As a woman, I realize the importance of some of the actions of feminists of the past, and don’t get me wrong. I appreciate my right to vote, to own property, go to college, choose any major and work any job. However, the feminism of my generation, “third wave feminism”, is not by any means the feminism of Susan B. Anthony or Elizabeth Blackwell. In fact, it’s not even the feminism of our mothers or grandmothers. That being said, here are three reasons why I choose not to associate myself with the modern, western feminist movement.

Feminists absolutely love to spread misinformation. They often throw around jargon such as “patriarchy,” “wage gap” and “rape culture.” Although, whenever you choose to look further into the issues that they make seem so present, you will find that none of these exist in the United States. A patriarchy, or male-dominated society, would not allow women to vote, own property or run for political office. Women have had the right to vote in the United States for 96 years, the right to own property for over 100 years, and just recently, a woman (Hillary R. Clinton) ran for President. Young adult feminists in the US have not by any means experienced true patriarchy. In terms of the so called wage gap, employers are forbidden by law to pay a woman any less than a man while doing the same job. The claim that “women make 77 cents to a man’s dollar,” is based off of the fact that women as a whole tend to choose lower paying jobs such as nursing or teaching or choosing to be a stay-at-home mom. It’s simple; if a woman wants to make as much money as a man does, she must choose a higher-paying job. Feminists simply cannot major in education, home economics or gender studies and expect the same pay as a male engineer, lawyer, or doctor. The term “rape culture,” attempts to imply that a society not only accepts, but encourages rape. However, male-on-female rape is considered to be one of the most serious crimes, second only to murder, by our legal system. No parent intentionally encourages his or her son to rape a girl, and contrary to popular feminist belief, men are being taught not to commit it. Furthermore, sexual assault has decreased by almost 50 percent in the past 20 years. Most importantly, the term "rape culture" actually gives rapists a pass, for it implies that their actions are the fault of society and not themselves. These are just a few phrases that modern day feminists love to spread that are clearly false.

Feminists try to justify murder. One of the biggest things feminists promote in the United States is the idea of human rights and they are very vocal about that, but this is yet another feminist lie. While they care about the “mother’s body,” they do not care about the unborn baby whatsoever, regardless of it’s gender. They fought for the right to murder their children, but now they have taken to a completely different level and are avidly fighting for an organization (Planned Parenthood) that not only murders children on the taxpayer’s dime, but profits from the mutilated bodies. Abortion violates the most precious human right of all, life. Feminists love to try to argue that babies are not by any means “living.” As a recent study by researchers at Princeton shows, a fetus is very much a living human. It is not about the women’s health when women are getting abortions solely for the purpose of convenience or financial reasons. It is not about the “right to my own body” when the fetus is in fact another body. The real question is if feminists are fighting for “equal rights,” why are they ignoring the rights of all of the unborn babies?

Being labeled a feminist makes you weaker, rather than stronger. Feminists spend so much time fighting for “equality,” but that leads to superiority. Rather than feminism causing unity among both genders, feminists label themselves as “oppressed,” prompting others to feel pity towards women, which leads to yet another unbalanced society. In claiming it is the fight for equality and only advocate for women, feminists show the movement as prejudiced and stubborn-minded, acting upon illogical, biased and quite honestly, extremist values. A movement is its voice in the media, and ours is constantly bombarded with the notion that women are the only oppressed gender while men are the perpetrators of rape, rape threats, domestic violence, and sexual objectification. History proves that this has divided the world yet again into a gender war, for lack of better terminology. Feminists tend to also play the role of the victim. Feminists tell women to be afraid of the “big, bad men,” and those who express that they are not afraid are ridiculed. Crying “sexism” at every possible chance and being offended by the “B-word” is not strength; it’s victimization. Feminists like to insert their dominance into everyday life by ripping men apart verbally. Bullying is not empowering as feminists claim to be, bullying is cowardly. Feminism encourages financial dependence more than any movement in the United States to date. Feminists demand free birth control, mammograms, hygiene products, bras and so much more. They stand firm in the belief that they are independant women, yet want the government or their employers to pay for things that couldn’t possibly be free. If such things were “free” to consumers, they still cost money to manufacture and the government could not afford such an expensive cost without increasing the taxes that they already complain about. They tend to demonize stay-at-home moms for being dependent on their husbands, but dependence on the men in the government is a-okay, in their minds. Entitlement is not strong, it is juvenile.

There is more to modern feminism than meets the eye. Past feminists filled gaps when they needed to be filled and now modern day feminists are trying to offset the balance yet again, but this time, are trying to make women favorable in almost every aspect of life. Choosing to support such an extreme cause is obviously personal belief, but the way that the media has presented it has been completely untrue. I by no means support anti feminism just because I don’t agree with the feminist ways. When scratching the surface, many people including myself, are intrigued by the idea because, by definition, feminism is the advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes. Most Americans are all about equality, but feminism gets completely out of hand. Feminism is not for me, nor is feminism for equality.