It always makes me cringe to hear someone say, “I’m just not a feminist.” Maybe it’s because millennials claim “we don’t like labels,” but it seems ridiculous to me that someone can publicly state they don’t agree with equality between men and women just because of a word. Feminist is suddenly a bad word, but since when? I bet the women who fought for the 19^th Amendment and the founders of NOW have a heart attack every time a woman says she isn’t a feminist and would probably drop dead if they even saw the phrase “Women Against Feminism.”

I remember being in eighth grade and our teacher asking us who was a feminist and not even half the class raised their hand, including myself. I thought it was a bad thing — I thought feminist meant crazy man-hating bra-burner. As I grew up, I realized this was what was truly crazy — that people think to be a feminist you have to be a certain way. You have to pledge yourself to not have children in order to fight society's standards for women. You have to not wear bras or shave. You have to refuse to wear dresses or pink or heels. This is the furthest thing from true. I have met so many feminists who are all so different from each other. You can be a feminist and shave. You can be a feminist and not wear a bra. You can be a feminist and be a mother, a lawyer, a teacher. Being feminist doesn’t mean you have to be radical or even be a particular way — you can define what feminism means to you.

There are so many amazing female role models calling themselves feminists, and yet still it’s a bad thing to be one. I’m not sure how many more times Beyoncé can clearly define feminist for us before people realize it just means social, economic, and political equality between the sexes. This is a time, especially with our upcoming political atmosphere, where people have to start embracing feminism and realizing that it isn’t a bad word. To say women have never had it better and to say there is nothing to complain about is just ignorant, and I'm tired of reading articles about women who are "so over feminism." If you can say that women have never had it better and that feminism doesn't matter, you are ignoring the struggles of millions of women. Women are not whining by calling themselves feminists. They're not saying men deserve to be lesser. They're just saying they want equality. We still have a long way to go before women are equal to men and people who criticize feminism are the reason why. We have to stop letting these people have the louder voices and we have to stop apologizing for using the f word.