For some reason, feminism gets a bad rep. I understand how hearing the word can make one think that the only thing that feminism stand for is the advancement of women. And while that's what it once was, that's not what it means to most feminists today. Real feminism, the feminism that I, and countless other people support, is the advancement and protection of minorities. The idea that everyone should be equal. That everyone gets the same treatment and the same rights.
Because of this misconstrued view, feminism gets bad representation in the media. The only people that use to be thought of as feminists were hippies who didn't shave and did stuff that most people didn't consider normal and hated men. Lately, some celebrities have been taking feminism and morphing it into some upper white class women super squad. This gets my blood boiling. For so long, feminists have fought to be seen as everyday men and women of all races and socioeconomic status who believe that equality can be achieved for all. Isn't that a beautiful idea? That all men and women are created equal? Someone should make a document that expressly states that and then form a nation with those idea that actually enforces it.
Recently, I was watching the Netflix documentary 13TH; this movie is about the 13th amendment, and how the language creating that document became the first building block for systematic racism in the 20th century. Minorities have always been discriminated against, it doesn't matter in what country on what hemisphere in what decade. The minorities always take the beating. I am a liberal, middle class, white girl living in Nebraska, I have never know discrimination of any kind. But I have known what it's like to be underestimated, I've seen things happen to others and immediately known that it's not fair. How does this tie into feminism?
A real feminist will support minorities (as I previously mentioned), and a real feminist is worried about what this recent trend of "law and order", "locker room talk" and "extreme vetting" means for the nation's population and dignity.
With this upcoming election, it's going to be a competition of which candidate is going to do the most good for the most amount of people. Maybe we'll choose the right one, but either way, after the first few months, maybe even a year will go by, but the candidate will get comfortable with letting issues for minorities slide. Unless we make them remember.
Whoever is elected president ultimately answers to the people, they are a civil servant. And boy, do we need some of those. Issues pertaining to equality should be among the concern of everyone. Whether it's racial, gender, religious, LGBTQ, everyone should be afforded the same rights. everyone should be treated like they matter.
This is the land of the free, maybe it's time we start respecting those freedoms.
