Why feminism is still important

There are some things in this world that we don’t really need anymore, or if we do need them, we only find a use for them once every five years or so. We don’t need cassette players because everything is either on CD or download. We don’t need telephone boxes because we all have mobile phones now, and telephone boxes always smelt like urine, anyway. We don’t need Emmanuel Adebayor because we’ve got Robin van Persie (when he’s not injured, that is), just like we don’t need feminism because we’ve got...

That’s the part that I struggle with: working out what it is that has come in and replaced feminism – because I look around me now and all I see is young women and girls shoving chicken fillets down their bras and queuing up to buy a former page 3 model’s latest novel, whose contribution to said novel probably didn’t extend past the main character’s first name. You ask these girls and young women what their aspirations are in life, and either they won’t know what ‘aspiration’ means, or they’ll tell you they want to marry a footballer or go on The X Factor.

How people choose to live their life is their own business, and not for a second would I wish a woman to sacrifice her happiness for a job with more prestige just because it’s more ‘respectable’. The problem is that I don’t believe many of these girls are happy. How can you be happy if you live your life striving towards an almost completely unobtainable goal? How can you be happy if you want to be a singer but can’t sing, if you want to marry a footballer but the only ones who will look at you play for a Championship side and already have wives, or if you want to be a model but your breasts are too small?

You can have surgery, of course. Surgery seems to solve most of the world’s problems these days. You don’t really need to be able to sing if your face and body can do the job instead (going back to what I said earlier, I guess we don’t need Aretha Franklin because we’ve got auto-tune now), and if you’re a B-cup and only attracting attention from Championship footballers, move up to a DD-cup and I’m sure John Terry or Ashley Cole at least might throw you a bone (pun not intended). But what happens when you’ve had the surgery and that’s still not good enough? Do you keep going? The breasts are bigger but the bum is still too small; you’ve fixed your nose but your chin is still a little wide; your ears have been pinned but you’ve still got that mole under your eye; your tummy has been tucked but your lips are still too thin. When you’ve finally exhausted all of the above, then you can move onto labiaplasty (if you don’t know what that is, it’s when they perform plastic surgery on your labia to make it look prettier), and then maybe go out to a club with nothing but a belt covering your nipples, and hey presto: you’ve made it! (Or at least until the next talentless nobody comes along and uses her HH-boobies to barge you to one side.)

Just because women won the right to vote doesn’t mean that we can all hang up our knickers and call it a day, but according to some, that’s it now: mission accomplished. Apparently, we now have all the rights and freedom men have. 94% of rapes go unconvicted in the UK, but that’s OK because ‘sexi ladies’ get free entry into clubs before 11pm; men earn 27% more than women, but what the hell are we complaining about? We get to dance round poles half-naked because it’s fun and empowering and we’re taking control of our sexuality!

The thing that saddens me most about my generation is that it does not know what feminism is and therefore cannot judge whether or not we need it. We’ve all heard that feminists are lesbians, have hairy legs and hate men; it’s funny, because 300 years ago, any woman who went against the status quo was accused of being a witch and burned at the stake. Obviously these days we can’t go around murdering women just because they happen to be capable of independent thought, but call her a feminist and people will automatically assume she’s nuts and disregard anything she says, so at least in that sense little has changed since the times of witch-hunting. But just for the record, let me set one thing straight:

Feminism does not care if what makes you happy is being a doctor or a model, a lawyer or a singer, future Prime Minister or stay-at-home mum, but feminism does care that you are happy, and that the decisions you make about your life are based on what you want, and not what our patriarchal society has led you to believe is important. Put ten teenage girls in front of this article and I bet you that nine out of ten of them will tell you that they know their own mind, but the reality is quite different. If you are one of those ten and you often find yourself dreaming of fame and glamour and men falling in love with you, ask yourself this: are you happy?

Now tell me we don’t need feminism anymore.