From a very young age I was aware that there was something peculiarly different about my family’s perspective on gender equality. For starters, I was the child of two relatively young parents who had never gotten married (this always seemed to send shock waves through the faces of my most conservative friends) but what truly set me apart was that all the women in my family had a full-time job, that and the fact that the last three female generations "lacked the understanding of the art of cooking” (I am quoting my grandmother).  Female achievement in my family has always been valued and achieved as successfully as male. My great great grandmother took her degree in medicine in 1851 becoming one of the first female doctors in Portugal and setting an example for the following generations of aspiring female figures.

I was brought up fully aware that there was always a form of gender discrimination present in modern society and although my mother had a big influence on my beliefs, it was my grandmother who allowed me to want my voice to grow louder when it comes to gender inequality. When my grandmother was only 32 years old, she was invited to be the head of the European Commission of Gender Equality and five years later she became the minister of health in Portugal and the first Portuguese female minister. All this information may sound like aimless bragging but the fact is that although I have always lived in the conscious reality that men and women are equal, I have found that this legal truth is often questioned because of certain behaviours society has accepted due to hundreds of years of male superiority.

My first contact with underlying sexism was in primary school, when I was about seven years old and as I sat in class hurriedly talking to as many friends as I could manage, I found the teacher punishing me for my rude behaviour whilst the boys, who seemed to be always trying to get into fights with each other, got out of their situations unharmed because as the saying goes, “boys will be boys”. From that moment on, I started finding this unjust behaviour as a reoccurring act of a male generation that does not seem to acknowledge the value of women.

Three years ago, in eighth grade, I was having P.E. and the boys were in that repulsive age in which in their eyes a girl’s butt seems to look like a big pot of shiny gold. While the teacher was giving her instructions I was chatting with my friend and by mere impulse I hugged her and kissed her on the cheek, the teacher was shocked and the worst part was that it was not because I had interrupted her but because of the shameful act of kissing my best friend on the cheek and made me run three laps around the football pitch. Later in the lesson, one of the goofy boys in my class decided to show off to his friends and touched the back of my shorts. The teacher was right there, looking at me as I screamed to my friend how improper and disrespectful he had been, but she didn’t act, in fact my teacher joined my friend as he laughed at my furious outburst. This was one of the situations in which sexism really settled on me as a constant reality that has the power to shape a person’s attitude.

In school, I always felt like the girls ought to be the responsible ones in order to set an example for the boys, being expected to behave well whilst when the boys misbehaving it is often far more easily accepted by both teachers and students in a class. Again, referring to my class, during my previous school days and all the way until the present, I have always been one of the only girls whose parents both have a full-time job. I am proud of stating this fact but I am also discouraged when my female friends persist with the idea that in order to raise a child properly the mom should stay at home. This brings me to another issue that needs to be understood in order to end sexism- the role of the mother and of the father in their child’s life.

There is the common belief that the mother is the parent entitled to stay with the child after giving birth and although this statement is true to a certain extent due to the period in which the baby breast-feeds, apart from those first months, the father has just as much ability of staying with the child as the mother. The concept that babies have a stronger connection with their mothers than with their fathers comes simply from the fact that women are usually more sensitive than men but that does not mean that the child needs her better than him. Both parents should have an equal part in their child’s life, as this balance will allow them to grow in an environment of balance, shaping their belief in equality. Along with this cliché of the stay-at-home mom, other clichés such as “men don’t cry”, “women belong in the kitchen” or the mocking line “don’t be such a girl” need to be abolished as these are subtle ways to diminish the female character as we may all use the expression “don’t be such a girl” at one point in our lives to call out on an younger brother or even to a friend but we don’t perceive its true meaning of female oppression. Such expressions mean to either give superiority to men or to limit women’s capacities. The three examples I presented are all an outcome of a men-dominated past. Take the first one for example, “men don’t cry”, it may have originated from the olden days’ notion that women were the fragile, innocent beings who were brought to this world to serve her husband and care for her children whilst the man was a figure of strength and support. But times have changed and these roles have too. This idea sets the notion that men need to be the stronger being that can show no weakness in order to bear the women’s virtuous emotions, which is flawed as men and women have the same ability to think, feel and the will to perform as they find acceptable.

Finally, being a teenager of the 21st century, I am quite aware of the music industry in which sexism is extremely present, especially within the media. I’m sure when I mention the name Taylor Swift, one of the first thoughts that will come to the mind the reader will be: “oh yes, right, the girl who only writes about her relationships”. This is the person who the media claims is Taylor Swift: an often heart breaker or heart-broken girl who likes to mope about her past failed relationships while winning a few awards on the way. The same can be said about Selena Gomez, Beyoncé or even Adele. Now, if we think about it, what does Ed Sheeran constantly write about? What does Bruno Mars’ biggest hits portray? In 2014 Sam Smith won four Grammy awards and on his last acceptance speech he says, “I want to thank the man who this record is about for whom I fell in love with last year, thank you so much for breaking my heart cause you got me four Grammys”. The day after, the media was beaming about Sam Smith’s openness to his sexuality and even finding his comment witty and humorous, whilst in 2013 in the MTV Video Music Award in Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech she says,  “I also want to thank the person who inspired this song, who knows exactly who he is, because now I got one of these”. The next day the media exploded with negative conspiracies regarding whom she might have been talking about and criticizing exactly what they praised about Sam Smith’s speech- her openness, her honesty and her guts to stand there and say exactly what she wants. How come women and men are treated so differently in an industry that should be all about talent and value? Not about finding the flaws on the themes but finding the strengths, and that goes for both male and female musicians equally.

Just as all of these forms of sexism are concealed in society as concepts of popular conformity, their outcomes are also underlying in reality. Due to the use of clichés and the persistent view of the female sex as the weaker sex, women often lose their credibility and respect both from men and from each other. So there is a desperate need to abolish with clichés and educate girls into the belief of achievable equality otherwise, generations of daughters of stay-at-home moms will continue to pass their legacy on, completely unconscious of the damage they are making to the value of women in society. All of these notions are the consequence of years of injustice towards women in a previously men-dominated society, which have shaped reality and caused oblivious conformity with sexist concepts. Albeit, I can admit that the situation has improved compared to two-hundred years ago, when women’s rights were scarce, but this is not a reason to stop fighting for equality as it may have improved in the Western society but in other countries such as Iran or in the Islamic State gender equality is threatened by conservative ideologies oppressing women, which can easily spread to other countries. Feminism is the fight for equal social, political, economic, cultural and personal rights for both men and women, and it should be a goal we should all strive for rather than ignore.