BadRep Begins

There has never been a better, more exciting time to be a feminist.

–Zoe Margolis, reviewing Cath Redfern’s Reclaiming the F Word

Hi there, internet! This is a feminist blog-

Quit gurning at the back already. EYES FRONT, PEOPLE. Just for a moment.

This is a feminist blog.

Feminism has a bad old rep at the moment. My search results for the word, as I write this, are a predictable molotov of very established feminist sites and an obligatory dollop of “this stuff destroys homes”-type bile.  So far, so expected.

But increasingly, there’s a lot of mainstream cringing about the f-word going on, with words like “irrelevant”, “exclusive” and “outdated” on constant rotation.  Call yourself a feminist in conversation, and you will very likely be handed the Invisible Awkward Balloon.

You know what I’m talking about.  Suddenly everyone’s looking at you funny. They’ve decided you’re “a bit quirky”. You have to hold the Awkward Balloon for the rest of the conversation. No matter what you do, it will not just float away. You think, “Ack. I am so not mentioning this aspect of my socio-political views out loud ever again”.  Sad times, people.

That Whole Knotty ‘What Is Feminism Anyway’ Business

For us, putting it simply, feminism is the recognition that in many areas both close to home and internationally, women and men do not receive equal rights and privileges.  It goes further than that, too – it’s the stance of owning the opinion that this should change for the better, and not in a way in which one gender supercedes another, whatever the “fem” bit at the beginning might imply. A great deal of progress has been made with this in many countries, but the fact remains that attitudes change slowly, even after legislation has been passed.

The Dreaded F-Word, You Say?

There are a lot of people out there who would support the above stance.  But they’re wary of using the dreaded f-word, or of connecting with people who use it.  Some of them, however it happened – and we’re not bothered about blaming anybody –  seem to have ended up feeling that their activism might not be welcome if they did either of these things.  We think this is a shame.

Ladies And Gentlemen And Everybody Else

The six individuals who make up this blog at the time of writing – and we are a mixed-gender group – are friends. We didn’t meet through feminism, though we have it in common as a label we agree works well. This blog is our shared platform – and we don’t always agree with each other, either. Sometimes we’re angry, but we also have a sense of humour. We’re all featured briefly on our About page, but we hope that we’ll emerge, over time, as distinct voices.

Our strapline is a feminist pop culture adventure. We’re named after a Joan Jett song for a reason – we want to be a good first route in for people just starting to become interested in feminist and gender-related issues, and we also want to reclaim some of the inspiring, rock ‘n’ roll energy that characterised the feminist movement in previous generations. (Also, c’mon. Joan Jett is freaking badass.)

Jett leaps into action. Kinda like we want to. We named our site after Bad Reputation for a reason...

Angry All The Time?

This site is about looking for positives as much as shouting out a problem – if we don’t like something, we’ll  try and point at something else we think does get it right, or something that you, at grassroots level, can do about it.  We’re about simple, practical activism.

So it’s not all anger and humourless ranting, though anger rightly has its place as long as there’s still a gender gap.

But it is about moving, about thinking about what’s going on around you, every day, and pushing – even in small ways –  for change.

And it’s about enjoying how far we have come, acknowledging the good stuff, and connecting with people who feel the same.

Let’s Go!

A movement is defined by who’s on board. It is what you make it. We like this bandwagon fine. It may have a Bad Rep, but we’re okay with that. It’s our bandwagon, too. It’s achieved good things, and we believe it isn’t done yet.

Welcome aboard.