It seems like every other day on the Odyssey, I see another article plastered on the front page with headlines such as " I'm a Girl But I'll Never be a Feminist," " I'd Rather Raise a Family Than Raise Protest Signs," or something equally eye-catching and disappointing.

It seems that lately, many girls have found themselves identifying as "anti-feminists" and doing everything they possibly could to disassociate themselves from the movement as if just sharing the same gender as a modern-day feminist is crime enough and lumps them in with those girls.

As someone who considers themselves a feminist (more or less), this new trend is deeply disconcerting. Liberalism in the modern age has been reduced to a public joke, where the people who proudly associate themselves as a liberal are belittled and silenced with chants of "special snowflake" by the same conservatives who got their old-fashioned panties in a twist at the thought of legalizing gay marriage.

Even though I consider myself more of a libertarian, and my whole philosophy is "do whatever makes you happy" and utilize your free will to the max, criticizing a popularized movement for the sake of being "different" is not only uneducated and ignorant, but it also pauses any kind of actual progress that might be underfoot due to disunity.

I will not sit here and preach about how being a feminist is the best thing a woman could ever be and how my life was incomplete without accepting Simone de Beauvoir into my life, even though I will say that being part of something bigger than myself is rather satisfying. But more than anything, I will not lie about how the feminist movement is perfect and how every woman should join the party.

The modern feminist movement is deeply, frustratingly flawed, but this is because it is made up of people, and people are generally imperfect themselves.

We should not let a number of radicals become the voice for the typically moderate masses. The goal of feminism is to put men and women on the same platform and to prevent any unnecessary silent anguish that comes with being a female in a society that has been historically patriarchal in nature.

Men and women are equal. They always have been, ever since prehistoric times when women ran the villages and egalitarian principles reigned until the adoption of agriculture (that's right ladies, we got pushed to the side because of a couple of crops). Physical strength was never even in the equation.

Of course men are physically stronger than women; no one has ever questioned that. But from a social standpoint, women have been placed under an astronomic amount of stress and pressure to fulfill a certain role in society – the mother, the caregiver, the virgin, the nurturing kind soul – that men definitely would not have suffered through. Women are expected to live in relation to men and lead separate lives, for if they act in a way that is typically seen as "masculine," they are ostracized from society.

So please, don't shame modern feminists for siding with something they believe in.

No one said you can't be a housewife and a feminist too. What you shouldn't do is place yourself above a certain group of women and pit yourself against them due to your longing to feel accepted in a group that is totally socially acceptable.

Bragging about how you're not a feminist doesn't make you special and going on to speak negatively about the feminists you think you're better than doesn't make you an outspoken and aware individual. Honestly, it makes you look like a jackass.

In our supposedly "woke" and tolerant culture, shouldn't we be past our concerns of being ostracized for belonging to a specific group? Clearly, some people still must learn that even though something has a stigma attached to it, especially one that has no actual basis in reality, doesn't mean it's not worth participating in.