A voice quenched, a voice heard

There's something to be said for clichés. Take 'chivalry is lost' for example. Its overuse might have stretched it to breaking point but it still holds true. It still has meaning. And by 'meaning' I am not referring to what the phrase alludes to nowadays: trivial, high-school conceptions on how gallantry is rare because somebody's boyfriend was caught cheating and other such empty-headed notions. No, what I mean is how chairs aren't vacated for standing females anymore, how 'after yous' just don't happen, how wolf whistles are getting shriller and how lugging arms aren't unburdened.

Some say feminism is to blame for this. When the movement first began, it was met by smirking men who were amused by the hysteria of such 'attention seeking women'. But is it any better now? The aloofness of before is present still, only in a different way. If they chuckled at our antics before, now they use our protests as a way to lie more comfortably in their chairs. Why should they help when women claim they can do it themselves? And certainly, you cant have it both ways. You cant have you cake and eat it too.

Another cliché that hasn't gone out of style

It becomes necessary to ask: What does feminism entail then? What are we to infer from it? Well, to take a broad view of the matter, to each his own. But for me, feminism isn't about hating men or viewing their help as an obvious form of disdain or seeking to establish female rule- for wouldn't replacing one oppression with another just result in a viscous cycle?

The main thing that it means to me is having our voices heard instead of quenched; making ourselves visible instead of crouching behind shadows. 

As much as I love Shakespeare, I have to ask what the hell he was thinking when he wrote:

“Her voice was ever soft,/ Gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman” 

(5.3.274-275).

Id be the first to say that King Lear's two daughters were the ultimate evildoers of the play...but i'd give them this much: At least they were loud.