This one is going out to a lot of the college men out there. Ladies, feel free to stick around, but this one is aimed at the boys. Gentlemen, how are you doing today? I hope you're doing well. I'm here to talk to you about a little word we call "feminism." This is a word that, for some reason, seems to be incredibly divisive when it comes to idiots' people's opinions on it, but let me break it down for you a little: Feminism is a movement dedicated to creating gender equality in our society. Plain and simple. I consider myself someone who would like to see a society in which women are equal to men, and therefore I consider myself a feminist, even though, yes, I am a man.
Messy-hair selfie for proof
Now, the question I hear from my college guy friends a lot is, well, why is it called feminism if it's about gender equality? Why isn't it a gender-neutral title like "humanism" or "gender-equality-ism?" Aside from the fact that humanism is already taken, and gender-equality-ism sounds completely dumb, the reason is pretty simple: In many areas of our society, it's the women who are given the shit-end of the stick.
For true gender equality, we have two options. Option one is to lower the status of men in society to a point where they hold an equally low status with women. This would entail cutting men's pay by an average of 21 percent across the board, increasing sexual violence against men by 550 percent, and removing almost 60 percent of Congress, in order to have equal representation between the two genders. Or we could try to raise the status of women in our society, a plan which probably makes a hell of a lot more sense. Therefore, the title of the movement is "feminism" because it refers to the need of raising the status of women.
We see this all over society and throughout history. The phrase "Black Power" during the civil rights movement didn't mean "make white citizens lesser"; it was a slogan designed to highlight the fact that African Americans didn't have equal power in society, and to make the races equal, what we needed was not a campaign to empower all people, but to empower blacks to the same level that society empowers whites. Similarly, women's suffrage was not a campaign for human suffrage because men could already vote; therefore, fighting for "human" suffrage was pointless. Because 50 percent of the humans could already do it, the movement had nothing to do with the species as whole, and therefore, the name wouldn't have made even a minuscule amount of sense.
These women would later go on to regret the insensitivity on this sign, but not really, because that would be absurd.
While "gender-equality-ism" sounds great in theory (although horrible out loud), the term completely neglects the fact that it's women who need the raised societal status, and therefore, the term completely misses the point of the problem. It is for that reason that a gender-neutral term cannot make an effective title for the movement.
Logic and basic reasoning aside, isn't an aversion to a movement because of its title a pretty petty excuse for dismissing it? If you believe in gender equality, what does it matter what it refers to itself as? Whether it's "humanism," or "gender-equality-ism," or "feminism," if you believe what the movement speaks to, why care about the title? I'd follow a movement called "asdfjkl;" if I believed in its aim. The only logical conclusion one can draw is that when people cite the word "feminism" as their problem, they are actually taking issue with the aim of the movement, and the argument against the name is a poor attempt to rationalize their aversion to gender equality and to avoid looking like an asshole.
Even mediocre Spider-Man approves.
So please, young men, stop taking issue with the word "feminism." If you take issue with women being equal to men, that's your prerogative, but at least own up to being a complete waste of societal space and don't hide behind the guise of taking issue with the name of the movement. You just make yourself -- and much worse, the rest of us -- look dumb.
