Hello. I am only twelve, but have been taught all my life about pro-feminism. I completely disagree with your page.

Feminism is not about females having power, however badly you want for it to be. Feminism, for women, is about gaining confidence in yourself because for centuries women were not only considered property but also considered useless, except for the fact that we could carry children. We have been considered objects for centuries upon centuries upon centuries, and feminism is about proving anti-feminists like yourself wrong. We aren't objects, we aren't property, and we certainly haven't been treated right for a long time.

Chivalry isn't something I see much of. I know of only one male my age who holds doors and pulls out chairs for us. Many of the rest say degrading things like, "Oh, she's so hot" or "Look at her ass" or "Her boobs are so big" or even "She wears this kind of bra". They say that around ME and my GIRLFRIENDS. Do you think that's so polite? You, being a man, don't have a clue how disgusting it feels to have people whistling at you, or telling you how sexy you are, or how hot. You don't know how it feels to have people looking down your shirt, you don't know how it feels to have to buy a swimsuit with a shorter neckline because that kid in your class is going to look down it, I guarantee. You don't know how it feels to have a complete stranger come up to you and ask you to have sex, and you don't know how it feels to have someone come up to you and ask how much you are per hour.

Most of all, you don't know how degrading it is to hear your classmates say that all you're good for is cooking dinner, doing laundry, and cleaning.

You just don't.

"Women and children first" doesn't matter, mister. You only save the women so some other man can get her pregnant and she can have a child.

I hope my point is more original, and I hope you remember that all that I have named has happened to me, and I'm only twelve. I have a long, hard trip to go through, and for most all of it, there will always be more guys telling me how they want me. It's not flattering, sir, it's demeaning.

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I feel a little ambiguous about your observations. You have on the one hand, told me that you are feminist and recognise the idea that women have been oppressed and looked down upon for centuries, treated as worthless and so on. On the other hand you indicate that today males in your class, who I assume are still pretty naive, are paying lots of attention to your budding sexual attributes. They find you fascinating and spend a lot of time making observations about how sexually 'attractive' you are. I do agree that this can be intrusive and uncomfortable, especially when more than one male does this and also if it happens all the time. However I don't think you can link it directly to the idea of oppression. I think you could say that these males either don't know manners or you live in a different culture to the one I know.

I am trying to recall my own experiences from this period and it is a little dim. I remember that I did wonder about girls when I was 12 but it was only around 14 or so that I really began to see that some females were coming under significant sexual pressures. One girl in school had what most males would have thought were huge breasts. She was often commented on and I do not know if some of the males did this in her company. That did seem 'oppressive' in a way but she did arguably gain some advantages from it too. A good half of the girls were probably never noticed at all. Some girls kept to themselves and others spent time with other girls. There were also girls who hung out with males and some even went out with older males. If you spend a lot of time with males and you are sexually interested, then the commentary is going to increase.

Your experience may seem oppressive to you but I do not think that it is entirely unique to females, nor do I think that all females experience it. I suspect that something about you may be of special interest. I agree that some things you experience are uncomfortable but at the same time I do not think it is healthy to develop too much of a feminist outlook on it.

Males find females attractive, both because of the fascination with their sexuality and sometimes even because of their personality. Females are often interested in males for the same reason although they seem to hide it more both from males and from themselves.

One attitude that I find disturbing is your belief that no man can ever understand what a female experiences and suffers from. This will not serve you well in future years if you can never imagine that anybody male can ever have a similar experience to yourself or empathise with you. There are many experiences of being male which women are unlikely to have access to and which could be described as oppressive but I am not going to shove that fact down your throat. Males and females are not so far removed in their experiences that they can never understand what it feels like to be the other. As it happens, I have had women harass me sexually and I have had women pinch my arse and I have been whistled at. And yes I sometimes felt uncomfortable about it.

As I say, I don't know how mature the males of your cultural area are so it is hard to know how annoying your experiences are. However keep in mind that a woman's sexuality is both a burden and a source of power. Some women use their sexual attraction to wow men and others cover themselves with modesty and restraint. These are choices available to you and you should decide carefully how you want to present yourself to the world as a moral, intelligent human being and as a woman.