I am ashamed to say that I didn’t discover the power and importance of feminism until only recently.

I’ve always been around people that don’t take it seriously and think that it’s some sort of plague and I am sad to say that I followed suit.

Earlier this year my first and only long-term relationship ended and I’m not ashamed to say that it hit me very hard. I was in love, he was my first everything and I thought that he was my everything, but I was very naive.

It took breaking up to realize how wrong we were for each other. He is a great person and I have nothing bad to say and no regrets, but I lost sight of my goals and my dreams because he was my only focus.

Once I began to realize that I needed to get back to focusing on my happiness and my priorities I stopped wallowing and feeling sorry for myself and I said, “Girl, pick yourself up. You are a strong, powerful and independent woman” and I started a journey of self discovery. I threw myself into blogging, working hard on my freelance business and really started reading more about what it means to be a feminist (and it turns out I already was one).

After educating myself and learning what feminism really means I began to realize that there are so many women in my life that empower me and make me a stronger person. My mom who makes me believe that I will find true love one day, my aunt who has dated her fair share of toads and really helped me see the light, and my beautiful sister who is the best shoulder to cry on and made sure I kept laughing through it all.

That, to me, is a huge part of feminism, women standing together, holding each other up and making each other strong. It means unapologetically being who you are and who you need to be. Feminism means that as women we can do anything a man can, not expecting to become superior but to become equals.

I wanted to empower other women the way women in my life have empowered me and blogging is one of the things I do best. I brought the two together in a new project that I call #FierceFemales. I sent out the following questions to some of the women in my life that I most respect.

What is it that empowers you most?
What is it that you love most about yourself?
What makes you feel most beautiful?
Who is your biggest role model and why?
Who are your favourite cultural heroines and why?
If you could pick one fictional female character to be for a day who would it be and why?
What is your biggest life goal?
What is your biggest accomplishment?
What is your favourite quote?
If you could tell your 12 year old self one thing what would it be?
What does feminism mean to you?

So far the result has amazed me. Reading the things that other women love about themselves and what makes them strong has made me incredibly happy. Women spend too much time tearing each other down when we should be lifting each other up; and that is the goal of this project.

I just want women to feel beautiful, empowered and strong because those three things helped me through a really tough part of my life and I am so much better for embracing feminism.

If you want to share your answers with my blog please email [email protected], if you don’t wish to share publicly then get out your journal and fill this out privately to show some self-love.

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Editor: Travis May

Photo: ColoRiffic Martina Webster/Pixoto