You’ve all seen it. The handful of girls from your high school that proudly share articles on Facebook with titles like, “Reasons Why I’m Not a Feminist” and “I’m a Woman and Won’t Ever be a Feminist!” If you humor yourself and read these pieces, you’ll discover an age-old canon: “I’m not a feminist because I believe that women are NOT greater than men. I believe that they are equal.” HAH.
I used to see these girls and the articles they post and think that their ignorance was funny in a “You can’t be serious!” kind of way. I would always place a calm comment on the end of their status…something like, “I would do some more research. There’s a lot more information out there than just this! Many people feel very differently.” I would move on and hope that once they realized what feminism actually meant, they would think to themselves, “Oh wow, how dumb of me.”
That’s what happened to me. I didn’t consider myself a feminist until I came to college where I was exposed to the ACTUAL definition of feminism: “The advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men” (Merriam-Webster).
In sum, Feminism does not mean that women are greater than men. Let me say that again for those who didn’t quite get it the first time: Feminism does NOT mean that women are greater than men. But here’s the thing. I have noticed that time and time again, some women have been exposed to REAL feminism and they still choose to deny it. They DENY it. At this stage in my life, I no longer think that these individuals are funny. In fact, I abhor their attitudes.
To all the women out there that believe we don’t need feminism: Are you telling me that you AGREE to the following? That women should get paid less than men for the same work? That a woman’s opinion should not be taken as seriously as a man’s? That a woman shouldn’t get a promotion because she could get pregnant? Maybe you have not explicitly dealt with these issues, but women all over the world are dealing with these and much, much worse.
I have noticed that most of the women on my Facebook that share those ludicrous articles are white. They face issues of gender inequity much differently than women of color, trans women, etc. I am not intentionally making assumptions on an entire group, but just want to point out that sometimes it’s hard to see the inequities that some face because of your own privilege. It is true that all women face the injustices listed above (and many more not mentioned), but all women face them in differing degrees. Maybe if some women would look past their privilege, they would be able to see the reality of a world without feminism for minority women.
