ENGLISH WOMEN ARE STILL FIGHTING!
Women have
had to overcome many difficult situations throughout history. The first time that
women decided to fight was in England before the First World War. They created
a small movement that began to get bigger. All these women called themselves
“suffragists” or “suffragettes”. The word “suffragettes” appeared for the first
time as an insult for them, but they didn’t feel offended by it. They decided
to adopt the name, and finally defended it with all their strength.
The suffragettes
were all women who worked in factories in very bad conditions, and they did not
have any right, that’s why they decided to fight against unequal system and finally
obtained the right to vote. Thanks to these women, law and society changed.
There is a fantastic film which shows us these amazing English women that fought for their rights, and all the terrible things that they had to overcome at the time. The film is called Suffragette.
Thanks to
them, women began to have more rights and started to have similarities with men,
politically and socially speaking. But after all, this fight remains nowadays
and not only in England, but all around the world. Even so, English women are
still having a big part in this fight. A good example would be Emma Watson.
Emma
Watson, the British actress, known for playing the role of Hermione in Harry Potter, is using her fame and her position with the United
Nations to shine a spotlight on the problem of gender inequality and sexual
assault at universities and colleges around the world. She has created a big
initiative called HeForShe.
The British
actress made a speech in September 2014 which was focused on gender inequality
around the world and the important role that men and boys must play in fighting
for equality for girls and women. In that speech, she explained a personal
situation of her, in which we can still notice the inequality between women and
men in England:
"I started questioning gender-based assumptions a long time ago. When I
was 8, I was confused for being called bossy because I wanted to direct the
plays that we would put on for our parents, but the boys were not. When at 14,
I started to be sexualized by certain elements of the media. When at 15, my
girlfriends started dropping out of sports teams because they didn’t want to
appear muscly. When at 18, my male friends were unable to express their
feelings."
The most
important step in the British politics has been the election of a woman as Prime Minister
of the United Kingdom: Margaret Thatcher; and today Theresa May. Theresa May
has created a movement to bring more women into Tory politics.
To sum up, I would just say that each of
these women have been and are being huge symbols in British history, symbols
that are allowing us to reach more equality in this world. What do you
think about them? Do you think that there are Spanish women like them? Could
you write any example? And finally, do you think that you are contributing in
some way to this fight against inequality?
Written by: Isabel García Crespo - EPD 12. The other members of the group: Antonio Riquelme Delgado, Irene Ortega López, Othman Maalmy.
You have choosen good examples. I heard a lot of Ewwa Watson and nowadays she is best known for her great general culture and for her role in society as a great feminist. For the movie, I didn't know him until I saw him in class last week. I was very surprised, especially because it has really captivated me. I found it very honorable that at the end of the film Emily gives her life for this cause.
ReplyDeleteI don't know spanish feminist but one of the celebreties best known today is Beyoncé. She is really involved. Indeed, she wrote several songs about that, and always sends a feminist message to all her concerts.
Thanks, Isabel, for this blog entry. Indeed, equality in all senses is a never-ending battle, mainly because we are talking about mentality, rather than law, and mentality is difficult to change. But thanks to the media, and individual initiatives, a lot of changes have occurred throughout history. However, it is now the fact that a woman, for example, is elected as Primer Minister that changes it all; let's remember that M. Thatcher considered traditional female and male roles to be kept in society. It is those men and women who were against traditional values that made a change and re-wrote history.
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