I once overheard a conversation in class with a teacher that shall remain nameless that went along the lines of the following scene.
STUDENT A: “Hey, Teacher, what’s the word for the male version of misogyny?”
TEACHER: “Like what’s the word for against males?”
STUDENT A: “Mhmm”
TEACHER: “…feminist?”
STUDENT A: “…”
TEACHER: “…”
THE REST OF THE CLASS: “…”
STUDENT B: “IT’S CALLED MISANDRY!”
Now admittedly, the teacher could have been joking, but this exchange got me wondering where we should draw the line between humor and downright being rude. It could have been a light-hearted joke, but with the prevalence media that portrays males as more important, this entire scene seems disheartening. What are you telling your female students about their self-worth when you compare feminism to misogyny?
Now the original definition of feminism, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is “(n.) the advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes.” While some modern-day feminists, what the internet has taken to calling feminazis, have evolved to become a bit too sensitive to every single issue brought to their attention and too eager to prove the worth of females over those of males, true feminists, at their core, are in fact advocates of equality. They just want women to be seen in equal light as men. They want females to be seen being just as valuable as men. They want women to not be seen as objects and inferior to men, but rather as people. It is this idea of quality that has always been the goal of feminism.
Back in the late Nineteenth Century, this goal was centered around the de jure problem (problem that exists because of the law) of women not having the right to vote, a movement that was called the Women’s Suffrage Movement. During this time, one of the ways that opponents of this ideology tried to discredit suffragists and suffragettes was by portraying these feminists as wild, angry, and irrational. They used employed logical fallacy called strawman fallacy where they intentionally misinterpret, exaggerate, fabricate, or oversimplify the feminists’ argument to make it easier to attack and provoke a visceral reaction from people they are trying to sway to their side. So, the anti-suffragists would portray suffragettes as undesirable, pants-stealing, family-breaking, men-hating dominatrices that wished to subjugate all men, all while contrasting this image with that of traditionally demure, housekeeping wives. In fact, the idea that women’s rights activists hated men actually originated from the anti-suffragists who wanted to discredit the women fighting for equality.
As women have gained more and more rights over the years, the fight has shifted to that of the de facto discrimination, the problem wherein some people believe that inherently lesser than men. This is, by nature, the harder battle of the two as it has always been easier to change the law than someone’s opinion and the lies and falsehoods spread by anti-suffragists have become rooted facts in some people’s minds. Here, the fight circles back to proving that women are worthy of being seen as equals.
There is an amazing Ted Talk by social advocate Ash Beckam where she reminds everyone that “there is no harder, there is just hard.” What she is means is that everyone should stop comparing their problems to other people’s problems. Hard is a relative term, something that has a different definition for each person, each situation, each context. Similarly, feminism is not trying to compare the problems of females to that of males; feminism is trying to show that females deserve to be treated with the same decency and level of respect that is automatically allotted to males. So just know that whenever a conversation devolves into a contest of who has it worse in society, females or males, it stops being a conversation about feminism and becomes an unproductive discussion equivalent to (excuse my language) a metaphorical pissing contest.
In conclusion, I just want to remind everyone of real reason feminism exists - to promote equality.
To the people who genuinely do not believe women are qualified to be viewed as equal to men, I remind you that females are human too, that in the end, we are all human. I ask you to look to your mothers and sisters and aunts and grandmas, and ask yourself, do I look up to these people? Do their opinions matter to me? Do they deserve the basic human right to be taken seriously? If you answered yes to any of these, then remember that the feminist movement is what protects their rights.
To the people who say they hate feminists because they hate men, I remind you that the feminism is not about females being superior to men, but rather females and men standing on equal ground. I ask that you to lend a bit of leniency to feminists on account of their overeagerness to prove women as capable as men, which sometimes may be misinterpreted as an attempt to prove females superior to men. I apologize for that miscommunication and ask for forgiveness for any feelings of inferiority that may have sparked among men; it is not our intention to force men to feel the way we have felt before, rather show them that we should be viewed as equals.
To the people who say they are not feminists because they support equality, I remind you that the two are not mutually exclusive, in fact, they are mutually inclusive.
To the people who say they are feminists, but feel discouraged by how negatively they are viewed in light of this identification, I remind you to stay true to the ideals of feminism: equality for all on the basis that all sexes have the same worth as human beings.
