Before you make assumptions and judgements and skip this article over, please understand it was written with a heavy heart through some very stressful political times. Here me out. I declared myself a feminist a couple years ago thanks to my sister who showed me how important gender equality is. Now I am not saying that this was never something I was aware of, just the term and what they stand for was further explained and I had an epiphany that this is what I was going to base a good amount of my time on. Recent texts that have been floating around the internet have speared the feminism name and made us look like something we really aren't. While radical feminism has helped us obtain a lot of the rights we now thankfully have, I just want to clarify some issues I've had with people against feminism.
We do not HATE men.
Oh boy, if I had a freaking dollar for every time someone made the assumption that because I am a feminist that I automatically despise men and think women are the superior gender. There is nothing about feminism that is male hating. What we DO hate, is the lack of gender equality and how it has steered more towards men.
There IS a wage gap.
I got into this argument with a friend a couple months ago who explained to me that he knew you a fact that men and women get paid the same amount. Listen, sweetheart, I hate to burst your misogynist bubble but I feel the need to make this fact known. In 2015, female full-time workers made only 80 cents for every dollar earned by men, a gender wage gap of 20 percent. Women, on average, earn less than men in virtually every single occupation for which there is sufficient earnings data for both men and women to calculate an earnings ratio. THIS HAS NOT CHANGED.
We still accept chivalry in our lives.
Just because I want to be able to have the chance to go half on a dinner doesn't mean I'm going to flip out on my boyfriend for opening a damn door. Just because I am a supporter of women having an equal part in a relationship as their male counterpart, doesn't mean I get angry when a chair is pulled out for me to sit. WE JUST WANT IT EQUAL. It's really not that hard to understand.
We want rights to our own body.
I shouldn't have to argue the point that it is wrong for a group of men in government to tell every woman what she can and cannot do with her own freaking body. It's my damn uterus it's my damn insides and outsides. In a perfect society people care about their own self and if it's not harming others, they stay out of their business. This is coming from someone who grew up in a very religious household as well.
We aren't asking for it.
What bothers me probably the most is when a woman is raped or sexually assaulted by a man, if she gets the day in court she still has to justify why she was so drunk, why she decided to wear a skirt that short, why her shirt was unbuttoned as much as it was. It's disgusting that there are so many cases where the man gets away completely free and the woman, who has to live with this the rest of her life, is left questioning if it was her fault.
I personally don't care if this offends anyone. I don't care if you hate me because I fight for gender equality and my rights as a female. I do not give a crap if several people delete me off social media for this. I am tired, very very tired, of getting shit on because I dream of a society that involves fair pay, paid maternity leaves, and where the women of the world don't have to carry pepper spray with them at night because they're scared beyond anything of being attacked.
BY ALL MEANS call me a snowflake. Call me irrational. Call me whatever the hell you want because I will still walk for you. I will still fight for you. Because even if you don't see the inequality, it's there, whether you understand it or not.
