getting into feminism through books

The only positive result of the election so far is my eye opening to the sexism that continues to be prevalent in the United States. Feminism is a topic that I haven’t really dived into.

I was in the Navy for more than 11 years. I wasn’t able to pick up on the sexist remarks until after the fact. Either that, or I just really wanted to be a part of the boys’ club. I wanted to be accepted. I wanted to be accepted so much that I was willing to work twice as hard in order to prove my worth.

Feminism

Feminism can be defined as beliefs and ideas that is aimed to achieving equality for women (Fiss, 1994). I can’t say that I ever thought positively of the word “feminist”. As a Filipina immigrant, I didn’t really have any feminist family members.

In fact, on my mother’s side, there continues to be an imbalanced expectation of workload division within the family dynamic. Despite most of my aunts being working women, they were the ones who had to carry the burden of household chores. My uncles on the other hand, either drank or sat around while waiting for their next meal. At least that’s what I have observed over the years.

I knew that sexism existed in the military. Instead of pointing it out, I went out of my way to prove men wrong. My coworkers thought that women wouldn’t be able to be good mechanics so I made sure that I worked and looked dark from all the grease by the end of the day. I took on extra jobs in order to prove them wrong. I stayed at work later in an effort to change their mind. It did not.

This sexism existed beyond navy rates that were traditionally filled with men. This is apparent even more so in the present landscape. Donald Trump is currently attempting to nominate Pete Hegseth as the next secretary of defense. Pete Hegseth, army veteran, believes that women do not belong in the military, particularly in combat units.

There is such an urgency to combat sexist ideals with the upcoming presidential shift. Understanding feminism and how to appropriately identify how to pinpoint it in different situations is vital.

Women are in danger of losing even more rights. As if the overturning of Roe v Wade wasn’t bad enough, the equality that women have been working decades to achieve seems to be taking a step back with the re-election of Donald Trump.

Luckily, my Tiktok fyp did not betray me. When the inevitability of another Trump presidency became evident, creators poured in with book recommendations for both fighting fascism through education and uplifting feminist values.

feminism in writing

My tbr hasn’t stopped increasing since the election. I’m actually pretty excited about that. At least it felt like I was educating myself against their patriarchal agenda.

The first book I read was The Simple Act of Killing a Woman by Patricia Melo. The book follows a young lawyer uncovering the nature of femicide in Brazil. She initially lived in a more modern city but was tasked by her supervisor to investigate the various deaths in an Amazonian border town. Her findings allowed her to finally process how femicide has affected her own family.

Although I am not really one to rate books on a scale, I do highly recommend reading this book. It is fictional but deeply rooted in what women go through on a daily basis. It is also such an easy read despite the terrible beliefs and ideals that it discusses.

quotes from the simple act of killing a woman

1. “But the statistics show that it happens a lot. And that lots of men don’t stop at a slap. They’d actually rather kill you.”
2. “We need to talk about the state-authorized massacre of women.”
3. “For me it was different: what I am, as in that poem, what I am is having lost my mother.”
4. “if you haven’t learned the first lesson from this story: our silence is bullshit. Your mother died because of the silence. These women died because they weren’t able to speak. Not speaking,” she said, “is the tragedy.”
5. “They knocked off indigenous women left, right, and center. Women were luxury items, and they were ripe for stealing: from their fathers, from their husbands, from the villages.”
6. “first thing you learn when you dive into the world of femicide is that dark streets, deserted alleys, and dodgy neighborhoods are not genuinely dangerous places for us. The truth is that there’s nowhere more perilous than our own homes.”
7. “It doesn’t matter where you are or what social class you belong to and it doesn’t matter what you do for a living. It’s dangerous being a woman.”
8. “Children, poverty, unemployment, drinking—none of these is the real problem. They kill because they like killing women, just as they like fishing or playing football.”
9. “But there’s nothing easier than learning to hate women. There is no shortage of teachers. Fathers teach it, the state teaches it, the legal system teaches it, the market teaches it, and culture, and propaganda.”
10. When a woman dies, her story must be told and retold a thousand times. Txupira will never again go swimming with Naia. Nor will she sing the songs her grandmother taught her. Txupira will never be a mother, nor will she have grandchildren. Txupira will never see herons again, or curassows or yellow parakeets. She will not eat noodles, which she used to love, on the way home from school. Txupira will never again sleep on her palm-mat floors. Nor will she take Portuguese classes or catch lice from her youngest brother. Someone must pay for this life extinguished.”

final thoughts

I have to continue learning more about feminism. This is the only way that we are able to combat it on an individual level. Calling people out may feel awkward, but if individuals aren’t checked on their use of misogynistic language or inappropriate actions, we are failing ourselves.

I think another battle in this situation is convincing other women that we should have our rights. Unfortunately, none of this will be easy. The federal upholding of abortion was shattered. We all have to actively work towards a sense of equality, no matter how long it takes.