Feminism, like any body of theology, has extremists and opposing opinions. Still, most feminists agree that our goal is simple: for everyone to be given the same opportunities to live without being discriminated against.
But somehow this message has been skewed, as the recent trend of young women declaring themselves as anti-feminists online shows how feminism has a negative connotation to some people. How can a movement so unifying and important in achieving social change become something to be ashamed of identifying with?
I can see how delving into understanding feminism may seem daunting. It takes a lot of self-reflection and acknowledgment of some complex ideas like privilege, capitalism, and the ever-looming patriarchy. I can’t even look at a tomato now without thinking of the starving fingers that graced its skin in the hot Mexican sun. I get it: it’s much easier to go about one’s day oblivious to the atrocities around us, but they’re there, and nothing will change by simply accepting it.
I don’t expect everyone to call themselves a feminist, but standing against us so firmly is disrespectful to the women who have struggled for years for us to have the rights that anti-feminists so ungratefully enjoy.
I’ve been told that there is nothing left to fight for. Women can vote and work, have access to birth control, and are accepted and equal. Great, but is that all we’re entitled to?
Mainstream society (white, straight, middle-class) can live freely, and the fact that those rights aren’t universal doesn’t seem to matter.
Indigenous women going missing is a huge problem, and their communities are devastatingly impoverished.
Bigotry has led to more homeless gay youth than ever before.
Women are still told that avoiding rape is our responsibility, while men cannot speak out about assault without their masculinity being questioned.
There is still plenty to be fighting for.
Most of society has basic rights; it’s now time to see where else we can lend our support so those rights are for everyone.
Please don’t let a name and a few misinformed feminists give you the wrong impression. All most feminists want is for everyone to be able to live the life they choose without feeling the need to conform to society’s ideals of what’s acceptable.
Society will always have issues greater than our individual selves, but by educating each other and sticking together we can accomplish great things.
If education was the key component. May one day they reflect on how the “education” of the subject itself. The language used the ideas pushed, the studies that were done and how they influenced current law. With that all culminate into, the negative view by both men and now women who grew up with continuous exposure to it. Hind sight is 20/20 as they say. Where by through evaluation of what has been done, who did it and why, can an individual make a valid determination. If it were about lifting all boats, parity was reached in 1980 specifically in education. That did not deter the “girl power” campaigns of the 1990s. Over that same time the amount of male teachers fell to the lowest levels ever recorded. So, the narrative of needing more education, not less, where by women have been at the helm for quite a while and by a wide margin. How prey tell did the message get off track to the point that dear Emma had to comment in an international forum, that the more she read into the subject, that it has become associated with “Man hating”.