I’m going to be completely honest, this is a very controversial topic but an important one to discuss. After speaking to quite a few people about my standpoint, it seems like a lot of people agree with it. The topic today is about Feminism, but more specifically why people are afraid to be called a feminist.

Before we go any further, we need some background on this topic. Dictionary.com and Merriam-Webster dictionary both have their first entry of Feminism as the social, political, and economical equality of the sexes. As we all know, women have been oppressed in many societies throughout history. With the different waves of Feminism, we have seen that there have been people who were, and still are, fighting for the full equality of the sexes, which is a great thing! But the problem lies not with the textbook definition ideals, but with what society now believes a feminist is.

If you ask people what a feminist may look like, you’ll get a whole bunch of different answers. When I asked around, I heard many different answers, such as an average person, a millennial, a crybaby, and a decent human being. However, the one answer I got the most was probably “someone like Big Red”. For those of you who are unfamiliar with that name, Big Red is more of an extreme feminist who became viral when a video of her surfaced when she was yelling at a group of men’s rights activists.

Now, this is where I believe the problem is. The word Feminism and Feminist have now become synonymous with the extreme side of it. The side that screams “ALL MEN ARE PIGS! I HATE MEN!” and the ones who create words such as “mansplaining” and “manspreading”. Mansplaining can be summarized as being a terrible human being who should learn how to not talk over someone, rather than just associating the action to just men. I’ve seen women do this, as well as have their legs wide open on public transportation. The side that instead of wanting equality, they want a matriarchal society and to tear down all men. The side that brings the message to men that they are all inferior and should be oppressed.

Personally, I don’t find extreme feminism to be feminism at all, but rather just pure hate. Since extreme feminism has now become a synonym for feminism, it’s hard to want to be labeled as such. For me, I do not call myself a modern feminist because of these reasons. I believe that I am a feminist, but would rather not be called one due to the modern day “extremist” version. I will always say that I want equality towards all people regardless of sex, gender, sexual orientation, color, ethnicity and so on since I’m a decent human being. Acceptance and equality for all is extremely important, but the word Feminism has now been tainted by the newer Fourth Wave feminism. This wave has turned the dictionary definition into something that is much different and much more harmful. Years ago I was watching a video online of an interviewer asking people if they were feminists. If the person who was being interviewed said no, the interviewer would say “What? You’re not okay with everyone being equal?”. It sort of stuck with me, because I knew that many people saw feminists as an extremist group, and it shouldn’t be.

Until we can make it a well-known idea that feminism does not equal the extreme feminism that we see today, I believe we will have this form of divide inside of the community. I also believe that we as people who want equality for all will not be taken seriously because of the extremist side.