Earlier this week I had a conversation with a friend. As time went on and the conversation progressed we started discussing feminism. She said to me "I believe in equality for all woman. We deserve to be at the same level as men." I (obviously) agreed, but then I asked her "Well, what about men? Don't you believe that toxic masculinity is an issue?" She said "No, that's not a thing. Men's problems are not as bad as women's."

Not only did I not agree with my friend's statement, I was taken aback by this toxic idea that has embedded itself in social justice. The silent issue in social justice is that people who like to bring up and fight for social issues, only fight for the ones that only relate to them, and discard the rest as 'unimportant'. Many people like to rank which societal issues on a scale from more important to least, and this becomes a huge problem when one person who fights for one cause, but another person finds it as invalid.

My friend had completely disregarded a group of people just because they didn't share the same problems she faced. In my mind, I did not see this person as a feminist at all. How can someone say that they believe in equality for all, but leave out a group of people fighting to do the same? We are all fighting for equality, but if we cannot find a way to find validation and support all issues, then how can we make that goal?

I call this notion Selective Social Activism. It is the idea that we find more issues more important than others, even when the perceived goals are the same. This is also based on personal preference. Think of it like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. You might want more peanut butter than jelly, or the other way around. OR you might not want peanut butter at all and just have a jelly sandwich instead. It is very common amongst social activists- feminists, religious equality, as well as racial equality.

When it comes to social activism people like to pick and choose what they want to fight for. You can fight for women’s rights, but only for the issues that directly affect you. Or you can fight for racial equality, but not religious equality. You can fight for LGBTQ+ issues, but only focus on gay, lesbian, and bisexual issues, and ignore the rest of the group. This happens all the time.

When I first started to become a voice in social justice, I was guilty of the same things. I only focused on the groups that I had identified myself with, and the issues I face and gave no validation to the ones that I did not identify with. When I realized that our goals were inlined and began to show more empathy towards those groups, I was able

We tend to only care about the issues that directly affect us, and ignore the ones that don't. Just because certain issues do not affect you personally does not make them less valid or worth fighting for. As a social justice advocate, we have to be willing to fight for it all. We need to stand for every single form of social injustice, not the ones that we believe will be the easiest to overcome.

This is not only an ignorant act, it is also an unsympathetic one. When we ignore or invalidate the issues that certain groups face every day, we do not show our empathy and support. We ourselves become part of the problem. IF we are all trying to reach for equality, then why is it so hard to work together?There are so many issues that affect so many people. We can’t just look at a list of problems and decide which ones are worth our time.

We have to be able to fight for all issues for all people. It is not okay to pick and choose what you want to change. You have to be willing to change everything. There are so many people in this world who face different issues and circumstance. We have to show validation and recognition for those causes when we can. We need to stand together to fight all social issues for all people. That is how we can finally achieve equality