Help for a teacher explaining feminism

[Toadsrevisited]

Hello all
Haven't posted in this part of MN before but an looking for some help...

I'm teaching feminist literary criticism to sixth formers soon and suspect the inevitable question will come up from the pupils- am I feminist? What do I mean by it? Why? Etc.
The answer of course is Yes. The other answers I'm not sure I can explain so clearly. How do you explain to teenagers your stance? What do you think would be acceptable or unacceptable to discuss?
Thanks everyone

Have they not come across it before? DS has just done his GCSEs and he had to cover feminism in Geography and in An Inspector Calls for English lit. The exam question was on gender roles.

Could you find out their prior knowledge and build from there?

Could you give them concrete examples of girls and women being unfairly treated/exploited/objectified and cite them as reasons why you are a feminist. (Things like the feminization of poverty, unequal pay for equal work, objectification of women in popular culture/the media. Plus I would be tempted to explore how girls and women are considered and therefore treated globally.)

Plus the concept of "wifework".

The book the Equality Illusion by Kat Banyard was very helpful to me in putting into words concrete examples of what Beachcomber is talking about. Wouldn't take long to zip through and it's not heavy on theory.

I guess it depends how complicated you want to make it. Personally, I'd say something like, 'I believe women deserve to be treated equally, and in many areas of society they're not'. Then I'd give them a couple of statistics that might get them thinking - proportion of women MPs, or something like that. I would probably also mention stories in the news recently, such as the story of the two women in India who were killed (ie., I'd balance evidence from the UK with evidence from elsewhere).

I'd also explain why feminist lit crit is necessary, because I think it's easy for them to feel 'oh, she's being political but we have to pass exams,' so they need to see why it will help them with their work.

Can I be nosy and ask what feminist lit crit you're doing?! Sounds fun.

I quite like the explanation that feminism is the radical idea that women are people too.

The other one that helps when I am reading is the simple question. And what about the women?