In this day and age with media, crooked news stories and politics, it’s incredibly easy to fall into the trap of believing what you read online. There is an infinite supply of information at the touch of our fingertips, with about 95% of it being complete and total blather. Getting mixed up in what is actually accurate or not is completely understandable. But one concept getting misread and judged over and over again that I simply cannot surpass, is the idea of feminism. Seeing the swirling interpretations of feminism leaking the internet, such as extreme feminism, white feminists, or feminists for ___ (fill in the blank) truly concerns me, being that the true concept of feminism is what I study here at school. There are also several movements against feminism, such as womanists, meninists, or humanists. But these all have been derived from a simple misconception.
Feminism, based on the Merriam Webster dictionary definition, is defined as “the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities.” Simply put. As you see, it does not define the word as the belief in equal rights and opportunities for men and women of only one race. It does not define it as women being superior to men. It does not leave anyone out. Looking at the media today, you could understand how these movements against feminism have come about. There is a popular stereotype of a feminist being an angry lesbian holding a protest sign screaming profanities about Donald Trump. Misconceptions on the feminist movement being women trying to surpass men in equality and putting the male population down is another inaccurate image, striding with the misconception of extreme feminism. Women of color have also interpreted an idea of being “womanists”, an idea that challenges white feminists. Easy to understand, being that women of color have been historically disregarded in the movement for women, and that many white feminists are well off and do not have to face the challenges of women of color. But after studying this major and researching again and again if feminism is truly a bad thing, here is what I have come up with:
Feminism cares for all, every gender, race, origin, you name it. Every circumstance, every opportunity, ever political and social action. Feminism has received this bad rap from well-off white women abusing it, from women who simply just despise men saying they represent it, and from media allowing a tangent whirlwind of misinterpretations of the word to happen again, and again. I do not put down these other movements, I believe women of color did truly spearhead our entire movement, and that they face more problems in a day than I will ever face in my lifetime. But describing feminism as simply wealthy white women saying they are the ones striving for equality, is completely inaccurate. I think we have strayed away from the word, and let it be tarnished with what it calls for based on others’ opinions. We need to get back to the sole definition of it, or rename the word to mean equality for all, ourselves.