Feminism. Racism. "All Lives Matter." Muslim. Liberal. Republican. Are you scared yet? Offended, maybe?
I know, the words may make you shudder. You most certainly aren't the only one. Today, you can't turn on the television or open a social media webpage without seeing another article (not unlike this one) or news report on a congregation of people fighting for more social change. The weird thing is, people act like petitions and marches are something new. Perhaps to this generation, but not to the world. What has changed, however, is the way we perceive the people and the rights that those people are fighting for.
The big issue is the animosity that has risen from people asking for equal rights. Rather than let individual reasoning take precedence, we let others tell us how to feel about these events.
Personally, I consider myself a feminist. What irks me the most about the majoritarian view of feminism is this: Many people think feminists are hypocritical and confusing. Well, yes, women can be confusing, but feminism is not. Contrary to popular belief, most women don't want to be treated like a man. Feminist women simply do not want to be discriminated against.
By the term "discrimination," I mean that when someone is considered for a job opportunity, the employer's eyes first go to the skill set rather than the sex. When someone is assigned a task, it is not due to which reproductive organs they possess but their ability to perform well. Women want to remove the stereotypes that have been pinned upon them since the beginning of time. But in reality, isn't that what all people want about the groups they belong to?
Human rights doesn't mean that one group wants something more than another. Not all those belonging to the Black Lives Matter movement want to be better than the other populations of races in the United States. These people simply want to be treated as an equal, as though what they believe or practice or how they look doesn't set them above or below, but simply apart.
The point I am trying to make is this: people want to simply be seen as people. The rest are identifiers, things that make them different in that they are an individual and special and just as important as the next human. Let the woman trying to make a name for herself in her company wear her hijab. Let the moderate politician campaign for the changes he wants. Let the feminist be expressive. As long as these people are not causing harm, as long as they are staking their claim peacefully and mindfully of others, why should someone deny them their right to live the way they want?
I understand that by writing this article about this certain topic, I am walking a tightrope between stepping on the toes of people who are adamant about many of these issues and being so politically correct as to not make any real points at all. Politics and social change is hard because it is so incredibly important to a modern society. More than anything, I hope that what you take from this is to make your own decisions before you bandwagon with what is popular or what you were raised upon and consider the person before the identifier. The United States was created by the rejects and misfits of other countries. Acceptance is what got us to where we are now, and it will carry us into the America of the future.
