Recently I've been reminiscing a lot about my own personal past, my views, experiences, how I've changed. Things like that. I look back upon my previous self often with sadness and sometimes cringing at the world views I felt so strongly about.
I was the girl who vowed against feminism because I thought it was a dirty word, a movement for man-hating terrorist types who didn't shave and were violent before anything else. I put this down to pure ignorance on my part, I was raised, alone, by a strong woman who always empowers other women before putting them down, so why I thought feminism wasn't for me is something that baffles me completely. I can't even see a point in my life when I look back when my views changed, except maybe learning about feminism from an unbiased point of view during A Level sociology.
The point I'm trying to make here is that I feel that we as people should be able to admit change when it happens to us, especially in the world we live in now where no matter how hard we try to go back and change it a lot of our views will be somewhere on the internet for people to find if they look hard enough. I dread to think of myspace posts i made trying to be the 'cool girl' and saying things like 'i just get on better with men, theres less bitching' or something along those lines.
I've chosen feminism to talk about here but really it could be anything, we obviously have a more idealistic view when we're younger and kind of expect the world to just work in the way that seems the most sensible, as adults we probably compromise our views to what fits the most more often that we realise.
I think this post is quickly taking a self indulgent turn which although I do aim for occasionally I wasn't going for this time! So, back on track, a track that doesn't exist since I'm basically sat here typing my stream of consciousness: change, admitting when we as people have changed, and can we do this?
I think it's brave to admit you've changed, that your views have changed or that you didn't realise your views were offensive to someone etc. You often see people getting called out online for something they've tweeted and jumping right back on the defensive, in my opinion, as long as you're not getting trolled for your opinion I find its far braver and far more helpful to try to understand my someone was offended, thats how we grow as humans, not everyone who disagrees with you is a hater (to the youtuber who blocked me for favouriting a tweet) or a troll. So basically if I say something on twitter that you think could be seen as offensive, I want to know about it, I want to change and grow and not have it make me be seen as flakey or 'not sticking to my beliefs' but changing with the times. I have been vegetarian in the past and let me tell you, it was far more nerve wracking telling people that after 3 years I had decided to eat meat again than it was telling them I was becoming veggie in the first place. It's brave to admit to change and changing your mind, and it's a good thing to have your views changed when people put points across that make sense, so let's embrace it.
Children will freely admit when they've changed their mind about something or even learned something with no fear of embarrassment, I've decided that instead of going through life worried that someone will pull me up on views that have changed I'm going to continue to embrace learning and changing and see it as a strength of character in others and myself.
Thanks for reading if you got through that, and please, if I ever say something on any social media that you think I need to be educated about, do it!
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