feminism

noun fem·i·nism \ˈfe-mə-ˌni-zəm\

the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes

Dear Diary,

I hated hearing the words feminist and feminism. In my eyes feminists were a group of women who hated men and were unnecessarily disrespectful to men. Before I truly opened my eyes I'e always felt the need to combat feministic ideas with patriarchal ones, proudly displaying my support for the men in our world. It wasn't until summer of 2016 when the script completely flipped. I began researching more information on feminism and it's root and purpose. At the time, as an anti-feminist, I put all my attention on the fact that most of America's well known feminists were racist. This along with the lack of the inclusion of Black women in the ideology turned me off from it altogether. However feminism has greatly evolved since its first wave in 1848 and I was able to understand it a little more. However, one recurring event led me to thoroughly evaluate my position in the matter.

As an active social media user there was something I noticed on all social media platforms. One day I came across a picture of a beautiful young woman dressed in a form fitting dress with some cleavage showing.The dress accented her curvaceous physique and attracted hundreds of comments. Too many of those comments were from other women that said, " Wow, what a hoe," " She has no respect for herself" and so on and so forth. At first this did annoy me but the anti-feminist side of me took over and brushed it off. Months later, I sat in a class during a fellow female colleague's speech. The topic of her speech was " How a Lady is Supposed to Carry Herself". Part of me already felt the offense rising up in me but I quickly put a muzzle on it. My colleague began with saying, " As a lady you should carry yourself with self respect and not post half naked pictures of yourself online." An instant question popped in my head in refutation, " So a woman automatically has no respect for herself if she publicly takes pride in her body?" I thought back to that picture of the woman in the fitted dress and realized something. Men post pictures of themselves in their boxers alone with that impossible to ignore bulge clearly shown through the boxers yet they're seen as "handsome", "sexy", and of a "perfect body". These men aren't called out of their names throughout their comment feed. People don't view these men as lacking in self respect. I was officially sick and tired.

Even as an anti-feminist I knew the facts. The facts that show that in the year of 2015 full time female workers made 80 cents to every man's dollar. This shows that there is a twenty percent wage gap! It's sad that it didn't just take this simple fact to anger me and I'm pretty sure that some people reading this are probably thinking that it isn't that big of a deal. Now, for those of you who don't think a 20% gap isn't that much let me ask you this: Should a gender wage gap even exist?

I look back on my anti-feminist days and truly wonder why I refused to become bothered by such unequal standards. Now, I am completely knowledgeable and BOTHERED by the truth behind our patriarchal society and I hope you are too.

Sincerely,

A sick and tired feminist