SHELBY KNOX: I think the most dangerous conception especially for my generation is that the feminist
movement has been waged and we won, and we are totally and completely equal.
[ MUSIC ]
So I got involved in the feminist movement unknowingly, I didn't know that's what it
was called.
I was raised evangelical, Southern Baptist in Lubbock, Texas and feminism was a bad word,
feminist was not something that you wanted to be.
But I had a friend when I was 15 in 9th grade who got pregnant, and this was a big no-no
in my town.
I had taken a virginity pledge, as had she.
And when she got pregnant she got kicked out of her house, kicked off the soccer team,
and nothing at all happened to her boyfriend.
And in a very judgmental way I said, "Well how did you let this happen?"
And she said well he told me I couldn't get pregnant the first time.
And that was not something that I knew to be untrue, I had no idea anything about sex
and I decided that it was unfair that no one had told her that she should say to this guy,
"No, shut up you're lying to me.
Put a condom on or we're not having sex."
And so I looked into what our sex education policy was in Lubbock, Texas and it was if
you have sex before marriage you're going to hell, you're going to get an STI, if you
masturbate to much then you'll become a selfish lover and you're partner could eventually
kill themselves.
So, I decided that I was going to try to get better sex education into the schools because
every young person deserves the right to have the information about their bodies to keep
themselves safe.
And I realized when looking for support that their was an entire movement of young people
all across the country who were fighting to get rid of abstinence only programs, and for
better sex ed.
And that was my first inkling of an idea that there was a larger social justice and feminist
movement out in the world outside of Lubbock, Texas.
For me, personally, feminism is hearing your pain and your struggle in another woman's
voice, and suddenly realizing there's nothing wrong with you, and there is nothing wrong
with her.
But there's something wrong with the world, that is trying to make you think that there
is, and together you're better equipped to fight it.
I think the most dangerous conception, especially for my generation is that the feminist movement
has been waged, and we won, and we are totally and completely equal.
So you have young women who are being told you can do everything, you're completely equal,
go for your dreams.
And then when they get out into the real world, and they face sexism and discrimination blatantly,
but often times not blatantly, they think that something is wrong with them, instead
of something still being wrong with the world.
The schools in our country teach history books that tell young women and young men that for
most of history women played no part, they were mostly just bystanders.
And so we are still being taught that women don't have as much to offer society as men.
And so I think that it's very important that young women like me talk about sexism whenever
we see it, name it, and talk about the feminist movement as alive, and well, and still growing,
and changing things.
[ MUSIC ]
I think that global feminism, being aware of what other people are doing, how they are
doing it, the political climate, in places across the world is incredibly important.
And I think again we are very lucky to be part of the internet generation in which it's
easy to, easier to communicate in those ways and know those things.
I think it's very important that when people are doing work in their own country, in their
own community, that those people be leading, rather than American feminists trying to help
by doing other things.
But of course there are efforts that American feminists support all the time, I mean one
of them that was started on change.org was a young woman who started a campaign for Saudi
women to drive, which turned into the Saudi women for driving movement.
And that was just a group of you know, relatively young women who decided that they were going
to post videos of themselves online, driving, and ask Secretary Hillary Clinton if she would
speak out in favor of women's driving rights in Saudi Arabia.
And that was a case in which American voices were actually very important in pressuring
our government to do something that would benefit Saudi women.
And I think, you know, one of the most inspiring stories that I know is of a girl I worked
with, her name is Noorjahan and she's 19 years old.
And she realized in Afghanistan that one of the barriers to women participating fully
in the world was their lack of access to the Internet.
There are a lot of Internet Cafes in Afghanistan, but often times women are not allowed, or
they are sexually harassed while they are there.
And so she decided well, why don't we open an Internet Cafe just for women?
And so she and her friends raised enough money to buy the building and buy the supplies to
open the Internet Cafe for women in Afghanistan, in Kabul.
I had a very interesting experience of working with a woman who is on the Jordanian soccer
team and she wanted to have FIFA change their policy that disallowed women from wearing
the headscarf while they're playing soccer.
And I was initially as a feminist going, "Ok, I'm going to fight for someone's right to
wear a religious head covering that has a very sexist connotation?"
But of course, then she explained to me that her country will not allow them to play unless
they wear the headscarfs and so this is an access issue to sports and so in this case,
while she herself doesn't want to wear it in her private life, this is what they have
to do in order to be able to play, for instance at the Olympics.
And so it's always a question of asking what you can do to be helpful before making judgements.
I'm Shelby Knox, subscribe to THNKR.