Hey, have you heard? There has been a rise in feminist “zines” and bands in London and it’s starting to trickle into to the USA as well. It’s a nice trend to see coming to the US, because it means that people are finding it fashionable to be feminist and I’m completely alright with that. Awareness is awareness, no?
In the past, feminism was never called a “pretty” movement. If you asked 10 people to describe a feminist, I bet at least 9 of them would use the words “angry,” “man-hating,” “butch,” or “hairy,” so with the new influx of people getting into the movement, there has to be some glamour among them right? I personally feel that equal rights for humans is super-glam in itself, but that doesn’t stop people from rolling their eyes when I say I write for a feminist website.
I feel (and perhaps I’m biased; do let me know) that Zelda Lily is kind of at the forefront of this movement. Our tagline is “Feminism in a Bra,” and to me that has always meant that while we are strong enough and willing enough to fight for equal rights, we’ll also throw on a little lip gloss before we do it. I’ve never thought that fighting for something that was right and being attractive were mutually exclusive, but maybe that’s because my mom has always been a fighter and is really attractive. Naturally, I learned much from her.
The new popularity in these movements is also exciting because it means that a change can come, and it can come soon. I was reading Twitter headlines the other day and Barack Obama (and yes, I follow the POTUS on Twitter – how cool is that?) fired off a statistic that I’m about to paraphrase and, more than likely, get wrong. The stat is something like in the year 2012, a woman in the same job as a man will make over $400,000 less than he will in a lifetime. IN THE YEAR 2012 this is still happening.
I am completely fine with feminism becoming a trend, and I hope it positively explodes on the scene and people get annoyed and finally do something about this. I can’t afford to miss out on $400,000, are you kidding me? I’m 26 and still don’t have a 401(k). It haunts me daily. We need to be this change, and not only take back our rights, but take back our money, too!