This past week, I encountered an article written by a woman around my age discussing the flaws of the feminist movement. The article showed up on my Facebook newsfeed, shared by various friends of mine who agree with the growing sentiment that feminism is destructive and not a fight for equality. Rather, many people have come to believe that feminists blame men for gender inequality and are working to put men down. This is not the first time I’ve come across this belief, and this is not the first time I will attempt to clarify what the feminist movement truly is.
My first explicit introduction to feminism happened some time in high school. My best friend at the time was an active feminist, as was I without realizing it. Though I didn’t know it then, I’ve learned that being a feminist simply means believing in equality for the sexes.
Unfortunately, many extreme views have been mistaken for feminism. Misandry is contempt for men, which, tied in with the belief that women should strive to be superior to men, is about as far from the definition of feminism as you can get. Feminism is the advocacy for women’s rights for an ultimate goal of gender equality. This extends beyond tangible objectives such as the right to vote or closing the wage gap. Feminists believe that women and men should be treated the same in all aspects – socially, politically, economically, you name it.
The article that sparked my response this time around did make some fair points. It’s foolish to pretend that men and women are alike in every way. Biologically, we are built differently, and thus have different strengths and weaknesses. Consumerism is structured in a way that results in coverage of male and female sports not receiving the same attention. But what matters is that there’s equal opportunity. Women aren’t caught up on the fact that men have more airtime on ESPN; we’re upset that the society we live in does not dispel misogyny, but rather occasionally promotes it.
If there’s one thing you should take away from this, it’s that feminism is the fight for equality of the sexes, which tends to mean better representation of and more opportunities for women. You don’t have to be a female to be a feminist. You don’t have to stop paying the check on a date because of your gender (this goes both ways – splitting the check or taking turns paying is perfectly acceptable). And just because feminism is still around despite lots of progress in the last few decades doesn’t mean that we’re ungrateful for the steps we’ve made towards equality; it shows our perseverance and belief that we can get there, but we’ve still got a long way to go.
