According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, feminism is "the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes". If the main goal of feminism is to achieve equality among the genders, why does there seem to be so much conflict regarding the group? Perhaps it is a problem inside of the feminist community where a variety of clashing viewpoints leads to instability. As an example, the Women's Liberation Movement faced this problem in the 1960s and 1970s as they had to separate into smaller parties in order to accommodate for those who disagreed with the protest methods of the leaders. Many support the basic philosophy of feminism that there should be equality between people of different genders through improving and gaining women's rights, but the argument of peaceful versus violent protests is where paths diverge and smaller factions form. Even with one fundamental goal of bettering opportunities for females, there still is an internal conflict on how to reach goals.
Along with feminists separating because of how they protest, they also differentiate when talking about who they aim to improve equality for. In March 2016, the company Always released a video on YouTube about how emojis, small pictures of faces and objects used in messages to express ideas or emotions instead of words, should be made so there are both male and female characters of each human emoji. The campaign has a strong message of promoting awareness of how younger girls view themselves according to society's current views. The video was of course directed toward an audience of first world countries that knew what emojis were and regularly used them (in turn being affected to some extent by the gender of emojis), but there are many feminists in the world who are unfamiliar with the concept and instead focus on impoverished regions that lack proper education and living standards. Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistani young woman who promotes gender equality, especially focusing on women's education, and for her efforts and standing up against the Taliban, she was granted with the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014. Feminists are divided by what they mainly focus on, but the overarching idea that equality is the end goal keeps them all under the same title of being a feminist.
In the United States, laws were enforced as a result of the growing popularity of feminist movements across the nation. Some of the most famous are the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote as a result of the women's suffrage movement, and Title IX, stating that government-funded educational facilities must provide equal resources to programs for each gender. One problem to this is that after Title IX, funding for female sports programs must come from the allocated amount of money set for sports, primarily dominated by male sports in many schools, so funding for the sport program must increase. With voting rights and educational facilities covered (except for dress code that is determined by the school) in terms of gender equality, the most widely discussed issue at the moment became the wage gap. In 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act (EPA) with the main goal of destroying wage gaps based on sex. Considering this, theoretically, unequal pay for jobs requiring the same skill level and experience is illegal, but for every dollar the man earns, the woman receives approximately 78 cents. Because there was still an issue with how money was distributed unequally, some protests would aim at increasing the awareness about the Equal Pay Act considering it had already been passed while others would focus on creating a new law.
Feminism only focuses on women's rights, including eliminating stereotypes and generalizations, but men can be victims, too. Some feminists do not believe that men should be given any more rights, but a problem with disregarding abuse against males is that avoiding the issue does not make it go away. Feminism aims to achieve equality, but that does not come by just focusing on females. If this is the case and, for example, abuse against females has stricter consequences, the same could not be said for males. There are double standards present where women can hit men and be seen as able to stand up for herself, but when a man hits a woman, he is seen as disrespectful. The whole concept of hitting other people is the underlying problem. In select situations, blaming gender does not identify the actual issue.
Feminism, in essence, aims to achieve the positive message of equality among genders, but feminists themselves can be separated by differences in protest types, audiences, and issues. In the end, no matter what gender, equality is a privilege that most people want, and it will take time and experience to figure out a way to successfully reach it.
Please note that I am not a devout feminist and am attempting to be moderate. This article is not meant to attack any people or groups.