Raenelle

Recently I decided to start a feminist club at my high school. I decided to do this after the following incident;

I was suffering from severe clinical depression. As is often so with clinical depression, I wanted to kill myself. Not knowing who to turn to, I called the children’s helpline. I was having difficulties with my bi-polar mother at the time. I told the man on the phone that she hit me, locked me in rooms, screamed swearwords across the house, etc. He said that “that sounds like a typical woman.” He then proceeded to try to convince me not to go to university, and that I should instead focus on “marrying young and trying to be a good wife.” When I said that that was very disrespectful, he angrily said that he hoped I would end up a bitch like my mother because “women always do.” Then he hung up the phone, saying that if I killed myself it would be “one less woman for men to deal with”.

It broke my heart. I told a few people, but no one believed me. The only people who understood were my feminist teacher and my pro-feminist dad. I realized then that misogyny is more rampant and more serious than I previously thought. So a few weeks after this incident, I went to the principal’s office and asked if I could start a feminist group at our school. Our school has many rights groups; gay, muslim, ...