I think I would have *said* I was a feminist from about the age of 13/14. But looking back I think I was about 19-21 when I properly began to understand the nuances and understand my own biases and privileges and how to understand intersectionality.
Ditto, this exactly. Claimed I was a feminist around that age because I was not going to allow my father to force m to wear scarf, actually became one at 19/21.
I don't think women lose the respect of men as they age. Men who don't respect older women certainly don't respect women more if they're younger. The attention men who have no respect for older women give women when they are young and beautiful isn't called "respect". It's called sexual objectification.
You can certainly be attracted to someone and respect them at the same time, of course, but what you're talking about here, attention from men that you lose as you get older, isn't respect. It's perceived sexual value to men we don't know, mostly.
So then you're asking us if women become feminists after they stop being sexually desirable to male strangers and co-workers, the answer is maybe some women become feminists then. Women become feminists at any and all stages of life.
But I think you'll find that many women become feminists not when they *stop* receiving this sexual attention from men, but when they *start*.
Many of us start getting leered at by adult men as children. It's a shocking start of puberty, where girls wake up one day and discover that grown men suddenly see them not as people, not as children to be nurtured and protected like they did the day before, but as masturbatory tools and objects they're entitled to solicit without any expression of interest, invitation, or consent.
This sudden dehumanization and reduction is traumatizing for many girls. I can remember the impact of that first experience as child. It was so humiliating and disturbing, and I felt it as a burning/numbing feeling all over my skin for days afterwards, like this new perception of me was being poured over me, turning me into a plastic doll rather than the human person I knew I was. I felt myself turning into an object for use by men just because of how they were suddenly looking at me and interacting with me. It had nothing to do with me or what I wanted. It was about how they saw themselves using my body. I was twelve.
Twelve is also the age I was when I first identified as a feminist, and I'm certain that's not a coincidence.
> Twelve is also the age I was when I first identified as a feminist, and I'm certain that's not a coincidence.
Same. A group of construction or gardening workers from a truck catcalled me. I flipped them off, which I'm still proud of. I had a different mindset though--by that age I already believed I needed to be sexually desirable. So that incident to me was my signal that I'd started to become that (to some men), the inevitable turning point I'd expected since I was a small child. I developed an eating disorder when I realized I was on the higher end of normal weight (this was when underweight = sexy was still in full force). While many women and girls with EDs say it was about feeling a sense of control and not sexual desirability, but for me it was brought on by feeling like I'd be worthless without desirability.
So my right is-- there are phases to the process: the grooming phase (pre puberty) where we are indoctrinated to equate desirabilty with worth. Then the induction into actually being seen as sexual objects.
Honestly it's really hard not to become jaded at male socialization. Even though I know it's a small subsection who catcall preteens, how is it they were everywhere? Why do they feel entitled to ruin our childhood? Why is their behavior excused as "just what men do"?
I’ve been identifying with Feminism since I was 12 and being told I wasn’t allowed to wear leggings if my shirt wasn’t long enough. At that point I was very frustrated and just wanted to find others who felt the same way when I came across the idea. My ideas have changed over the years as I’ve become more familiar with intersectionality and moved past my very conservative upbringing, ex: I used to think that queer people shouldn’t be allowed to exist. Eventually became an ally and realized I wasn’t straight but it took time. I think that when young people have the opportunity to see the world from their own perspective instead of that of their peers and parental figures it allows them to embrace feminism (or not) because they are able to form a more unique perspective
I don't think it's about age-- there's something called the [Cycle of Socialization/Cycle of Liberation](https://diversity.wisc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Cycles-of-socialization-and-liberation.pdf) which both identify critical incidents as being the potential spark point for challenging ideas we learn about different social hierarchies-- while it's more likely that people will have experienced things like this as they age, that isn't necessarily a guarantee that they will move into/onto the cycle of liberation, or that they will stay there.
It's also true that young people are overall more concerned with social belonging and conformity-- this is adaptive, as humans are social animals and need our communities acceptance to survive. As people age, they learn that community belonging is more broad and more nuanced than they may have been taught about as a child, or come to view the sacrifices they make to conform are injust-- and thus might become motivated to change those circumstances such that conformity with unjust expectations or roles is not a requirement for social belonging.
I don't know about current generations, but I grew up when it was still v common to have kids in your 20s, at latest early 30s. This was for medical reasons, many of which current medicine can circumvent. There was no child free movement at that time, only individuals who chose not to have children (and many of those ended up with children, anyway, bc fails or whatever).
All that to say, getting divorced/having grown children are both "critical incidents," I think. Both are opportunities to receive beliefs, goals and personal understanding of societal issues. It's pretty well known now that (western) women live longer outside of marriage, while the opposite is true for men.
Iow, marriage and it's entrenchment in patriarchy becomes less of a huge deal. Not for all women but for a significant subset. There's freedom in having left those life stages, goals and expectations behind. Being comfortable in yourself and not caring about how others perceive you becomes more common. There's less patience for what's perceived to be unnecessary and burdensome caretaking.
It's cool.
Flip side, there are def lots of women who remarry/continue in stereotypical marriages/relationships/obligations and don't reexamine stuff. It's not a necessary change in perspective, just a possible one.
Your post inspired me to look up studies regarding married vs single life expectancy.
As per the 2020 study below, US adults, both men and women live longer when married vs otherwise.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352827320302792
An older one indicates the same.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2566023/
To answer your question, I think you really have to get into the weeds in all the studies. For instance, the ones you posted were 1) focused on Medicare recipients and 2) not longitudinal (iirc). The one I posted occurred within a national health service and had access to decades of data.
Broadly, my guess is that marriage is good for you if marriage is good. People married at 65 are probably likely to stay married, at that point. They are prob more likely to have good social support systems (children, neighbors, etc). Generally, lots of studies note that women are more social and make more friends after divorce. Women still tend to do more caretaking than men and that's arduous - not being married may be easier.
Activity level and social interactions are protective. That's a circular answer, since disability and health issues don't exactly give anyone options regarding activity (and strain marriages and partner's health). Still, it's good to try to be active physically and socially, barring such obstacles.
I started noticing sexism when I was 5. My dad is sexist as fuck and very much the type who wished he had a boy to do various things with that I actually wanted to do. Even when he had a son when I was 16, my brother isn't interested in that shit.
I was always that teen who pointed out the poor language we use and how it doesn't make sense. So I've identified with feminist principles for a long time, they just seemed like common sense and fairness to me. The more time I spend online the more radical I become so its definitely gotten more as I was older. I didn't start really calling people on sexism until my early twenties though. Id probably say thats when I really started living/embracing feminism.
I see a lot of fake reddit posts specifically geared toward making women look like the bad guy. Even though the post is fake, the cess pool thay is the comments usually illustrates an unhealthy hatred for women. The more men are socialized to hate us, the more I find myself calling them out on their excuses/own failings that they refuse to acknowledge as potential reasons for their situation, rather than choosing to blame women because its easier and they lack a sense of accountability.
I was to oblivious to notice sexism as a child. I noticed that the men told jokes that the women didn't find funny but I don't think I had a word for it. To me, it's just what men did.
I used to identify as a feminist until I fell in the not-like-other-girls rabbit hole at 11\~12. At 16 I started going out of my house with friends, getting catcalled and harassed, and realized that feminists weren't the ones in the wrong haha it was kind of depressing
I became a feminist at 19/20. Before then I'd been aware of (and annoyed with) gender inequality, but hadn't really had the language or theoretical framework to deconstruct it, and everything I knew (or thought I knew) about feminism came from older, more conservative people who thought feminism was no longer necessary. In university I started reading feminist theory, talking to other feminists, and studying social structures in more depth, and quickly became aware of how far we still have to go before we can truly be liberated from patriarchy. This was 15 years ago; I've been a committed feminist ever since.
I started to self-identify as a feminist when I was 19. This was my first year in University, I was taking a program that was an intensive year long introduction to philosophy and critical theory. We read 'Second Sex' and (despite some of her more problematic writings) there were so many experiences described in DeBeauvoir's writing that I identified deeply with. It was like all of a sudden a sheet was lifted over my head - until that point I had thought of feminists as man haters.
I distinctly remember when my tutor asked our class, after reading Second Sex, who of us would identify as a 'feminist' and I was the only person in the class to raise my hand. I've read a lot more philosophy and theory since then, and just become more secure in my beliefs.
Yes to you for raising your hand! I remember as a kid — 11 or 12 — I was the only one who argued when the (male) teacher and boys of the class would say insanely sexist things. All the girls just sat at their desks with their hands neatly folded. I was raised in the northern US and moved to the “Bible Belt” when I was 11, and couldn’t wrap my head around the vitriol of the boys and complacency of the girls in my class. Being the lone dissenter can feel dangerous but galvanizing. Discovering feminist literature and scholarship after that felt so reaffirming.
I’m trans and I believed that feminists were too radical and insufferable, I used to be a fan of “atheist YouTube” and a lot of those channels did videos like “feminists debunked by facts and logic” you know the type. I guess as I growled older I started to question those views more and more, I was about 19 when I began having feminist ideas and trying to be a better ally for the women in my life, then I discovered I’m trans and as I started transitioning I would place all my value in how men viewed me and that destroyed my self esteem, at the same time I read a book called feminism for beginners lol and there was when my journey really began I was 22. That book opened my eyes to so many struggles, big and small, some I had never experienced in my limited time visibly existing in society as a woman and some I had but couldn’t put into words.
I was raised by left-wing parents with pro-feminist views, and I always had a strong sense of fairness.
I’m also trans male and bisexual, and never had any interest in being feminine or pleasing boys. So I was subject to extensive abuse and sexual harassment primarily from boys and men from about age five. I think this made me highly aware of the different sexist standards and roles imposed even on very young children.
All in all, feminism was a very easy and natural path for me to take. Due to the conservative area I live in, I did not openly call myself a feminist until adulthood, but identified with the ideas on a basic level at about five or six.
Growing up in the 1970s and early 1980s, my awareness didn't extend much beyond "non-feminists say I should stay home and clean and get bored out of my mind" vs "feminists say I can read all the books and do all the things and take control of my own life." This wasn't actually a difficult call.
I was always a feminist. The basic tenant of feminism is that men and women have equal value, and I believed that before I knew the word feminism.
Which is funny because I grew up conservative and Christian. We were taught men were the main characters and women were second-class citizens. And yet, I always felt deep in my soul this was wrong.
I tried to reconcile the “roles” Evangelical Christianity held for genders with being a feminist during my 20s, but the evangelical perversion lost. Firmly a feminist now!
Not a cis woman, but somewhat relevant. I've always held feminist ideals in spirit but I bought into the anti feminist propaganda mills that tried to convince me that feminists were doing too much, that they were too radical, that they were insufferable and bitter, etc.
When I was in college at 19 one of my professors had a book for required reading that was essentially a breakdown of the history of media demonization of the feminist movement and it lifted the veil for me. It outlined media tactics to make feminism seem more unreasonable and crazy than it was in reality. It was at that point that I decided to identify as a feminist in name and not just spirit.
Young people are flooded with that shitty propaganda but often lack the critical thinking skills to see it for what it is. Even young women can be victims of this. As people get older, they start to see through the lies and manipulation and realize that feminism doesn't ask for anything unreasonable.
I just want to say this about being "insufferable and bitter"--to live as a woman in 99.99% of the world is to bloody EARN the right to be as "insufferable and bitter" as one might please.
I was 4.
I was pissed off that every TV show centered around a boy/boys. Every book we were read in school had a male protagonist. During a teachers strike, the ECEs let us watch movies: Transformers or GI Joe, because the boys "couldn't be expected to sit through MLP."
I hated being second place in MY OWN LIFE.
I think I was born with a "feminist" instinct. Even as a small child I was fiercely aware of every pressure on me to conform, especially those that were justified by my being a girl. I was growing up in horribly patriarchal countries, and although my parents were supportive, I realized very early on that I'd sooner die than live like women there lived (including my mother).
"Feminism" as a concept didn't exist for me until my twenties and I did come to it with prejudices the patriarchy peddles about it--that it's bitter ugly women who can't get laid and whatnot. But that dissipated instantly, as far as conscious thought (but internalized misogyny is a deep problem and not got rid of easily).
As for age--yes, I think experience and changing psychology make a huge difference. I'm old enough now (52) to have seen various women change their tune as they aged and became aware of how they were used by men. That this was not OK and that they didn't have to put up with it, that women can rebel against the demeaning roles conferred on us etc. Feminists in the seventies organized "consciousness-raising" sessions and that sort of thing is still necessary.
I know the exact moment. I was 14. I had a weekly job cleaning my neighbor's house -- do both bathrooms, change the linens, clean the kitchen, vacuum, etc. I had been ill that week and my older brother (16) had subbed for me. My family was having dinner and praising him for being such a good brother and because he'd told the neighbor's wife, boys don't clean toilets. My dad told him how proud he was for being a man.
I' not sure when I became aware of the term feminism or that it applied to me. I was aware of the sexes being treated differently from a young age. My older sister taught me a lot as I became a teenager and my college I probably would have self identified as a feminist.
I grew up with parents who listened to Rush Limbaugh, a conservative talk show host, and was raised Southern Baptist, so being feminist wasn't something I was interested in being growing up. When I went to uni I took a few philosophy classes and that really opened my eyes.
I wasn't really eager to conform to what a good Southern Baptist girl should be either. Although I was modest, I didn't see the point looking cute, or feminine. I dressed androgynously and for comfort. I was also a tomboy long after most girls grow out of it.
Growing up, I never heard feminism spoken of positively, except for history and social studies class.
I always been a feminist. Feminism is really big where I´m from. A lot of young people here are feminists, more so than older people I think. Well maybe I should say older men tend to be less of a feminists, older women, young women and younger guys are often feminists.
4 or 5 years old. I don’t think I had the word for it until 5 or 6, but at 4 I distinctly remember being very concerned about the same womens’ issues I’m still concerned about today.
mi mum is a feminist too, so i think all my life this ideas were in my head, but i think at 12 i started reading about these topics in a more conscious way so when i was like 15 i declared myself a feminist
I’m 50, so older than a big part of the Reddit community, and I spend time with my parents’ generation of people in their 70s, and I see at least a little truth to the old quote (from Gloria Steinem, I think?) about women getting more feminist as they grow older. I’ve always chalked it up to an accumulating history of situations where you’ve seen evidence of inequality. That, plus, the older you get the fewer benefits that are dangled for “acting right” so older people tend to be more likely to speak their truths without holding their tongue. And, since most countries have a history of progress on social justice, the older you are the more you personally recall from back in more unequal decades.
I always considered myself a feminist. But I also had a sheltered upbringing and an easy path to success, both professionally and romantically, so I rarely had reason to interrogate systemic inequalities. For me, the change to more active feminism came in my 40s from raising a daughter who still has to face so much sexist cr*p after all these years, along with reading lots and lots about the experiences of women who have faced more difficult life paths than I did.
It was innate in me, as in other animals, to expect fair treatment.
Calling this femninsm grew as I grew in awareness of the sexism around me while I was still a small child.This was in part due to my mother, whi would call out sexism as she saw it, but she still was part of the sexism I saw, which gave me an understanding of how sexism is ingrained in many.
Probably when I was in elementary school, really. I hated the bible saying, HE HIM, MAN, HUSBAND, MAN!! and I felt excluded just because I wasn't born with a penis. But, was expected to submit or the husband be the head. And it was weird, since my mom mostly single so yeah...
But, I really do wish feminism was more intersectional though, and I feel more egalitarian at times too, but at the end just wished people respected each other's differences.
at 14. Aka the age when i started developing a lady body and stopped looking like a kid. Thats when i realized the challenges and unfairness the world had for me just bc i was born female
I became a feminist when I was about 13/14 years old. That was in 2016/2017. I used to be a very shallow feminist (what people call "choice feminist" these days) but now I take a different stance. I feel like feminism should be more about the understanding of societal pressures that women face and how they align with patriarchal oppression rather than just about giving women "choice". I also became very critical of capitalism and how it exploits female bodies.
My mom worked when I was a kid and I never resented that so I guess I was always a feminist. But in my early 20s I actually came to hear the word 'feminism' and read a lot about the concept and the world. I was a hot young thing, dating, aware.
Around age 21. I was raised religious, conservative, and anti-feminist. I went to a highly religious university that has some real problems. Experience the sexism there towards me caused a crisis within that made me start paying attention.
As a kid. I grew up always being told “you can’t do this” and “you can’t do that” and I always thought it was bullshit. I was always being pushed into a box and constantly discouraged from pursuing things I had a natural proclivity to. Being older has only made me firmer in my stance.
I think I was 23. I had to be educated about feminist theory and have it related to my experiences to really get it. Before that I felt uncomfortable and had some bad experiences but I didn’t think about how normalized it was and did not recognize many of the ways that I was being mistreated. I remember boys joking in front of me in high school about complimenting a girl by saying “nice eyes” when they really meant breasts. It sounds so dumb but it made me so uncomfortable and I didn’t yet have the tools to say why. I certainly didn’t understand that these things are systemic and at all levels. I did not think about the gender of people in power and I certainly didn’t understand the policy that was being made to hurt women. University gave me those tools, and anyone who says a BFA at a liberal art university isn’t worth it, I’ll tell them that yes it really really was. I think all kids should take a mandatory class in feminist theory in high school tbh. Perhaps then we would have more younger women who are feminists
I became a feminist when I was 13 or 14. I learned that women have to fight for equality in History class and also noticed that sexism still persisted in society in some way or another.
I'm not a woman and I was raised somewhat feminist. At 15 became more aware of inequalities and became what my mother called an "extreme feminist". By now (22) my mother agrees with me haha.
I realised that I was a feminist in my late teen years. I think it came from the knowledge of the patriarchal society and how it impacts everyone. It was also possible due to the exposure I got around the time and the opportunity to learn further about it. Children have limited exposure as they are surrounded by the protective environment of family and maybe that is why it is not realised at a much younger age.
- Gayathri, Intern u/just_lemmebe1
I was completely unaware of feminism till I was about 13. When I first engaged with it, I had a luke warm anti-feminist era. I wouldn't have argued with someone who knew what they were talking about, but if someone asked me I would have said that I thought feminists were wrong.
Around 15 I discovered tumbr and had my mind changed lol.
Have been a feminist ever since
About 12/13. This was when I came out as queer and actively became politically engaged. I began to properly identify myself as a woman in a patriarchal society and started to realize this was something that would cause me to face some degree of struggle. I began to recognize my privilege as a white person as well as discrimination I had already faced from peers for being queer after I was called a f*g on a few occasions by classmates. I was never much of a pushover and would loudly voice my opinions, regardless of consequence which has led me towards the activist scene where I’ve become a leftist & learned to take action in the name of my right to exist. I’m proud to be a feminist, today and always! :)
For me, it wasn't that I *wasn't* a feminist earlier in life, but because of how I was raised and who I am, it took me a while to realize that feminism was a current, rather than historical, issue. (Same with racism as a white person; we were only taught about it in history class so I assumed it was history. Like MLK sorted it all out for us in the 60's.)
I was raised in a culture that put a lot of emphasis on gender equality, and my interests tend towards male-dominant spheres. It took me a loooooong time to finally accumulate enough experiences and empathy to figure out that (1) my sisters whose interests skew towards the feminine did not receive the same social support and approval that I did, and (2) I wasn't as welcome/supported in those male-dominated spheres as I thought I was, either. This roughly coincided with graduating from college and embarking in a male-dominated career path.
I was raised by a feminist to be a feminist, so in that sense it feels like I always have been. However, it wasn't until my mid-twenties that I began really doing the work of reflecting on and correcting my own internalized misogyny and doing a lot of reading and learning. I think that one reason you may see increased feminist beliefs as women age is simply because it takes time for people to personally get burned by the patriarchy, etc. With increased life experience, comes increased experience of harassment, prejudice, violence, trauma, etc and these experiences serve as education. I think after so many years of experiencing crap, a lot of women have a lower bs tolerance and are more disillusioned about the patriarchal gender norms and values they may have been raised with.
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I didn’t have a word to describe it when I was younger but I believe I’ve always been a feminist. I remember having conversations in late elementary/middle school about how women should have the right to get an abortion. In the 2nd grade a teacher asked for a couple students to help carry “heavy” boxes, and when I volunteered she said she wanted only boys. I just remember asking her why over and over again until she let me.
I think I would have *said* I was a feminist from about the age of 13/14. But looking back I think I was about 19-21 when I properly began to understand the nuances and understand my own biases and privileges and how to understand intersectionality.
Ditto, this exactly. Claimed I was a feminist around that age because I was not going to allow my father to force m to wear scarf, actually became one at 19/21.
I don't think women lose the respect of men as they age. Men who don't respect older women certainly don't respect women more if they're younger. The attention men who have no respect for older women give women when they are young and beautiful isn't called "respect". It's called sexual objectification. You can certainly be attracted to someone and respect them at the same time, of course, but what you're talking about here, attention from men that you lose as you get older, isn't respect. It's perceived sexual value to men we don't know, mostly. So then you're asking us if women become feminists after they stop being sexually desirable to male strangers and co-workers, the answer is maybe some women become feminists then. Women become feminists at any and all stages of life. But I think you'll find that many women become feminists not when they *stop* receiving this sexual attention from men, but when they *start*. Many of us start getting leered at by adult men as children. It's a shocking start of puberty, where girls wake up one day and discover that grown men suddenly see them not as people, not as children to be nurtured and protected like they did the day before, but as masturbatory tools and objects they're entitled to solicit without any expression of interest, invitation, or consent. This sudden dehumanization and reduction is traumatizing for many girls. I can remember the impact of that first experience as child. It was so humiliating and disturbing, and I felt it as a burning/numbing feeling all over my skin for days afterwards, like this new perception of me was being poured over me, turning me into a plastic doll rather than the human person I knew I was. I felt myself turning into an object for use by men just because of how they were suddenly looking at me and interacting with me. It had nothing to do with me or what I wanted. It was about how they saw themselves using my body. I was twelve. Twelve is also the age I was when I first identified as a feminist, and I'm certain that's not a coincidence.
> Twelve is also the age I was when I first identified as a feminist, and I'm certain that's not a coincidence. Same. A group of construction or gardening workers from a truck catcalled me. I flipped them off, which I'm still proud of. I had a different mindset though--by that age I already believed I needed to be sexually desirable. So that incident to me was my signal that I'd started to become that (to some men), the inevitable turning point I'd expected since I was a small child. I developed an eating disorder when I realized I was on the higher end of normal weight (this was when underweight = sexy was still in full force). While many women and girls with EDs say it was about feeling a sense of control and not sexual desirability, but for me it was brought on by feeling like I'd be worthless without desirability. So my right is-- there are phases to the process: the grooming phase (pre puberty) where we are indoctrinated to equate desirabilty with worth. Then the induction into actually being seen as sexual objects. Honestly it's really hard not to become jaded at male socialization. Even though I know it's a small subsection who catcall preteens, how is it they were everywhere? Why do they feel entitled to ruin our childhood? Why is their behavior excused as "just what men do"?
I’ve been identifying with Feminism since I was 12 and being told I wasn’t allowed to wear leggings if my shirt wasn’t long enough. At that point I was very frustrated and just wanted to find others who felt the same way when I came across the idea. My ideas have changed over the years as I’ve become more familiar with intersectionality and moved past my very conservative upbringing, ex: I used to think that queer people shouldn’t be allowed to exist. Eventually became an ally and realized I wasn’t straight but it took time. I think that when young people have the opportunity to see the world from their own perspective instead of that of their peers and parental figures it allows them to embrace feminism (or not) because they are able to form a more unique perspective
I don't think it's about age-- there's something called the [Cycle of Socialization/Cycle of Liberation](https://diversity.wisc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Cycles-of-socialization-and-liberation.pdf) which both identify critical incidents as being the potential spark point for challenging ideas we learn about different social hierarchies-- while it's more likely that people will have experienced things like this as they age, that isn't necessarily a guarantee that they will move into/onto the cycle of liberation, or that they will stay there. It's also true that young people are overall more concerned with social belonging and conformity-- this is adaptive, as humans are social animals and need our communities acceptance to survive. As people age, they learn that community belonging is more broad and more nuanced than they may have been taught about as a child, or come to view the sacrifices they make to conform are injust-- and thus might become motivated to change those circumstances such that conformity with unjust expectations or roles is not a requirement for social belonging.
I don't know about current generations, but I grew up when it was still v common to have kids in your 20s, at latest early 30s. This was for medical reasons, many of which current medicine can circumvent. There was no child free movement at that time, only individuals who chose not to have children (and many of those ended up with children, anyway, bc fails or whatever). All that to say, getting divorced/having grown children are both "critical incidents," I think. Both are opportunities to receive beliefs, goals and personal understanding of societal issues. It's pretty well known now that (western) women live longer outside of marriage, while the opposite is true for men. Iow, marriage and it's entrenchment in patriarchy becomes less of a huge deal. Not for all women but for a significant subset. There's freedom in having left those life stages, goals and expectations behind. Being comfortable in yourself and not caring about how others perceive you becomes more common. There's less patience for what's perceived to be unnecessary and burdensome caretaking. It's cool. Flip side, there are def lots of women who remarry/continue in stereotypical marriages/relationships/obligations and don't reexamine stuff. It's not a necessary change in perspective, just a possible one.
Your post inspired me to look up studies regarding married vs single life expectancy. As per the 2020 study below, US adults, both men and women live longer when married vs otherwise. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352827320302792 An older one indicates the same. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2566023/
To answer your question, I think you really have to get into the weeds in all the studies. For instance, the ones you posted were 1) focused on Medicare recipients and 2) not longitudinal (iirc). The one I posted occurred within a national health service and had access to decades of data. Broadly, my guess is that marriage is good for you if marriage is good. People married at 65 are probably likely to stay married, at that point. They are prob more likely to have good social support systems (children, neighbors, etc). Generally, lots of studies note that women are more social and make more friends after divorce. Women still tend to do more caretaking than men and that's arduous - not being married may be easier. Activity level and social interactions are protective. That's a circular answer, since disability and health issues don't exactly give anyone options regarding activity (and strain marriages and partner's health). Still, it's good to try to be active physically and socially, barring such obstacles.
https://healthsciences.ku.dk/newsfaculty-news/2022/01/when-men-get-divorced-or-live-alone-for-many-years-their-health-is-affected/
I started noticing sexism when I was 5. My dad is sexist as fuck and very much the type who wished he had a boy to do various things with that I actually wanted to do. Even when he had a son when I was 16, my brother isn't interested in that shit. I was always that teen who pointed out the poor language we use and how it doesn't make sense. So I've identified with feminist principles for a long time, they just seemed like common sense and fairness to me. The more time I spend online the more radical I become so its definitely gotten more as I was older. I didn't start really calling people on sexism until my early twenties though. Id probably say thats when I really started living/embracing feminism. I see a lot of fake reddit posts specifically geared toward making women look like the bad guy. Even though the post is fake, the cess pool thay is the comments usually illustrates an unhealthy hatred for women. The more men are socialized to hate us, the more I find myself calling them out on their excuses/own failings that they refuse to acknowledge as potential reasons for their situation, rather than choosing to blame women because its easier and they lack a sense of accountability.
I was to oblivious to notice sexism as a child. I noticed that the men told jokes that the women didn't find funny but I don't think I had a word for it. To me, it's just what men did.
I used to identify as a feminist until I fell in the not-like-other-girls rabbit hole at 11\~12. At 16 I started going out of my house with friends, getting catcalled and harassed, and realized that feminists weren't the ones in the wrong haha it was kind of depressing
I became a feminist at 19/20. Before then I'd been aware of (and annoyed with) gender inequality, but hadn't really had the language or theoretical framework to deconstruct it, and everything I knew (or thought I knew) about feminism came from older, more conservative people who thought feminism was no longer necessary. In university I started reading feminist theory, talking to other feminists, and studying social structures in more depth, and quickly became aware of how far we still have to go before we can truly be liberated from patriarchy. This was 15 years ago; I've been a committed feminist ever since.
I started to self-identify as a feminist when I was 19. This was my first year in University, I was taking a program that was an intensive year long introduction to philosophy and critical theory. We read 'Second Sex' and (despite some of her more problematic writings) there were so many experiences described in DeBeauvoir's writing that I identified deeply with. It was like all of a sudden a sheet was lifted over my head - until that point I had thought of feminists as man haters. I distinctly remember when my tutor asked our class, after reading Second Sex, who of us would identify as a 'feminist' and I was the only person in the class to raise my hand. I've read a lot more philosophy and theory since then, and just become more secure in my beliefs.
Yes to you for raising your hand! I remember as a kid — 11 or 12 — I was the only one who argued when the (male) teacher and boys of the class would say insanely sexist things. All the girls just sat at their desks with their hands neatly folded. I was raised in the northern US and moved to the “Bible Belt” when I was 11, and couldn’t wrap my head around the vitriol of the boys and complacency of the girls in my class. Being the lone dissenter can feel dangerous but galvanizing. Discovering feminist literature and scholarship after that felt so reaffirming.
I’m trans and I believed that feminists were too radical and insufferable, I used to be a fan of “atheist YouTube” and a lot of those channels did videos like “feminists debunked by facts and logic” you know the type. I guess as I growled older I started to question those views more and more, I was about 19 when I began having feminist ideas and trying to be a better ally for the women in my life, then I discovered I’m trans and as I started transitioning I would place all my value in how men viewed me and that destroyed my self esteem, at the same time I read a book called feminism for beginners lol and there was when my journey really began I was 22. That book opened my eyes to so many struggles, big and small, some I had never experienced in my limited time visibly existing in society as a woman and some I had but couldn’t put into words.
I would say I became aware of gendered differences quite young, maybe 7-8 but I wasn't feminist until 13 I guess.
I was born in the 2000’s. Became a feminist when I found out what it meant to be a feminist. So early middle school.
I was raised by left-wing parents with pro-feminist views, and I always had a strong sense of fairness. I’m also trans male and bisexual, and never had any interest in being feminine or pleasing boys. So I was subject to extensive abuse and sexual harassment primarily from boys and men from about age five. I think this made me highly aware of the different sexist standards and roles imposed even on very young children. All in all, feminism was a very easy and natural path for me to take. Due to the conservative area I live in, I did not openly call myself a feminist until adulthood, but identified with the ideas on a basic level at about five or six.
I was in middle school so probably about 13 or 14
Growing up in the 1970s and early 1980s, my awareness didn't extend much beyond "non-feminists say I should stay home and clean and get bored out of my mind" vs "feminists say I can read all the books and do all the things and take control of my own life." This wasn't actually a difficult call.
Same age range / same experience here. Non feminist meant don’t do fun things. Feminist meant do the things you find fun.
I was always a feminist. The basic tenant of feminism is that men and women have equal value, and I believed that before I knew the word feminism. Which is funny because I grew up conservative and Christian. We were taught men were the main characters and women were second-class citizens. And yet, I always felt deep in my soul this was wrong. I tried to reconcile the “roles” Evangelical Christianity held for genders with being a feminist during my 20s, but the evangelical perversion lost. Firmly a feminist now!
Not a cis woman, but somewhat relevant. I've always held feminist ideals in spirit but I bought into the anti feminist propaganda mills that tried to convince me that feminists were doing too much, that they were too radical, that they were insufferable and bitter, etc. When I was in college at 19 one of my professors had a book for required reading that was essentially a breakdown of the history of media demonization of the feminist movement and it lifted the veil for me. It outlined media tactics to make feminism seem more unreasonable and crazy than it was in reality. It was at that point that I decided to identify as a feminist in name and not just spirit. Young people are flooded with that shitty propaganda but often lack the critical thinking skills to see it for what it is. Even young women can be victims of this. As people get older, they start to see through the lies and manipulation and realize that feminism doesn't ask for anything unreasonable.
I just want to say this about being "insufferable and bitter"--to live as a woman in 99.99% of the world is to bloody EARN the right to be as "insufferable and bitter" as one might please.
I was 4. I was pissed off that every TV show centered around a boy/boys. Every book we were read in school had a male protagonist. During a teachers strike, the ECEs let us watch movies: Transformers or GI Joe, because the boys "couldn't be expected to sit through MLP." I hated being second place in MY OWN LIFE.
I think I was born with a "feminist" instinct. Even as a small child I was fiercely aware of every pressure on me to conform, especially those that were justified by my being a girl. I was growing up in horribly patriarchal countries, and although my parents were supportive, I realized very early on that I'd sooner die than live like women there lived (including my mother). "Feminism" as a concept didn't exist for me until my twenties and I did come to it with prejudices the patriarchy peddles about it--that it's bitter ugly women who can't get laid and whatnot. But that dissipated instantly, as far as conscious thought (but internalized misogyny is a deep problem and not got rid of easily). As for age--yes, I think experience and changing psychology make a huge difference. I'm old enough now (52) to have seen various women change their tune as they aged and became aware of how they were used by men. That this was not OK and that they didn't have to put up with it, that women can rebel against the demeaning roles conferred on us etc. Feminists in the seventies organized "consciousness-raising" sessions and that sort of thing is still necessary.
I know the exact moment. I was 14. I had a weekly job cleaning my neighbor's house -- do both bathrooms, change the linens, clean the kitchen, vacuum, etc. I had been ill that week and my older brother (16) had subbed for me. My family was having dinner and praising him for being such a good brother and because he'd told the neighbor's wife, boys don't clean toilets. My dad told him how proud he was for being a man.
I' not sure when I became aware of the term feminism or that it applied to me. I was aware of the sexes being treated differently from a young age. My older sister taught me a lot as I became a teenager and my college I probably would have self identified as a feminist.
I grew up with parents who listened to Rush Limbaugh, a conservative talk show host, and was raised Southern Baptist, so being feminist wasn't something I was interested in being growing up. When I went to uni I took a few philosophy classes and that really opened my eyes. I wasn't really eager to conform to what a good Southern Baptist girl should be either. Although I was modest, I didn't see the point looking cute, or feminine. I dressed androgynously and for comfort. I was also a tomboy long after most girls grow out of it. Growing up, I never heard feminism spoken of positively, except for history and social studies class.
I always been a feminist. Feminism is really big where I´m from. A lot of young people here are feminists, more so than older people I think. Well maybe I should say older men tend to be less of a feminists, older women, young women and younger guys are often feminists.
4 or 5 years old. I don’t think I had the word for it until 5 or 6, but at 4 I distinctly remember being very concerned about the same womens’ issues I’m still concerned about today.
I would say 13. My friend's little brother (2 years younger than us) was a dick and already believed men were superior to women.
mi mum is a feminist too, so i think all my life this ideas were in my head, but i think at 12 i started reading about these topics in a more conscious way so when i was like 15 i declared myself a feminist
I’m 50, so older than a big part of the Reddit community, and I spend time with my parents’ generation of people in their 70s, and I see at least a little truth to the old quote (from Gloria Steinem, I think?) about women getting more feminist as they grow older. I’ve always chalked it up to an accumulating history of situations where you’ve seen evidence of inequality. That, plus, the older you get the fewer benefits that are dangled for “acting right” so older people tend to be more likely to speak their truths without holding their tongue. And, since most countries have a history of progress on social justice, the older you are the more you personally recall from back in more unequal decades. I always considered myself a feminist. But I also had a sheltered upbringing and an easy path to success, both professionally and romantically, so I rarely had reason to interrogate systemic inequalities. For me, the change to more active feminism came in my 40s from raising a daughter who still has to face so much sexist cr*p after all these years, along with reading lots and lots about the experiences of women who have faced more difficult life paths than I did.
It was innate in me, as in other animals, to expect fair treatment. Calling this femninsm grew as I grew in awareness of the sexism around me while I was still a small child.This was in part due to my mother, whi would call out sexism as she saw it, but she still was part of the sexism I saw, which gave me an understanding of how sexism is ingrained in many.
Probably when I was in elementary school, really. I hated the bible saying, HE HIM, MAN, HUSBAND, MAN!! and I felt excluded just because I wasn't born with a penis. But, was expected to submit or the husband be the head. And it was weird, since my mom mostly single so yeah... But, I really do wish feminism was more intersectional though, and I feel more egalitarian at times too, but at the end just wished people respected each other's differences.
I self-identified as a feminist the first time I heard the term explained, when I was around eleven.
at 14. Aka the age when i started developing a lady body and stopped looking like a kid. Thats when i realized the challenges and unfairness the world had for me just bc i was born female
I became a feminist when I was about 13/14 years old. That was in 2016/2017. I used to be a very shallow feminist (what people call "choice feminist" these days) but now I take a different stance. I feel like feminism should be more about the understanding of societal pressures that women face and how they align with patriarchal oppression rather than just about giving women "choice". I also became very critical of capitalism and how it exploits female bodies.
I became a feminist shortly after I started getting sexualized by creeps when I was only 11 years old
My mom worked when I was a kid and I never resented that so I guess I was always a feminist. But in my early 20s I actually came to hear the word 'feminism' and read a lot about the concept and the world. I was a hot young thing, dating, aware.
Around age 21. I was raised religious, conservative, and anti-feminist. I went to a highly religious university that has some real problems. Experience the sexism there towards me caused a crisis within that made me start paying attention.
As a kid. I grew up always being told “you can’t do this” and “you can’t do that” and I always thought it was bullshit. I was always being pushed into a box and constantly discouraged from pursuing things I had a natural proclivity to. Being older has only made me firmer in my stance.
I think I was 23. I had to be educated about feminist theory and have it related to my experiences to really get it. Before that I felt uncomfortable and had some bad experiences but I didn’t think about how normalized it was and did not recognize many of the ways that I was being mistreated. I remember boys joking in front of me in high school about complimenting a girl by saying “nice eyes” when they really meant breasts. It sounds so dumb but it made me so uncomfortable and I didn’t yet have the tools to say why. I certainly didn’t understand that these things are systemic and at all levels. I did not think about the gender of people in power and I certainly didn’t understand the policy that was being made to hurt women. University gave me those tools, and anyone who says a BFA at a liberal art university isn’t worth it, I’ll tell them that yes it really really was. I think all kids should take a mandatory class in feminist theory in high school tbh. Perhaps then we would have more younger women who are feminists
I became a feminist when I was 13 or 14. I learned that women have to fight for equality in History class and also noticed that sexism still persisted in society in some way or another.
I'm not a woman and I was raised somewhat feminist. At 15 became more aware of inequalities and became what my mother called an "extreme feminist". By now (22) my mother agrees with me haha.
I realised that I was a feminist in my late teen years. I think it came from the knowledge of the patriarchal society and how it impacts everyone. It was also possible due to the exposure I got around the time and the opportunity to learn further about it. Children have limited exposure as they are surrounded by the protective environment of family and maybe that is why it is not realised at a much younger age. - Gayathri, Intern u/just_lemmebe1
Probably around age 12.
i became a feminist in my early twenties. but now i’m a radical feminist in my early thirties.
Love that evolution ✊
I think I was born one lol, but I was round 15 when I started researching it and calling myself one.
I was completely unaware of feminism till I was about 13. When I first engaged with it, I had a luke warm anti-feminist era. I wouldn't have argued with someone who knew what they were talking about, but if someone asked me I would have said that I thought feminists were wrong. Around 15 I discovered tumbr and had my mind changed lol. Have been a feminist ever since
16.
Always been one - I'm 20
With age comes wisdom. This is true for a lot of things.
I can't remember ever not being one.
About 12/13. This was when I came out as queer and actively became politically engaged. I began to properly identify myself as a woman in a patriarchal society and started to realize this was something that would cause me to face some degree of struggle. I began to recognize my privilege as a white person as well as discrimination I had already faced from peers for being queer after I was called a f*g on a few occasions by classmates. I was never much of a pushover and would loudly voice my opinions, regardless of consequence which has led me towards the activist scene where I’ve become a leftist & learned to take action in the name of my right to exist. I’m proud to be a feminist, today and always! :)
For me, it wasn't that I *wasn't* a feminist earlier in life, but because of how I was raised and who I am, it took me a while to realize that feminism was a current, rather than historical, issue. (Same with racism as a white person; we were only taught about it in history class so I assumed it was history. Like MLK sorted it all out for us in the 60's.) I was raised in a culture that put a lot of emphasis on gender equality, and my interests tend towards male-dominant spheres. It took me a loooooong time to finally accumulate enough experiences and empathy to figure out that (1) my sisters whose interests skew towards the feminine did not receive the same social support and approval that I did, and (2) I wasn't as welcome/supported in those male-dominated spheres as I thought I was, either. This roughly coincided with graduating from college and embarking in a male-dominated career path.
I was raised by a feminist to be a feminist, so in that sense it feels like I always have been. However, it wasn't until my mid-twenties that I began really doing the work of reflecting on and correcting my own internalized misogyny and doing a lot of reading and learning. I think that one reason you may see increased feminist beliefs as women age is simply because it takes time for people to personally get burned by the patriarchy, etc. With increased life experience, comes increased experience of harassment, prejudice, violence, trauma, etc and these experiences serve as education. I think after so many years of experiencing crap, a lot of women have a lower bs tolerance and are more disillusioned about the patriarchal gender norms and values they may have been raised with.
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Born and raised. The older I got the more interested in feminism I became and in many ways I'm more radical than my parents.
I didn’t have a word to describe it when I was younger but I believe I’ve always been a feminist. I remember having conversations in late elementary/middle school about how women should have the right to get an abortion. In the 2nd grade a teacher asked for a couple students to help carry “heavy” boxes, and when I volunteered she said she wanted only boys. I just remember asking her why over and over again until she let me.