Why I Chose Feminism

Why I Chose Feminism 

 

I was born into a family where no one—not even today—fully understands what feminism means. The word was never spoken in our home. It didn’t appear in conversations, and no one ever questioned the roles we were all expected to play. I didn’t inherit feminism. I found it on my own.

It began when I encountered violence—sudden, disorienting, and deeply personal. I didn’t have the language to name it at first. I didn’t have the tools to understand what was happening around me, let alone resist it. But I knew something was wrong—terribly wrong. And so I turned to books. I started reading, listening, watching, and learning. I began to piece together the puzzle of a world that had never really made room for women like me to ask questions, let alone demand answers.

As I listened to experts speak on violence, power, and gender, I started seeing the pattern—not just in my life, but everywhere. I realized that this wasn’t just about individual pain. It was a system. A structure. A mechanism of control. The more I learned, the more clearly I could see how deeply patriarchy is woven into the fabric of our societies. For centuries, men have held power—over land, wealth, laws, and even over women’s bodies—while women, who do the invisible and essential labour of keeping life going, are denied basic agency and recognition.

I saw how toxic masculinity feeds on domination and silence. How it distorts love into control, power into entitlement. I understood, with painful clarity, how male ego—unchecked and unchallenged—can go as far as to torture, to kill, simply to maintain its illusion of superiority.

That’s when I chose feminism.

Not as a slogan or a trend—but as a lifeline. As a political and moral awakening. Feminism gave me the language I never had. It gave me a way to name what was happening, to understand the violence, to locate myself in a larger history of resistance led by women across time and place.

We live in a world still deeply shaped by patriarchy—a system that has upheld male dominance for thousands of years while silencing, excluding, and devaluing women. Feminism, to me, is a commitment to justice. It is about confronting and dismantling those deep-rooted inequalities and inherited lies that harm not only women, but everyone.

Patriarchy decides who gets to speak, who gets heard, and who holds power. It is present in everyday discrimination, in the glorification of aggression, and in the silence forced upon survivors. Too often, men have used their positions of privilege to lie, abuse, abandon, and escape responsibility. They have built systems to protect their power and waged wars to defend it—wars both literal and psychological.

Meanwhile, women—often invisible in history—have held the world together. They have raised generations, tended to wounds, and built peace in the quiet spaces of life. They have resisted in both subtle and radical ways, often without acknowledgment, often without rest.

Feminism is about honouring those women. It is about naming the truths society tries to hide. It is about demanding recognition, equity, and dignity. It is about imagining a world where no one is punished for their gender, where power is not used to destroy, but to heal.

I chose feminism because I believe in that world—a world more honest, more compassionate, and more just. And I choose it again, every day.