On International Women’s Day, I received a wave of emails. Happy International Women’s Day, they all said. Here’s a 20% discount. On Instagram, I saw girls wearing trendy T-shirts saying “Girl Power” accompanied by a rose or another symbol, and I noticed multiple companies placing a woman next to their product in attempt to “celebrate.” Like Cinco de Mayo, which is not so much about Mexican culture as it is about taking advantage of consumerism, International Women’s Day has lost much of its original purpose and become capitalized upon in the same way. After International Women’s Day, companies return to putting men next to their products and ignoring half of their consumer base—as if one day was good enough to please the women they claim to represent. More than just International Women’s Day, it seems that feminism in America has become more trendy than it is serious. It seems easy and cool to declare “equality for all.” With feminism transforming into a social trend and just another way to sell products, we have become distracted from the real issues that feminism aims to address. Women around the world are still suffering greatly—including women in America, a country that is seemingly more developed than others. It’s time we remember: Feminism is not just a fad.
It’s easy to see feminism as a sort of trend, as something you claim to follow with no real action. Because we are women living relatively comfortable lives in the progressive West, it is easy to sit back, laxly—only feeling compelled to act when something directly affects us. After all, the news rarely covers issues outside America. We see a lot of coverage on important domestic issues such as the #MeToo movement and sexual misconduct by celebrities such as R. Kelly, but after a while, the news becomes so focused on celebrities that we see the issues women face as a part of pop culture noise more than anything else. The news fails to report on everyday women who face sexual abuse in the home, workplace, and school. Feminism should be inclusive of everyone and should be something that each woman can identify with as a collective movement to achieve women’s rights and equality, among many other things. The media is to blame for polluting this message for us in America—spinning feminism into this movement that seems to be led by public figures and celebrities rather than the everyday woman.
We also need to be more active in raising awareness for women’s issues around the world. You may have heard that Saudi Arabia recently lifted its ban that prevented women from driving, but did you know that the female activists who advocated for that are now in jail—being inhumanely tortured? Because news like that is never considered worthy of becoming headlines in Western media, it is up to us to do our own research and keep ourselves updated on women’s issues across the world. Women’s issues in other countries are often reported on, but are not as widely circulated, so even doing a simple search on Google News to keep ourselves updated is very important. Feminism shouldn’t just be something used to further your own rights or your own comfort—it should be something fought for by everyone and for everyone.
After being informed, we must act upon our information. What we do doesn’t have to be extreme—we can do little things like simply speaking to people about the information we learn or donating money to organizations that protect and promote women’s rights. We can use our social media platforms to spread information about serious issues affecting women. We can contact our legislators. Feminism has strayed away from its original intentions largely because of our apathy. We need to leave the confines of our comfort and use our actions to march towards progress and equality.
