By Emily Brown
As a 23-year-old woman I consider myself extremely independent and aware of my rights. I have been strong-willed and determined since I was a little girl, and have always fought for the respect of all human beings. In elementary school I started donating my allowance money to the local food bank. Later I volunteered in nursing homes, started a club that knit hats for children with cancer, and much more. I have always had a passion for mankind and helping others.
I see value and dignity in every human being and fight for the rights of every person. In high school I started paying attention to the feminist movement, seeing how warriors such as Alice Paul, Susan B. Anthony, and Dorothy Day were the role models who fought for women’s rights. I looked up to these women as my heroes, especially as I became more involved in the pro-life movement.
In college I started participating in pro-life events and helped lead a pro-life club on campus. I saw how abortion exploited women, especially young women, and I wanted to be like my feminist heroes and help end this abuse and control of women. It was at this time I started realizing that the typical “feminist” movement that is seen on TV, read about in Cosmo, and talked about on campuses was not the feminist movement I grew up respecting. In fact, this new movement is controlled by women who have lost all self-respect and consistently betray their own selves.
The loss of self-respect means that these women have denied their own femininity. Somewhere along the lines the feminist movement started believing that having equal rights means being equal on all fronts to a man. This is nonsense. And it is not at all empowering.
I am not empowered by changing my body to be manlier and using hormones to block what I am designed to do. I am not empowered by screaming obscenities to others who disagree with my beliefs. I am not empowered by falsely believing that in order to stand up for women’s rights you need to agree that the killing of babies in their mothers’ wombs is a human right. I am not empowered by telling girls they should be able to walk around shirtless because their body is equivalent to a man’s body. This is not empowering. It’s manipulative.
The current feminist movement betrays women. It betrays the very essence of femininity. It wants to put all women in a box that says you need to stand up for the killing of babies and the promotion of birth control if you truly want to embrace your womanhood.
So ladies, I’m throwing this mentality out the window. Our ancestors would be horrified if they saw the current feminist movement. It’s time for women to be empowered by being THEMSELVES—by being a woman. It’s time we proudly affirm that motherhood is one of the most beautiful aspects of a woman that a man will never be able to experience. It’s time to be proud of the fact that we don’t want to alter our bodies hormonally. It’s time to be proud that we work hard in the corporate world to achieve greatness or to be proud if we work our butts off at home caring for the future leaders of this world. We need to be proud of who we are!
Do not let the current feminist agenda make you feel less as a woman. The feminist movement does not define you, nor does it define me. I am pro-life, pro-woman, and proud of it!
Emily Brown, the granddaughter of Judie Brown, graduated magna cum laude from Mount St. Mary’s University with a bachelor’s degree in special and elementary education and a minor in theology in May 2015. She is the director of ALL’s new youth department, ALL Life Defenders. She plans on educating and collaborating with young adults all over the country to empower the new generation to respect all life from creation to death!