Feminism| noun | the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities.
This is the Merriam-Webster definition of feminism. For anyone who can read, that pretty explicitly excludes any "man-hating," "dominating," or "over-powering."
The word "feminist" has such a nasty connotation because of articles like "I Am A Female and I Am So Over Feminists." Feminists do not hate men. Feminists do not want women to take over the world. Feminists do not think they are better than anyone.
Feminists want to be one shockingly simple thing: equal.
The aforementioned article is problematic in countless ways, but I'll focus on the fact that it is one of the most privileged viewpoints I could imagine.
The author is correct that, yes, white women in the workforce are growing closer and closer to breaking the glass ceiling that creates reduced wages for women in comparison to men. What she fails to address, however, is that African-American women make 64 cents for every dollar a man makes, and Latina women only 55 cents on the dollar. That is nearly half. To assume that just because the wage gap has decreased between white men and white women is nauseatingly close-minded; as is considering feminism from only your point of view.
Secondly, the wage gap and chivalry are not the most pressing issues of feminism. For the authors perspective, sure, but for the 2 million girls exploited in the global sex trade every year, not so much.
Who pays for meals does not matter to the third of girls in the developing world who are married before the age of 18, or the 1 in 9 who are married before the age of 15.
I would pay the author of that article to face just one of the 39,000 child brides married every day across the world and tell her she is "so over" advocating for her rights.
If my advocation for these girls who have no voice of their own is getting "shoved down your throat," I am not even a little bit sorry. It belongs there. It belongs there to remind you that your privileged white female viewpoint is not the only one in the entire world.
Tell the 9% of college girls who don't report their rapes because they believed police wouldn't do anything to help them that their assault and fear are "a load of bull." That is your sorority sister. Your roommate. Your best friend. Imagine looking her in the eye and telling her to calm down, it's the 21st century, after all, it's not that bad.
So, sure, I'll accept your argument that who pays at dinner and who plays in the NFL are not the issues we need to march in the streets for. But I will march in the streets for the 8-year-old girls married to grown men, the girls who live their entire lives and die in sex slavery and transgender girls who can't even use a bathroom in peace. I will not shut up about minority women who make nothing compared to white women and who are treated as lesser, or women who live their whole lives in silence and shame about their sexual assaults because they fear nobody will believe them. Why would they believe differently when there are viral articles like this still circulating?
Until every woman in the world can sit behind a laptop screen and write about how their inferiority to men is "not that bad," I will refuse to shut up about the "load of bull" that feminism is to the author of this article. Until every woman can live with the comfort and ease of being a white woman in America, I will shove feminism down anyone's throat I please.
I am a female, and I am so sick of hearing "bull" like this.
