Girls in Green talk Feminism

Ever since I had my first contract with the civil services, I became a keen listener of the Irish radio station RTÉ 2fm.
Having quickly adapted to the comfort of a dull office job, I started to get my daily ups out of listening to Tubs and Colm Hayes and sending in the odd e-mail to feed my new addiction. Last year, I even got to talk to Colm about the matter of German Bratwurst, Döner Kebabs and sausages on the go!

Lately, there have a number of feminism-related issues been discussed on the radio, such as the current state of abortion in Ireland, whether women should have armpit hair, if there are any funny females out there, and last but not least Colm was asking on yesterday's show, whether feminism itself is still existent or not.

I have always been a silent yet passionate supporter of feminism, once I wasn't busy cooking, cleaning or changing nappies of course, and felt that I could make a valuable contribution to his show. So, I sent in a mail, which I am proud to say received loads of credit through Colm :-). I was also asked if I'd like to talk about it on air, but as you know I was supposed to be working and am admittedly being too much of a coward to stand up for my believes in public, just like so many other women. On that note it is no surprise that Colm hasn't heard much about feminism for a long time.

A podcast of the show can be found here (keyword "feminism"):  http://www.rte.ie/radio1/podcast/podcast_colmhayesshow.xml 

And if you can't be bothered to listen to it online, this was my mail to Colm: (even though you're going to miss out on some great praise ;)

Hi Colm,

There are so many reasons to be a supporter of feminism that I can't list them in my short mail.

I just want to make you aware of the way women are brought up to be watching their every step to comply with society. Anti-feminism is a deeply social problem that has always been there and because it is going a long way back, we are not even aware of it!

From the moment a baby girl is born, other than a baby boy, she is going to be raised to please the people around her and from the moment she reaches adolescence her every move will be watched and she will always be judged by her looks (Does she shave her armpit hair?) and by her ability to be a good mother(it is unnatural for a mother not to be constantly around her kids) and wife (Is she being faithful?).

To make it more vivid, just think of a hairy lad who loves his family, but doesn't want to be around them the whole time amd instead spend time in a pub to watch matches. He also loves his wife, but after a few years of marriage physical interaction has become rare and he starts an affair with another woman. Sounds normal enough to be socially accepted, doesn't it? For a man that is!

How come the biggest enemies of feminism are found amongst women? Lack of equality perhaps?

If you are interested in feminism, particularly the way womankind is portrayed in the media, I would love to recommend this beautiful and professionally done blog: http://vagendamag.blogspot.com/ , which was created by a number of young modern age feminists who don't feed the stereotype of bra-burning, angry lesbians, that many of us have in mind when thinking of (the early and very important days of) feminism.