Modern Day Feminism

The Modern Day Feminist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a powerful leader in the modern day feminist movement, once said in a speech presented at TEDxEuston, We Should All Be Feminists, “Some people ask: ‘Why the word feminist? Why not just say you are a believer in human rights, or something like that?’ Because that would be dishonest. Feminism is, of course, part of human rights in general—but to choose to use the vague expression human rights is to deny the specific and particular problem of gender. It would be a way of pretending that it was not women who have, for centuries, been excluded. It would be a way of denying that the problem of gender targets women.” The actions of the F1 generation of feminist women who sparked the women's rights
Masculinity and femininity are two socially constructed words that basically define what a woman and a man is. Dictionary.com defines Masculinity as “ [a] possession of the qualities traditionally associated with men.” When you think of a man what words come to mind? In a study conducted by plannedparenthood.org, the top five words used to describe masculinity in a man were, independent, non-emotional, aggressive, tough-skinned, and competitive. Among the long list of these “manly” words and phrases, sexually aggressive was one of the phrases listed. In complete foil to masculinity, Dictionary.com defines femininity as “the quality of being female; womanliness.” Following the study conducted by plannedparentgood.org on masculinity they also did a servay on words the general populous would use to describe women and their femininity. The top five words that were used to describe a woman were, dependent, emotional, passive, sensitive, and quiet. These societal expectations of men and women are highly unrealistic and could be held against that of a superhero and a child. Using the words provided by Planned Parenthood, you could create an individual man or woman with any combination of these night and day words. Moreover, if we raise our boys not think that having any other emotion besides happy and angry is wrong, and we raise our girls to aspire more than a mother and wife we might could come to an even higher level of equality. However, even today when we do have mothers who are also juggling careers and stay-at-home fathers, boys and girls are placed into specific gender roles that could model the way each side views the