I often find myself in situations where people (unfortunately of all genders) toss "feminist" in my face as if it's an unspeakable insult. They'll cut me off mid-sentence, look me up and down and say, "Let me guess... You're a feminist." And they'd be right- I am a feminist! A crazy, bra-burning, "No freedom till' we're equal," "Let's not hit or rape each other," "Free the Nipple," deliberately angry and incredibly powerful feminist. And I implore the entire world to refer to me as such.

Before this discussion is opened up, let's get one thing straight right off the bat. The definition of feminism, according to my Google search, is "the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men." If that isn't enough for you, Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines feminism as 1) the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities and 2) organized activity in support of women's rights and interests. Still not satisfied?Go ahead and check out the definitions according to the Oxford Dictionary, Dictionary.com, and the Cambridge English Dictionary. Even the (usually sarcastic) Urban Dictionary simply discusses equality between the sexes.

Do you believe me yet? For some reason (huh, I wonder if it has to do with keeping women in their place), people have attributed a thousand other, often negative, attributes to feminism, when in reality, feminism is simply about equality. I don't hate men. I also don't wish to be superior to men. If you're struggling to understand the concept of equal rights between men and women, you are another prime example of what our current society has taught us. Feminists don't want a role reversal. Your inability to imagine a world where there is no superior and inferior, is just another product of our male-dominated society. You've never seen equality, therefor you do not believe it could exist. If you could only stretch your imagination beyond the realm of what we have created thus far, you would see equality hovering in the distance, in it's total simplicity, waiting to be instilled.

Now that you have (hopefully) grasped this incredibly abstract theory, time to move on to why I'm so damn angry about it.

There are a myriad of reasons feminism is incredibly important. For the sake of making this article a quicker read, I'm only focusing on one- the social aspect. To be clear, politically and economically, I believe women should be equal to men. In every aspect of society, all people should be equal. Should women and men be paid the same amount for the same job? Of course. Should they both get the same job opportunities and promotion opportunities? Absolutely. I could go on, but I've always been far more passionate about the social aspect of feminism and here's why.

The notion that, on a social level, men are superior to women is deeply sickening to me. Though I should not have to, I can deal with men receiving more money and more opportunities than me, but I will not allow anyone to strip me of the power I hold as an individual. As a human being, I recognize that no one is worth more than I am and, arguably more importantly, no one is worth less than I am either. Allowing men to view themselves as superior and women to view themselves as inferior is where some profoundly horrific situations begin to arise. Do you want me to rattle off all the sexual assault and rape cases where men have tied down, brutally beaten, disgraced, and sometimes murdered women, or do you believe just how often it happens? Does that not make your stomach turn?

If you can't see the correlation between male dominance and all the countless rape cases, look a little closer. Somewhere along the line, men have decided they own rights to women's bodies without their consent. Yes, we have come a long way, but there is still so far to go. Somehow sexual offenders are still slipping through the cracks. Women are still being shamed into silence and this is no surprise when we are constantly blaming and belittling them. Women take the fall for their attackers' wrong-doings more often than you'd believe. And that doesn't just mean the cases that go to court either. So many women never even report sexual assault because their family and friends have shamed them into believing they are at fault.

"You shouldn't have drank that much."

"You shouldn't have worn that outfit."

"You shouldn't have danced with him."

"You shouldn't have gone back to his place."

"You should've stopped him."

And my personal favorite- "You probably liked it in the moment."

All of these things are so incredibly irrelevant to the issue at hand. Without consent, one person violated another person's body and that isn't okay. That isn't okay regardless of any other factor that could have possibly contributed to it. As a society, we have taught women to cover themselves up, keep themselves in control and somehow safe in a word that is literally trying to kill them and have shamed them if they ever fall out of line and into a bad situation. Instead, we should be teaching the whole world to not f***ing rape because rape is wrong. Not because they'll be taken to court or thrown in jail or because the sex won't be as good if one person isn't into it or because "consent is sexy," but simply because sexual assault is wrong. Taking control of someone else's body without their consent, and in doing that, damaging them more than just physically, is wrong.

And those are only the extreme cases. There are equally harmful effects of male superiority that often go unnoticed. We teach our little girls that if boys are mean to them, it means they like them. Can we really be surprised then, when our girls grow up believing it's okay for boys to hurt them? And when our boys grow up knowing that no one thinks it's bad for them to be mean to girls? There are twelve-year-olds, pressured to send sexually-explicit pictures to their male classmates because only then will they be cool, exciting, fun, appreciated, or worth anything. Is that because sex is fun and exciting (which it is), or so that girls can slowly be trained to measure their worth with their bodies? There are college students, afraid to say no to having sex because they're scared they'll lose the interest of the guy they like. These thoughts don't come randomly; they have been learned. Men hold so much control over women because we've allowed it to be this way.

I know the usual counter-arguments to feminism. Oh, so does that mean it's okay for a woman to hit a man? Um, no. That's not what this means at all. I've read and reread this article many times, proofreading and editing, and not once did I endorse violence. No one should hit anyone- regardless of their gender. And oh, does that mean you don't want a man to hold the door open for you? Wrong again! If anyone, regardless of their gender, were to slam a door in my face, I would find it a little rude. I think we should all hold doors open for each other. I think we should split checks at dinner. I think females should be comfortable asking males on dates. I think both men and women can play sports, sing, dance, put on makeup, grow out their hair, raise children, pursue a career, shave whatever parts of their body they want to shave (or not shave) and so on. I also think both men and women can, and should, be feminists.

And I know, men get raped, too (And feminists also stand for them), but if you're just bringing that up to silence female survivors, that's not okay. And I get it, some women can be really mean. And boys are insecure about their bodies, too. And, I'm aware that there are many extremely powerful women in the world and there are struggling men. And I understand that there are wars going on and people starving and mental illness is wreaking havoc on our world and so many things are going wrong. But, I also know that we aren't talking about any of those things right this second. You clicked on this article about feminism. Everything not having to do with feminism is irrelevant to this argument. They are equally important, but feminism deserves to be talked about, too. Feminism needs to be talked about, too.

So, yeah, call me a feminist. Make it sounds as demeaning as you possibly can. You aren't insulting me, you're just fueling my fire. I will stay angry until there's nothing left to be angry about.