Feminism.
Such a nasty, dirty, don't-let-your-mother-hear-it word; you can't say it in a public space without someone giving you a weird look or an eye roll.
People hear "feminist" or "feminism" and assume the speaker is a power-hungry man-hater, sometimes called a "feminazi". But that is simply not the case for the majority of feminists. Feminism at its core definition is "the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes".
You believe that men and women should have the same rights? Well congratulations, sweetheart, you're a feminist.
If the previous statement angers you because you do not want to be called a feminist, you're not alone. A 2013 Huffington Post found that 20% of Americans classified themselves as feminists - 16% of men and 23% of women - while 82% of Americans agreed that "men and women should be social, political, and economic equals".
But I get it. There are some seriously crazy feminists. There are some women that really do hate men and that try to use feminism as a platform for dominance over men, but these women are not the majority. You might believe it is so because of the attention the radicals get; people with extreme views often get a lot of attention because their views are, well, extreme and different than the ordinary.
In any group with an ideology, you have extremist. Whether it be feminism, Christianity, Islam, Republicans, Democrats, Pro-Choice, Pro-Life, etc., there will be extremists. The actions of this small portion of a larger group cannot become the face of the movement.
If you want to look at the true face of feminism, look at The Women's March of 2017. With estimates of 3.6 million to 4.2 million people participating in over 500 cities in the US, the demonstration was the largest single-day protest in America's history. The millions of participants are not "man-haters" or "feminazis"; they are mothers, fathers, boyfriends girlfriends, wives, husbands, brothers, sisters, friends, leaders, and the true majority of feminists.
If we want to remove the negative connotation of feminism and bring the association of feminism back to its true meaning of equal rights among the genders, we need to be confident as our identity in feminists. Extreme, outspoken, feminists have a right to share their views, but these radical beliefs are not the beliefs of the entire population of feminists, not even the beliefs of the majority of identified feminists. So ignore the stigma: use the F-word with confidence, and one day it will be as socially acceptable as a belief in equal rights.
