Tag: feminist

am i the only person that’s furious with the attitudes of our young girls?

woman wearing red beret and gray long sleeve dress with wild feminist print
Photo by Maryia Plashchynskaya on Pexels.com

I want to shake my fist and burn my bra,

Get these girls to feel some passion,

A cause to love with all their lives.

But everything is dull and bland,

Until they find their freedoms gone,

But by then it’s far too late

And all they do is wave goodbye.

I had a really eye opening tutor time the other day. I have a small group of fifteen year olds that I have in my group and every day, for half an hour, I talk to them about a subject that is important in the world, and yesterday it was equal rights for women.

I am normally met with an audience of totally bored faces and I have managed to get my head around that and not feel too offended by it. But yesterday, I was totally blown away by the attitude of some of the girls; and not in a good way.

I made this whole presentation about some really inspirational women and I delivered it with as much enthusiasm as I could because I do feel that it’s really important that these kids understand these topics.

I spoke about Sheryl Sandberg and Emmeline Pankhurst and I was really getting into it. I mean, I spoke about one of the women who fought for my right to vote and shape my own life. And then, when I had finished, I had two girls come up to my mentor (their actual tutor) and ask why we have tutor time when it’s such a waste of time and so boring!

I stood very quietly behind them as they told the teacher what a waste of their time they thought that tutor time was. I felt a little bit hurt but more than anything I was shocked that that was how little they thought of the rights that had been gifted to them by those women that went before.

I wonder if we started to revert to the way things work and all of us women work for less than our male counterparts, whether they would then think that the lesson was boring? Would it be boring if their legal rights were taken away and they couldn’t vote? I think not.

I’m reading an incredibly frightening book called Vox by Christina Dalcher which is about a fictional future where this kind of thing happens. It’s terrifying because I’m now seeing how easy it would be to undo all of the good work that has been done. A lot of kids don’t give a crap if it doesn’t affect them right this second or it won’t bring them some immediate benefit.

Please, if you have children, make sure that they know about this stuff and they they do care about it. They’ll regret it if they don’t, and everything they thought was their right will be just a distant memory.

Much Love

Rachel xx

i’m scared that i won’t be able to do it…..so i’ll put on an act so that it’s ok to fail

person holding fern leaf
Photo by Ibadah Mimpi on Pexels.com

I wear a spangled skin of hate,

A sheath of strong and cold bravado.

It’s not the girl I really am

But earthquakes brew within my core

And so I know that acting is

The only way to swim through pain.

Sticking to this rule of thumb

Will always mean I glide through life

And dodge the ache of failing you.

I sat in a Year 10 class today and it shocked me quite deeply. It was a lower set class and we were looking at poetry in their anthologies so I knew that it would be a bit of an uphill slog. The teacher told me that we would be lucky to get each of them to write a paragraph in the hour and a half that we had available.

Still, I sat down and watched while still holding onto a little bit of hope. It was snatched away from me within about five minutes.

I was seated next to a 15 year old girl who in her own words said “I only have one brain cell in my head so I won’t be able to do this.” At first this would have really angered me and made me think she was just lazy, but as I carried on watching the lesson, my opinion changed.

This young girl was fairly obsessed with the way she looked and she put on a voice that made her sound about five. And I realised that it was really all an act. She had learnt that she was ‘thick’ and would never amount to much and putting on this persona protected her from the pain she would feel if she actually showed that she cared and then failed.

And when I started to see this, my heart broke for her. I wondered who had told her that she only had one brain cell; whether it was a teacher or a parent? If anything, it made me angry at the people who had conditioned her to feel this. I could see past her bad behaviour, and what I saw was a really horrible back story.

I then started to think about all of the times that I may have done the same thing. It’s always done subconsciously, as I think was the case with this girl. I just sometimes feel safer, destroying my chances rather than watch myself try properly and fail.

I thought of all those times that I’d gotten myself stressed and signed off from work, and every time that I had handed in my notice because I thought that my boss hated me. Who knows where I would be if I hadn’t self sabotaged every time things got tough?

I don’t know if I’ll ever be in class with that girl again, but I hope that somebody steps in one day soon and tells her that she has lots to offer the world. She doesn’t need to hide behind that ditzy persona because she can take on the world, just like everyone else.

Much Love

Rachel xx