Feminist revamp.

I am in the process of revising my feminism. Or revamping it, regenerating it, growing it. However you want to put it. I've noticed that this happens in a big way every few years. Of course it grows continually as I read more and learn more. But every few years I find myself re-evaluating what it means to me.

I'm calling my feminism "it" as if it were some inanimate object I possess, something I hold quite dear. I'm calling it "my feminism" because it is absolutely part of who I am and incorporates pretty much everything I believe in.

But, of course, what you believe in changes and develops as you get older and so my feminism changes and develops as I experience life, as I absorb life.

I remember very clearly being told what my mother believed to be feminism when I was around 10 or 11 years old. My life changed then when she opened my eyes to the prejudices and injustices I would have to face as a woman. I remember feeling angry and passionate. I haven't stopped feeling angry and passionate ever since.

What I understood feminism to mean then is almost a whole world different to how I understand it now. Aged 10 the basics were that women in the past had been seen and treated as lesser than men and things were better now but there was still work to do. Aged 19.9 there are no basics. Well, everything should be basic and simple and easy but it isn't. It is complicated and enormous and I think about it every single day.

My current feminist revival is exhilarating. It's about self love and confidence and being proud of my existence and my achievements. It's about not being talked down to and not being quiet and not regretting not speaking up when I should have done. It's about exploring all the intersections of feminism and learning how I can use my own privilege to give a voice to the women who aren't white, straight, cisgender and socio-economically privileged like I am. It's about reaching out to other women and gaining strength from them. It's about allowing my anger, my passion, my emotion to show as clearly as it needs to and not feeling guilty or sorry about it afterwards. Unless I was wrong. It's about love and loneliness and desire.

It's about collating everything I have learnt over the years and sorting it out in my head and relearning who I am and what I believe.

It is about my existence as a woman on this planet and making sure that my tiny life can make some tiny difference.