To most people, there are two types of feminists�: The man-hating, ugly, fat, butch lesbian girls or the sheeple "feminist" girls who forget the trend as soon as media stops covering it. And sadly, there are people who hate feminism because of this distorted image in their head. Even more sad is the fact that there are those who identify as feminists and then conform to these stereotypes, making other feminists look bad.
What most people fail to realize is that that's not at all what feminism is.
People who are more open-minded to the idea of true feminism and want to defend it use Beyonce as an example. Though she does give feminism a better name, Beyonce only represents half of what feminism is.
Merriam-Webster defines feminism as "the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes."
So according to Merriam-Webster, there's three legs of equality that need to be met — political, economic and social.
Political equality means for both sexes to be represented in Congress. While many countries are working toward equality, such as giving House and Senate seats to female representatives or allowing women to run for important leadership roles (no, not Hillary; I'm talking about the British Prime Minister, Theresa May,) many third-world countries still do not allow women to vote or even have a say in how their country is run, even though they have to obey the same laws. They are essentially treated like children or property. Feminism fights against this oppression for better representation and a more equal say in how their country works. Ideally, it would mean more people are being educated on what's happening around them.
Economic equality is pretty self-explanatory. It's providing equal opportunities and the same pay for the same jobs. This goes both ways. It's unfair for men in female-dominated jobs like teaching to earn less when they perform equally. It's even more unfair when women use their sexuality to earn more in gender-balanced jobs like bar tending. It's also unfair that women aren't paid nearly as much as men in money — or management-oriented jobs like CEOs or brokers.
Social equality: The worst to explain and the most easily misunderstood. Society's expectation that women and men need to fit into certain specific molds in order to be a perfect human is really disappointing because it limits human creativity and can prevent people from following their dreams or suppressing their discomforts. For girls, everyone expects them to quit their jobs and become fully "domesticated" as soon as they have children; however, if guys did the same, it would automatically strip them of their masculinity without understanding the situation first. On the flip side, guys are apparently not allowed any emotion except moderate contentment, whereas girls are expected to be giant balls of emotions all the time. These double standards are ridiculous because they're saying that it's fine for girls to be emotionally unstable on top of being reliant on their partners when children come into the picture, and if guys are anything but complete stone and hard work, that makes them less of a human.
Feminism stands against any type of inequality, toward men and women both. Though the name itself suggests it's in favor of females taking over the world, anyone willing to take a second look will realize feminism empowers both sexes.
