Hi, I’m Monte. I’m a straight, white, heterosexual, cis-gendered male. I don’t usually introduce myself like that. Usually I just leave it at Monte. Today, however, I’m talking about a topic that tends to stir up some pretty strong emotions in everyone I know: feminism. More specifically, I’m talking about why I, with all those adjectives above, can’t conceive of a reason not to try to be a feminist.

On several occasions, I have been approached by organizations with stickers and the like reading, “I’m a feminist because…” and the proud new owner of the sticker writes their life experience in that tiny space occupied by the ellipsis. I usually write, “duh.”

That’s more or less trying to convey a lot of things in three letters. I didn’t try to be a feminist, or have any interest in the movement, until my senior year of high school where one of my English teachers actually explained their understanding of it without a lot of buzz words in order to politicize it. I’m going to attempt to do the same.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines feminism a few ways, the most pertinent being, “the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities.” For the purposes of this article, and any discussions revolving around it, let us change the definition from focusing on the gender binary to all genders and gender identities and make it more relevant to a world where our understanding of such things is changing.

This is the first major question to ask yourself: do you believe in equal rights and opportunities for everyone based on gender identity? Well, congrats, you’re a feminist.

“But the genders are already equal!” Shouts someone from the back, who quickly disappears into the crowd.

First off, no, but more on that later. Second, let us pretend that the stranger from above is correct, and there is no inequality based on gender, sex or sexuality and everyone can pee wherever they like as long as it’s not on someone else (unless they’re into that). Does that mean you suddenly stop believing in equality based on gender, sex and sexuality? If you think yourself a painter, and you finish a painting, do you no longer think yourself a painter?

“But the word feminist doesn’t include me in it, that’s why I’m an equalist!” yells presumably the same person.

First off, this isn’t about you, nor is it about me. Second, now we’re engaged in a semantic argument. Basically, one of us is yelling in ancient Greek while another converses in Latin and neither of us really understand either language. In this case both words mean the same thing, but one of them isn’t as politically correct and doesn’t include everyone. Ironically, most of the people I’ve heard use terms like equalist also argue against political correctness, but that is mostly irrelevant to what I’m trying to do here. Call yourself what you like, but congrats, you’re a feminist.

Now that we’re past the simple definition of feminism, we can try to understand that the genders are not equal. Let’s start with something well known: the wage gap. To some up a lot of stuff really quickly, the wage gap is real, and women earn less than men. It’s a complicated issue, based on years of not working, child rearing, and differences in job markets, but it is still a valid discrepancy.

I have a basic interest in math as far as it applies to my life. If I’m being completely honest, it applies to my life mostly in the form of table-top role playing games. Let’s take Dungeons and Dragons for an example, because I can’t go 600 words without saying something nerdy. In D&D, a key component of character creation is rolling three six-sided dice to determine how good a character is at something. The rating is distributed from a minimum of three to a maximum of 18, with most rolls landing around 10 or 11 and getting progressively less likely the further you get from the middle. This is statistics.

The pay gap is statistics as well, however, the dice don’t roll as fairly in that. In fact, the dice don’t roll indifferently very often.

According to The Oscar Database, only 16 percent of nominees have been women on average every year. Men speak more than women in films, which is a really bad way to break a stereotype. We have yet to have a female president, although that may change soon. Women only make up 19.4 percent of the congress, which is odd for a country that based its rebellion on a lack of representation. Computer work was considered a menial task for women until it started attracting male workers and the pay started increasing. The opposite happened in biology. Do you believe dice should roll fair? Congrats, you’re a feminist.

Those are just a few examples I was able to find and justify in a couple of quick google searches. There are more. I don’t need them.

I don’t need them because I went through 12 years of public schooling before I read a book with a female protagonist.

I don’t need them because I was accidentally cat called once. I received an apology. My friends do not.

I don’t need them because when I wrote a play starring a female lead, I received praise for creating the character. I received praise for something that should be normal in a female driven community, but isn’t.

I don’t need them because every time I log onto Facebook, I see another post by another friend about how she was harassed on her way to class/work/shop/home/literally just being outside and looking kind of like a girl.

I don’t need them because of how many of my friends have pepper spray on their key rings.

I don’t need them because, somehow, I learned if someone tells you about a problem, you better not respond with, “that problem doesn’t exist.”

I don’t need them because my friend once recounted the story of a guy and a girl sitting at a lunch table in the school cafeteria. The guy was berating the girl about how the wage gap doesn’t exist and didn’t stop until my friend, a male, intervened. My friend said the same things the girl did.

I don’t need them because I’ve seen too much bullsh*t done to good people because of their gender, their sex, or their sexuality.

I tried to be logical, but sometimes that isn’t enough. Sometimes you need to go out and be a friend. Not some Pseudo Feminist Hippie Douche Bag. Let’s not make this about either of us.

I used the word try a lot here. I’m a straight, white, heterosexual, cis-gendered male, I’m on the winning end of everything I’ve described here. The best I can do is try. Maybe, if enough of us try hard enough, the world will suck a little less tomorrow.