highschool

sexism

You slammed the door and paced around your room bubbling with anger. It frustrated you, no it exasperated you when your parents did this. Always giving your brothers the benefit of the doubt and letting them opt out of chores and forcing them all onto you.

Telling you to stop doing your homework to wash the dishes while your brothers played FIFA. You watched in utter shock as your mom changed the sheets on your brother's bed when she was the one just 20 minutes prior shaming you for not cleaning your room like a lady. It physically hurt you when she treated your 20-year-old brother as a child making him food than yelling at you to run the house and get the kids ready at 15. It depressed you that she thought this was how it was supposed to work. That in her mind she truly believed that she was doing the right thing. It wasn't all her fault though, it was just the way she was raised. However, couldn't she just listen to your argument?

Couldn't she at least pretend to care about you and your feminist agenda instead of rolling her eyes and telling you that a woman's place was in the kitchen? It irked you because you were trying to show her the other side. To show her the situation from another perspective? How could she not realize what she was doing was blatantly wrong?!

Making you juggle all your homework and religious studies on top of your chores while she let your brothers slide on all three. Praising them every time they merely lifted a finger and criticized you when she saw the tiniest mess to the right of where you were sitting.

And every time you decided to speak up about it her main argument was that "boys and girls have different skill sets." But apparently, that wasn't relevant when she wanted you to shovel the snow or do other "manly tasks." You rolled your eyes in disgust as your mother begged your brother to shower and then came in your room to reprimand you on not giving your little sister a shower and not making dinner for the family.

It pissed you off to know that there were millions of people like her in the world. You clenched your fists and tried to think of ways to change her mindset. To prove her wrong. To show her men and women were equal. Because you didn't want to deal with her ABSOLUTE BULLSHIT everytime you passed a construction site with a female worker and saw a female truck driver. A female of any kind in any position of power or any line of work that didn't coincide with nurse or teacher seemed to make her question her authority and ask for her "male supervisor." How she disrespected her own damn gender baffled you. And as a feminist, it enraged you. You couldn't keep letting her sexist comments slide. Her telling you not to go anywhere by yourself and not get raped when she should really be telling your brothers to be respectful.

You heaved a sigh and told yourself the next generation would be better. Your generation would be better. You'd make them better. But you questioned that as well as you overheard girls debate that abortion should be illegal even if it was rape because it wasn't the rapist's fault, it was the females fault for walked down a dark alley.

You jumped out of your seat to join the conversation only to be met by a wall. Or at least it felt like talking to a wall. The girl, yes the GIRL wouldn't listen to any reasoning or logic and just shook her head quoting her mom as if her mother was the Queen of England her self. You dragged your feet back to your seat in sheer disbelief. How could you have just had the conversation with another teenage girl in 2018? Was this what the world was really like? How were you going to survive all these misogynistic assholes? Old people were one thing, but fellow freshwoman? No way.

How could the world get any better or learn new things if people were so nonaccepting of new ideas? Not willing to hear people out and so focused on one answer that they were too blind to see what was right in front of them?

At least you knew what was right. What was the future? The future was female. Now all you had to do was spread the message and get people involved in the movement, but how?

People still called each other "bro" and "man" even when you scolded them for it hundreds of times. If you couldn't get your class on board, how were you going to get 8 billion people?

You wanted to do more than post-feminist quotes on your story and save dope stories of feminists on your Pinterest board, you craved more. You wanted to start a feminist movement. One that involved more than sharing a video and buying a bracelet or a tacky hoody that went to charitable organizations. You wanted to lead a march to the White House and demand equal pay. To abolish sexual harassment and give death sentences to rapists instead of 6 months in jail. You wanted to help people see the light and how better the world would be if 3rd world countries gave women the right to an education and how beneficial it would be if daughters weren't told by their mothers that being president wasn't a women's job during every election. You wanted to help every little girl that was in your shoes when she was told century-old cultural rules about a women's place and how disgusting periods were. You yearned to help the youth that couldn't see past their parents' familiar faces and see that being sexist wasn't part of their culture and religion. You wanted to show them that you could be Muslim and still be a feminist. That your headscarf didn't define oppression and that not all t.v reporters knew what they were talking about.

You wanted to be a positive role model in people's lives. To change them for the better. To be someone a child could look up to as you looked up to your idols and gawked at them all over social media as they continuously outdid themselves in trying to better themselves and the world. You wanted to be someone and you wanted to do something. After all, a little something was better than nothing.