Feminism is about equality, that’s all

Sir,

I would like to respond to the letter by ‘Slow’ in Wednesday’s paper, titled ‘How is feminism applied, really?’

Dear Slow, women have had very little rights for the past two thousand years, although for thousands of years before that women were revered and held in very high esteem.

The Suffragettes started a very visible

and, at the time, highly emotive women’s rights movement simply because we didn’t have any rights (editor’s note: ‘suffrage’ is the right to vote).
Our husbands could not leave us land, we were not allowed to have any money, we had to be under the care of our male family members, we could not own land or be educated and the thought of us voting was truly shocking.

After all, male peasants had only just been allowed a common vote, which was difficult enough for the powers-that-were to swallow!
Feminism has been both good and bad for us women; good because it empowered a number of women to take their power back, and bad as it excluded men.

As a woman I can only speak for myself; I am all about equality.
Laws should be there for both sexes and that’s pretty much it, really. It is simply that any discrimination is wrong, be it on race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, wealth or health.

Offensive

The only part of your letter that I found offensive was your statement about women being ‘your treasures’.
We are not ‘your’ treasures and we do not need anyone to keep us.
As a woman, I have not once been subjected to gender inequality - simply because I do not feel unequal to a man.
It is not that women need to be empowered by other sectors of society; it is again, simply, that we have to own our own power.

Esteem

We should not hand it over to anyone; we should rely on ourselves, find our own way and be responsible for our own lives.
Swaziland, as a matriarchal society, has long held women in high esteem so it is not as though this is a new concept here.
We are treated in life the way we allow people to treat us and that is not just a statement for women. The power lies within us and it is how we manifest it that creates life’s experiences.

Julie Nixon
Gone Rural Swaziland
Managing Director

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