We have all heard the term ‘feminism’ before but many people get confused with what it actually means. The definition of feminism is the advocacy of women's rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes. A key aspect of this definition is that feminists want equality, which can be mistaken by people as women being more powerful than men. This is not true, and for the reason of this misunderstanding by certain people, is a sense of disagreement towards feminists.

Luckily the way that women are treated today in Britain is not as bad as it was a few decades ago. Girls are mostly taught in school that they are valued as much as their male counterpart. But there are still gaps in the equality between men and women. For example jobs like engineers and even bus drivers are very male dominated – and it’s open for the world to see! For example if you search ‘engineer’ in images, then, apart from a few, all of the pictures are of men.

Another aspect of feminism and women’s rights is how a woman is seen in society and what people associate being a woman with. What feminists are trying to stop is countless numbers of girls being told to wear pretty pink dresses and like particular colours, just because they are female. Girls, especially in their teenage years are put under a lot of pressure and stress to look, dress and act a certain way so that they can ‘fit in’. This goes both ways – so many young boys are told that they can’t cry or show strong emotions because that is not ‘manly’. These mind frames then lead to stereotypes of genders and hateful comments made towards the people who don’t follow the oaths that society has set out for their gender. For all of these reasons, feminism is relevant.

I was out buying some clothes a few days ago and was shocked to see a t-shirt designed with the word ‘feminist’ in pink with a rose. I was very confused because doesn’t this design defy the whole purpose of feminism? Aren’t we trying to move away from the whole stereotype that girls like pink and are delicate? Also, shouldn’t feminists be both male and female?

In conclusion, I think it is important to remember this quotation said by Gloria Steinem, “Though we have the courage to raise our daughters like our sons, we’ve rarely had the courage to raise our sons like our daughters.”