Feminism: Dirty Little Word?

Feminism

Oh, that dirty little word.

But how can it be bad to want 51% of the population to be treated fairly?

Well over 200 years, and we are still fighting for equal rights. (I might go as far as to say since the beginning of humanity.)

Women around the world think they are less than because society is set up that way.

How can we change this?

Write about it!

Books change the world.

There are numerous books that show empowered women, but who is right next to them most of the time? A man. Who rescues the poor woman when she needs help? A man.

Let’s stop perpetuating this dogma and let women help women out of a sticky situation or lift them up when all is lost.

Mary Wollstonecraft was a pioneer for feminism and women’s rights. She penned A Vindication of the Rights of Women. If you haven’t read it, please do. It’s a great piece that argues for women to be educated in the same way as men, written in 1792. Unfortunately, some parts of it are still relevant today.

“Not content with this natural pre-eminence [of strength], men endeavor to sink us still lower, merely to render us alluring objects for a moment.

“I have turned over various books written on the subject of education, and patiently observed the conduct of parents and the management of schools; but what has been the result?–a profound conviction that the neglected education of my fellow-creatures is the grand source of the misery I deplore … strength and usefulness are sacrificed to beauty; and after having pleased a fastidious eye, fade, disregarded on the stalk, long before the season when they ought to have arrived at maturity. One cause of this barren blooming I attribute to a false system of education, gathered from the books written on this subject by men who, considering females rather as women than human creatures, have been more anxious to make them alluring mistresses … the civilized women of the present century, with a few exceptions, are only anxious to inspire love, when they ought to cherish a nobler ambition, and by their abilities and virtues exact respect.”

Why are we still fighting to be taken seriously and get respect? We have the power to write our future. We have the power to show younger women a new and better path.

Almost 125 years later, enter Susan Glaspell and her play “Trifles.”

In this amazing one-act play, Glaspell demonstrates the poor progress made from the time of Wollstonecraft. Sure, we were educated a bit more, but men weren’t educated any differently. The problem lies with both men and women.

Only a few lines in "Trifles" will I share with you.

Mrs. Peters [to the other woman]: She worried about [her fruit freezing] when it turned so cold. She said the fire’d go out and her jars would break.

Sheriff: Well, can you beat the women! Held for murder and woryin’ about her preserves.

What this really means.

When it got cold outside, Mrs. Wright would be isolated with her husband on the farm, and she would break, not her preserves, but she would break.

The response of the sheriff is quite telling. He thinks women should be beaten for failing in her wifely duties and that women only worry about the trifles.

It’s so obvious to him that women don’t worry about the big things, yet he misses the fact that Mr. Wright probably beat his wife and thinks that’s okay; she deserved it.

In Trifles, the women solve the crime due to their understanding of people—their desires and actions—and their attention to details, trifles—those little things women worry about.

Glaspell showed our usefulness, our ingenuity, and our attention to detail. We are smart, creative, and resourceful.

Over 200 years after Wollstonecraft, Lessons in Chemistry was written in 2022 by Bonnie Garmus.

“… our society makes us feel that we’re never good enough to belong…Because we measure ourselves against useless yardsticks of sex, race, religion, politics, schools. Even height and weight …"

“[People] find themselves locked into a learned societal behavior—say, the old ‘men are like this, women are like that’ type of thing… think beyond that cultural simplicity. To think sensibly … [Societal norms] limit an individual’s capacity.”

Limits—the biggest problem in society!

While based in the ʼ60s, Lessons in Chemistry is relevant because of widely disseminated societal believes. We and men perpetuate this idea that women are lesser. We are not!

We are 51% of the population. Yet we do not hold one 10th of the power. Why not?

Imagine if we educated women the same as men from the beginning. Where would humanity be today? The edge of the universe (if there is one)? A cleaner planet? A world without cancer?

I don’t know, but no one else does either.

We do have stories about powerful and independent women, and continuing to write these types of women will help younger women strive to achieve greatness and not think of themselves as lesser or put up with men’s feet on our necks.

Men should support us and our endeavors. We are just as important as them.

We need to change societal beliefs. And we can do it through fiction!

Get writing ladies!

• Write strong women.

• Write smart women.

• Write about our struggles today

or a future where we are treated equally

or an alternative world where we were treated equally from the start.

I’m excited to hear your ideas and read your amazing novels!

Let me know what you are thinking about writing or what you are writing. I’d love to sit and have a coffee with you.

I’m a feminist, and I’m not sorry.

Have a manuscript ready for editing or are interested in my ghostwriting service? Contact me.

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Happy writing and revising!

Kristin Noland – Speculative and Crime Fiction Editor and Ghostwriter