#internationalwomensday

I spent my teenage years growing up in the early 2000s, the years of female celebrity feuds, paparazzi upskirt shots, the rise of social media, 'nothing tastes as good as skinny feels' & young womens magazines with articles such as 'out of these 5 women which body type does the man on the street prefer' (I shit you not, I remember reading this article and actually thought it was important.)

I remember it feeling like we were being taught, how to pitch ourselves against other women. We were constantly hearing & reading about feuds between two female celebrities. The media would compare the girls & their work like it was a spectator sport, their latest albums or movies or whatever they were doing or even wearing at the time was compared against each other & wether it was intentional or not, it fuelled this toxic competitiveness between girls.

Female celebrities would be featured in articles because of what they wore, or what awful photo was taken of them without their consent, or which man they were dating, very, very rarely would an article be written about a female celebrity that focused solely on their work.

There were also magazine articles telling us to be skinnier, but not too skinny, have curves, but stay slim, wear makeup, but not too much, wear short skirts, but not too short, show off your cleavage, but not too much. Depending on your body type you can only wear certain cuts of jeans, or your skin tone can only take certain colours, you face shape will only suit certain haircuts. Don't forget how to disguise your little bit of belly fat, and don't forget these tricks to make your legs look longer & slimmer.
But also, be confident, confidence is attractive, but not too confident, obviously.

It felt like a never ending tirade on why we, as females, weren't good enough, our work didn't matter & if you weren't pleasing to men then you were useless.

Speaking as a 20-something year old that grew up extremely influenced by these things, the new rise of feminism over the past few years has meant so much. It's opened my eyes to just how toxic and harmful the things I, and other girls were eventually telling ourselves as a young teenagers were, and it makes me furious.

Our young, impressionable minds should have never been taught to think these things. 

We should have been told about the inspiring work of other women, taught more about the fight of the suffragette movement, we should've viewed each other as sisters not as competition for a boyfriend, and most of all we should have been taught that to be strong, kind, intelligent women is more important than being deemed pretty enough by society.

International Women's Day has been a thing since the early 1900s. I am 27 years old & I only learnt about it three years ago.
In some countries, as I discovered while talking to a friend of mine today, it's a yearly event, on March 8th in her home country, she is given flowers & wished a happy women's day by men, she spent all day today receiving lovely messages from male friends & family, which is utterly lovely, but at the same time, in the same country a single woman would struggle to get a mortgage on a house because she's on her own, she even said that adopting as a single woman just wouldn't happen there, you couldn't do it. From where she is from, women are homemakers & wives, there to keep their husband fed & happy - and yet, Women's Day is a whole thing there, but only for the one day - it really made me stop & think.

Now I haven't even started on what is going on elsewhere in the world when it comes to feminism & the daily struggles of other women. I am 100% aware that many have had it much worse that some toxic magazine articles infecting their mind. But International Womens Day is an excellent day to talk about these subjects, share your story & shed your own light on it all, wether we like it or not, we have all be effected in one way or another & I think it's important to share our stories because we are all on the same side.

To any and all women - I hope you know how important, extraordinary & relevant you are regardless of what you've been told in the past. You are beautiful because you are entirely yourself & that is & will always be enough.