Monique Polak - I Am a Feminist: Claiming the F-Word in Turbulent Times

In 2016 Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau made international news when he declared, I am a feminist.

Not all youngor, for that matter, olderwomen and men are as comfortable as Trudeau is when it comes to identifying themselves as feminists. Some think that even saying the word feminism out loud makes them man haters!

In their book ManifestA: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future, Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards suggest that some people feel threatened by the word feminism because it is a word of great power.

The term f-word is sometimes used to refer to feminism, a humorous way of saying that using the word feminism, or declaring oneself a feminist, is somehow rude or wrong.

But thank goodness thats changing! Heres proof: in 2017, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary declared feminism its word of the yearbecause it was the most looked-up word on its online dictionary.

As part of my research for this book, I spoke to girls, women, boys and men about feminism. Because I live in Montreal, most of the people I interviewed live here toobut I believe that their experiences reflect those of many people worldwide. Every single adult woman I spoke with reported having experienced some form of sexism in her life.

Evelyn Sacks, a retired schoolteacher who died in 2018, just two months short of her 100th birthday, remembered being paid considerably less than her male colleagues, despite the fact that they worked the same number of hours and taught the same number of students.

Elisabeth Telford-Klerks recalled that when she was studying nursing in Toronto, Ontario, in 1959, she and the other nurses in training (all female) had to stand aside and let the doctors (all male) onto the elevator first.

Today, at the college where I teach in Montreal, male and female teachers are paid equal salaries. And most of us know as many female doctors as male ones. Though feminists have made huge, important strides (youll learn more about their work in chapter 1), inequality between the sexes persists. Misogyny, which means prejudice against girls or women, remains far too common.

Consider the following examples of inequality between the sexes: On average, most women still do not earn equal pay for equal work. In Canada in 2015, women earned eighty-seven cents for every dollar a man earned. In the same year, American women fared even worse, earning only eighty cents for every dollar earned by American men. Women are four times more likely than men to be victims of intimate partner violence (sometimes called domestic violence). And in at least ten countries, including Cambodia, Ethiopia, Haiti and Nepal, it is difficult and often impossible for girls to attend school.

During a visit to Montreal, QC, 13-year-old Samantha learned that her grandmother, Joanne Morgan, co-founded the womens studies program at Vanier College.

When I asked Samantha if she had ever experienced sexism, it didnt take her long to come up with an answer. The girls in my class are more athletic than the boys. I had this teacher who selected the boys to do the heavy lifting. It kind of bothered meeven if I didnt really want to help lift furniture! she told me.

In 2016, Samantha, a competitive swimmer since the age of eight, came in fourth in her age group in British Columbia in butterfly. You have to be strong and confident to do the butterfly, she explained. Because it requires tremendous muscular strength, the butterfly stroke tends to be associated with male rather than female swimmers. Ive noticed lately, Samantha said, that fewer girls my age are doing the butterfly. They seem to be less motivated. Some girls give up the butterfly because they worry it will give them man shoulders. Of course, for boys, man shoulders are a good thing. Some coaches, too, may contribute to the problem by failing to encourage girls to continue doing a stroke that is considered masculine. All this serves as another indication that sexism existseven in the lap lane.

Did you know, I asked Samantha, that your grandma was one of the founders of the womens studies program at Vanier College here in Montreal?

Samanthas head spun around to look at her grandma, as if she was seeing her for the first time.

Betty Friedans 1963 book The Feminine Mystique is often credited for ushering in the second wave of feminism.

Then Samanthas grandma told us how she became a feminist: I married at the age of twenty-two, and I was home with four small children when I read Betty Friedans book The Feminine Mystique. It blew me away. I tried to tell my best friend about the book, but she didnt want to hear about it.

Friedans book is often credited with ushering in what is known as the second wave of feminism (youll learn more about that in chapter 1 too). In her book, Friedan used the phrase the problem that has no name to refer to the plight of women in society. Friedan argued there was more to a womans life than looking after her husband and kids.

More recently, feminists such as bell hooks have criticized Friedan for focusing only on white women. hooks was one of the first feminist scholars to study intersectionality (the overlap between sexism, racism and classismmore about that in chapter 6). She observed that many black women in Friedans time were in the workforce, most of them employed in low-prestige jobs that paid poorly. Friedans views did not help these women or other women of color. Not only were they already working, but many were trapped in jobs white women did not want.

Intersectionality looks at the overlap of identities such as race, gender, class and sexuality. All women, including the most marginalized, must be included in the struggle for equality.

If you are living in relative comfort in North Americameaning you have food, clothing, a safe place to live and access to health care and educationyou may also grow up thinking theres no need for feminism.