"If you believe that men and women have equal rights, and then someone asks you if you’re a feminist, you have to say yes, because that’s how words work. You can’t be like, 'Yeah, I’m a doctor who primarily does diseases of the skin.' 'Oh so you’re a dermatologist?' 'Oh that’s way too aggressive of a word, not at all, not at all.' " - Aziz Ansari

Imagine a bunch of man-hating lesbian hippies burning their bras in the middle of the street whilst claiming their human rights as women on this earth. Although that’s just a hair outside of outrageous, it is, sort of, what some people imagine when they hear the word ‘feminists’. This is called a connotation or an idea other than what something actually means. However, some even pay no heed to feminism at all. In this article, I’m going to briefly but effectively explain what exactly it is and why you should change your perspective on it.

In the Merriam-Webster online dictionary for the denotation, or dictionary definition, of "feminism," it states, “the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities.” Although this is very broadly stated, it implies a simple message; gender equality. Feminism does not only advocate the rights and safety of women, but instead it focuses on all genders within the LGBTQIA community. Let's not forget, it’s not just about rights. It also discusses problems within different gender communities such as rape, hate crimes, gender roles, autonomy, and much more. It strives to promote everyone socially, politically, culturally, and economically. If you believe in all of the above, then you, my friend, might just be a feminist. So, if you thought feminism didn’t discuss how 1 in 33 U.S. men experienced rape or sexual assault between 1995 and 2010, then you are oh so wrong, honey.

Now, I’m sure we’ve all seen Lauren Southern’s video on YouTube called “Why I Am Not A Feminist,” or commonly seen as, “Woman Destroys Feminism in 3 Minutes!” because all of your Facebook friends that you most likely met only once in person, who probably can’t even name one current world news topic, shared it on your timeline.

In her video, the first thing she talks about is a picture she posted holding a sign saying, “I don’t need feminism because I believe in equality, not supremacy.” I thought we just said feminism MEANT equality? Well, right there we can already turn her off and go back to watching cute kitten videos like we always do on our spare time… unless that’s just me. Anyhow, you can assess for yourself whether or not her uneducated opinions match your newly obtained, full understanding of feminism.

So who are some of the best modern day feminists and how are they educating the public? Well besides myself, one of my favorites is Laci Green. Green is also a YouTube sensation like our beautiful Lauren Southern; however, she shares a different perspective. Laci hosts a YouTube channel called Sex+ where she not only speaks about feminism and everything it encompasses, but she’s also a sex educator.

Another awesome feminist is our ex-FLOTUS, our pantsuit aficionado, and our current, most popular female presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton. As a political leader, some of her main concerns include autonomy where she promotes a woman’s right to choose abortion or pregnancy. She also advocates equal pay for women. According to whitehouse.gov, “On average, full-time working women earn just 77 cents for every dollar a man earns.” Yes ladies and gentlemen, this is STILL a problem. Luckily we have Clinton, and many other fine feminist politicians pushing for justice. Then of course, there is you! If you haven’t yet decided that you are a feminist, even though you believe in everything that of which is feminism; that is okay.

My goal here wasn’t to bombard you with feministic facts, percentages or numbers (because I kind of have to save that for the next article since I have to write an article every week…) but my objective was to inform you of what feminism truly means. I hope now you can do a little more research from here on your own and prevent or remove any negative connotations you or someone you know may have about feminism and replace it with good ones. We should all be able to confidently say we are feminists without getting judged or feel like we are. Without a strong community with a strong name to put on our movement, is it even a movement at all? Or are we all just a bunch of man-hating lesbians with burnt bras…