreal world of fantasy and romance can undermine your economic prospects in the real world.

Both hypersexuality and the romance genre of books and movies are part of the New Soft War, because both have negative effects on one very important part of a woman’s anatomy according to the American Psychological Association: her brain.

After returning from this school trip I started to notice how much the girls at my school suffer because of the pressures associated with our gender. Many of the girls have eating disorders, some have had peers heavily pressure them into sexual acts, others suffer in emotionally abusive relationships where they are constantly told they are worthless.

I decided to set up a feminist society at my school, which has previously been named one of "the best schools in the country", to try to tackle these issues. However, this was more difficult than I imagined as my all-girls school was hesitant to allow the society. After a year-long struggle, the feminist society was finally ratified.

What I hadn't anticipated on setting up the feminist society was a massive backlash from the boys in my wider peer circle. They took to Twitter and started a campaign of abuse against me. I was called a "feminist bitch", accused of "feeding [girls] bullshit", and in a particularly racist comment was told "all this feminism bull won't stop uncle Sanjit from marrying you when you leave school".

From Sylvia Plath’s copy of The Great Gatsby.

Why you ought to buy Girl Scout cookies.