The Feminist Journal

Feminism is so often misunderstood and misrepresented. Most people don’t understand what it is really about. Contrary to popular belief, the purpose is not to bash on men and give women the upper hand. In fact, in many things, women do have more privilege than men. When it comes to stay-at-home parenting or makeup, men are looked down upon for having interest in these things. Feminism in its purest form, is that men and women should be equal. Equal say in what they do, think, and be. Women have definitely made some huge progress. We can own land, we aren’t considered property of our fathers and then our husbands, and we can vote. However, there are still so many little things that make men and women unequal. This is why we need feminism.

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During a Facebook Live event for International Women’s Day in 2015 Emma Watson spoke about the common misconception of Feminism. She explained what feminism truly is. She said, “If you stand for equality, then you’re a Feminist. Sorry to tell you, you’re a Feminist”. This sends a very powerful message. She has spoken before about why feminism isn’t about hating men but it doesn’t seem to take root. But when she speaks to a person about what they believe, like equality of the sexes, that person will agree with everything she is saying. Then at the end she states that makes you a feminist. It really helps put things into perspective.

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There are countless blogs, tweets and videos about why women don’t need feminism. Most of the reasons are pretty ignorant. They feel that because they have the right to vote they don’t need feminism. Or that they don’t need feminism because men need help too. In Watson’s speech at the UN for the launch of her HeForShe Campaign she stated that “fighting for women’s rights has too often become synonymous with man-hating”. This is definitely not the case. The HeForShe campaign’s aim is to bring men and women together to fight for equality. Watson wants to help bring back to proper definition of Feminism into our society so that we can work on unifying our fight for equality. Men need feminism just as much as women do. There are plenty of things that men can’t do without being looked down upon or ridiculed. On average men get longer sentences than women do for the same crime. Men are also less likely to win a custody battle, even if the mother is clearly unfit. These are all things that feminism aims to remedy.

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Feminism should be uniting those who want equality, not dividing them. It seems that the opponents of equality have spread the lies that feminism is not really for equality to hopefully deter those who might be slightly skeptic. This in turn drives more and more people against feminism, breaking the unity and stalling the progress. If everyone were to come together and stand under the feminism movement, there would be much more progress for equality of the sexes. However, there are still women out there that will use feminism as an excuse to hate men or villainize them; this needs to stop.

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It’s so easy to ignore sexism when it doesn’t seem to affect you. This makes it so easy for men, and some women, to ignore what is happening to the rest of the world. In one of Sophia Gubb’s blog posts she talks about how living as a man, she was so oblivious to sexism in our society. As a man she felt that our society had all the “Structures” in place to be able to ignore sexism. It didn’t affect her as a man so it was almost as though it didn’t exist. Gubb says she can remember the exact moment she became a feminist. She had recently started her transition and she was sexually harassed for the first time. Talking to her girlfriends about it afterwards made her realize how common of an occurrence this was.

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There is a Facebook page called Women Against Feminism where hundreds of women have shared why they believe Feminism is not needed. One women writes, “I don’t need Feminism because… It isn’t the 50’s anymore. We’re already equal”. This shows that there are women who don’t understand what being equal truly means. It means the ability to walk the streets at night without the fear of being raped, like most men do. It’s the ability for men to want to be stay-at-home dads and not be thought of as lesser men. It’s for men and women to have the same opportunities in life. It’s about female athletes being paid the same as men and not having to wear revealing clothing to do so. It’s for the men who don’t get taken seriously when they say they’ve been sexually assaulted; and the women who use rape allegations to get back at men.

 

This is why we need feminism.