Feminism is the new F word

“I do believe in equal rights for men and women, but I’m not a feminist.” Every feminist has heard someone else say something as nonsensical as this at one point. It is a clear contradiction. According to Merriam-Webster, the definition of feminism is “the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities.” Feminism does not entail wanting to be superior to men, hating men, or even refusing to shave armpits.

In today’s society, the word “feminism” often receives outrageous reactions, as if someone uttered one of those naughty four-letter words that we were taught never to say. Personally, I feel as if I have to prepare other people for admitting that I am, in fact, a feminist.

I often get asked “so, do you like, hate men?”

Of course I don’t hate men.

It would be ignorant for one person to hate all of one gender. The fact is that so many people are not educated on the subject of feminism, so they automatically assume ridiculous things about it.

Feminism is twisted by the media. Celebrities cannot come out and say that they are feminists due to that bad publicity that they fear to encounter as a result. Recently, Goodwill Ambassador for UN Women Emma Watson gave a feminist speech in which she launched the HeForShe initiative, aiming to get men to join the movement for equality. By doing so, she received copious amounts of backlash from both feminist proponents and adversaries.  

The biggest issue with feminism in the media is how women are taught that they must fit the unrealistic (Photoshopped) idea of what women should encapsulate, which has led to extremely low self-esteem and body image issues in women of all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds. Men are also given unfair expectations in today’s society by always being expected to stay unrealistically strong and macho, which is just as wrong.

Women also ignore the need for feminism because they are seeing more women in positions of power. Women are CEOs, government officials and can serve in the armed forces. A woman is even leading the Democratic polls for the 2016 election. As a result, people misinterpret this power as equality, which it is not. Elle, as a part of their #MoreWomen campaign, recently used Photoshop not to improve the way women look in their magazine, but to highlight how few women actually exist in positions of power. The results were shocking.

In a photo captured of a UN meeting, Emma Watson was the only woman left once the men were taken out. In a room full of men, Hillary Clinton was left alone as the only woman in President Obama’s group of top officials. In the British Parliament’s 2015 General Election, 29 percent of the Parliament members elected were women. Although this is a record high, the majority of members are still men. Apart from politics, women are also underrepresented in Hollywood; only 12 percent of  protagonists in the top 100 domestic box office hits released last year were women, according to Deadline Hollywood. The success that women have gained over the last century is remarkable, but we are still paid less and treated as inferiors. According to the Pew Research Center, women earn 84 cents on average for every dollar that men earn.

Due to the stigma created by the extreme side of feminism and how the media has fed that stigma,, younger generations of women are becoming less and less feminist. According to Netmum’s Rise of the Modern FeMEnist survey, only one in seven women still call themselves feminists.Why is this? Why is it so hard for people to understand that feminism is synonymous with equality?

Equality.

It is all that true feminists want.