I’ll be a feminist until…

• women can go into trendy stores and find clothes in realistic sizes like 14

• rape no longer exists, at all, anywhere

• baby girls are no longer murdered for being the “wrong” sex

• magazines begin portraying real women and not computer-animated ones

• women feel safe–in the home and in public

• the legal definition of marriage focuses on what the relationship is rather than the sexes of the people involved

• girls are not socialized to believe they must look like Barbie or Britney Spears and boys don’t believe they must emulate G.I. Joe or Eminem

• there is free, client-controlled, non-sexist, 24-hour childcare

• physiology lectures do not begin with the phrase “in the average male body…”

• no woman or child dies at the hand of a man

• women are not culturally obliged to bear children

• young girls and women do not believe that “putting out” is the best alternative to self-respect

• women are paid the same as men for equal experience/education and/or responsibilities in the workplace

• paternity leave is common and even expected of fathers

• “homemaking” is as respected a job title as physician or CEO

• no one would ever dream of exchanging money for sex

• men stop expecting women to have vaginal orgasms and women stop feeling the need to fake them

• sexual dysfunction or infertility is not immediately blamed on the woman

• throwing “like a girl” has positive connotations

• ads no longer entice used car buyers with sexist crap like “lady driven”

• all women demand respect from their domestic and sexual partners, and get it

• shared housework doesn’t mean helping the wife out with her chores

• the homeless have shelter and the hungry have food

• women who express anger, outrage or frustration are not dismissed as hysterical

• there is no such thing as violence against women

• women can walk alone at night and not have to look over their shoulders or be afraid

• women are no longer objects to be looked at or owned

• body size, shape, weight, hair colour, and eye colour don’t matter

• tampons and pads are not taxable, or better, free (and safer for women and the environment)

• hairy legs, armpits, and bikini-lines are acceptable for women too

• female genital mutilation is non-existent

• the vagina isn’t a source of ridicule or shame

• feminism is seen as complex and not expected to be reducible to a single word or phrase

• Women’s Studies is as unnecessary as Men’s Studies and included in core curricula

• all people feel proud to identify themselves as feminists

• there is no longer a NEED for feminism

In other words, I’ll be a feminist for a very, very long time.

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