I've been seeing a lot of posts recently about how a lot of women don't need feminism because it's wrong for women to hate men and women don't need to try to be better than men. I honestly find all of these posts to be hilarious because that isn't what feminism is at all. Feminism is defined as "the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities," or, "the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes." However, if the dictionary isn't proof enough, I'm going to give you an account from a real, actual feminist.

Before my freshman year of college ended, I had to write two papers about feminism – one about case studies involving inequality between the sexes, and one about the history of feminism. History and evidence of feminism can be found as early as the 15th century. In the United States, we remember the beginning of the feminist movement through the stories of the suffragettes, women who took a stand to allow other women to be able to vote and hold importance in our country. They succeeded in their goal and in 1918, women were granted the right to vote in America. The next wave of feminism can be seen in America’s “hippie era” from the 1960s to the 1980s. Feminists in this time were known for burning bras, challenging the patriarchy, and breaking stereotypical gender roles in society. Today, feminists stand out for advocating for an end to the wage gap between men and women, especially between white men and women of color. They are also known for promoting basic human rights for transgender women and men. There are many misconceptions about feminism, but the truth is, it's simply all about equality for all genders.

Recently, a friend of mine and I were watching Disney Channel's 100th DCOM Celebration Marathon (which I would like to thank them for, as I love old DCOM's), when we noticed a pattern in some of the new Disney Channel Original Movies. In recent releases, like "How to Build a Better Boy" and "Zapped," there seems to be a theme of girls using boys to make their lives easier. While I wasn't able to watch "How to Build a Better Boy this weekend," I did watch "Zapped." The main plot of this movie involves a girl who finds herself with an app that gives her the power to control boys. The movie compares boys to dogs and splits them into groups of "gross guys," "jocks," "video gamers," etc. Before I became a feminist, I would have loved this misconstrued idea of girl power because I thought all boys were stupid and awful. However, since being introduced to feminism, I know that it's ridiculous to assume that boys don't have real feelings. They don't deserve to be made a mockery of in movies, the same way that girls shouldn't. Believe it or not, that's an extremely feminist belief.

Honestly, I could go on forever about why I need feminism. Instead, I'll just briefly mention some of the reasons that feminism is important to me. Feminists today advocate against the wage gap, child marriages, one child and two-child policies, taxation on feminine hygiene products, lack of paternity leave for new fathers in the workforce, sex trafficking, sexual assault, domestic abuse, lack of education for women, and so much more. In my opinion, feminism does more good than it does harm.

So, what was mentioned above were only a few misconceptions about feminism that I wanted to address. Feminism is honestly really simple. It's a fight against inequality between genders. Feminist women don't want to overpower men, they want to be equal to them. The reason it seems this way is because, historically, women have been considered inferior to men. In order to make men and women equal, women have constantly had to claw their way to the top to be on an even playing field with men. Feminists today don't want to put men down by any means; we just want to make men and women equal in every aspect. When it's put this way, it seems almost impossible that someone would be anti-feminist.