Originally published by OnDit Issue 84.5 on Monday 9 May 2016.

I once told someone to shove it when I was ordered into the kitchen, and I’ve since been called a feminist by my friends and family. I was twelve at the time. I’m proud to claim the title; for me, being a feminist is about equal rights and opportunities. It’s about the fact that my gender (or yours, for that matter) shouldn’t impact how people treat me, what jobs I can pursue or what hobbies I can have. I feel genuinely sorry for some of my more unfortunate associates who have had to stand around listening to me while I’m on my soap box.

But that’s not the soapbox I’m going to get on today. Today I want to talk about choice. As I said, to me women’s rights and the feminist movement are about giving us women equal opportunities to choose our own pathways. The career women and single mothers are obviously strongly supported in this argument – they have chosen a difficult path and stuck to it, heads held high. But what about me? What about the girls who don’t want to follow the difficult paths?

I’m very driven and want to get a good career for myself, I’ve never depended on a man to make me feel good, and I have never acted in a specific way because it is expected of me as a woman. But I have spent the last five years defending my relationship to a wide variety of people.

Tyson and I met at a friend’s BBQ and six months later we started dating (actually we just started sleeping together, and decided we’d say it was a relationship). That one night was probably the best decision of my life. I managed to find someone who takes me (with all of my idiosyncrasies and complications) and loves me. Just the way I am. Believe me, I know how rare and special that is… there’s just one issue… he’s “communicationally inept”. Or, as I often call him, he’s a grunt-grunt-scratch-scratch-man.

I’ve been told that he is an asshole because it took him over two years to admit that he loved me. That I’m somehow weak and not at all a strong, independent woman because I’m in a relationship. Or because I’m in a relationship that is with a non-hipster man. Apparently because the guy that I chose fits all the gender stereotypes, I must be a submissive housewife and that it’s somehow a bad thing. If you asked my partner, he would set you straight on that… I’m not housewifey, I’m not submissive, and according to him, I’m just generally crap at remembering to run any errands.

What I want to know is – since when did my relationship choice affect anyone but myself? Since when did mere acquaintances have the right to tell me how they feel about something that makes me happy? If you want to date a man, woman, something in between, go ahead. It’s up to you who to keep in your life to make you happy, and choosing that person doesn’t make you any less, or more, of a feminist. We should all be arguing for our ability to choose what we want, not the ability of others to choose what’s ideal for you.

Image source: The Huffington Post
Image source: Tara Burner
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