As soon as the word "feminism" enters a conversation, many heads turn off. People immediately picture vagina hats and shirtless women screaming for equality and yelling that all men are trash. Although there are women out there who protest certain inequalities this way, it seems this is a less effective strategy to reach the goals that many women want in society. It seems that these women are taken less seriously, and more people just sigh and try to ignore them the best that they can. That being said, the minute that anyone says they're a feminist a lot of people equate the two in their head, even though that's more of a radical form of feminism than most believe in.

So let's debunk that stereotype right now. Not all feminists are in your face, vagina hat wearing, free bleeding women. While some of these protests have noble causes behind them, like reducing or eliminating the tax on feminine products, I can't help but think that they go about it the wrong way. I would call myself a feminist, but you would never see me free bleeding. I will buy my products, and as annoying as the tax might be, I will buy them until the tax is lifted through other means of protest.

You won't see me arguing for equal pay if the situation doesn't call for it. For example, women's and men's professional basketball. Many women are upset they aren't being paid the same amount as men in professional sports careers, and I can get why. It would suck to have the same profession and get paid less because of your gender. However, in this particular circumstance, the revenue that comes in a lot of times is coming from viewers and fan bases. Statistically, women sports have lower viewer ratings than men, which would mean the fan base is smaller and therefore there is less revenue coming in consistently. As much as it may suck, women should not be paid the same amount in this scenario because a lot of the money is coming from an outside source that isn't generating as much income. Logically, if you aren't getting equal viewers, you shouldn't be getting equal pay. Essentially, you aren't bringing in as much business and if you were getting paid the same amount with money that isn't available, it would not be in the company's best interest if they wanted to stay afloat and you want to keep your job.

However, in terms of an office setting, if you are putting in the same amount of hours and work into your job as a man, you should be earning the same amount of pay. If you put in extra hours, you should be paid more. If you are good at what you do, you deserve the same benefits that anyone else with your job would get. If you're terrible at your job, you shouldn't be paid equally just because you're a woman or man and you're upset.

Furthermore, I do not believe that all men are trash. I do believe there are admirable qualities that a lot of men have that I look at and decide I want to embody myself. That's important to note. That it is okay for someone else to have a good quality, but that quality is not exclusive to that gender. I can admire it and decide that I want to become more like that. Maybe I want to become stronger physically. Maybe I see a brilliant engineer and decide that I want to do the same.

However, men must realize this as well. Women are not incapable. We are not unable to do the things that you do. In fact, we definitely can and if we wanted to, we would. However, if you like doing those things for us, why not take advantage of it? If you enjoy cars, then I'll gladly let you take a look at mine and tell me why it's running weird. If you're going to demean me in the process, I will sit myself down and figure it out on my own because I can do that. I can learn about anything you can and fix it just as well. Making cutting comments to make your ego feel better is really just sad. In turn, there are admirable qualities about women that men may want to try to look at and try to embody themselves.

I am a feminist, but not in the over the top extremist way, and many other feminist women are the same. What a feminist wants is to be treated with basic human decency. They don't want to be disrespected in their workplace because they are seen as inferior since they are a woman. They don't want to be paid unequally when they are doing the same amount of work as a male counterpart. They don't want to be seen as an object for men's satisfaction. They want the same societal standards that are held for them to be held for men as well, whether that be that everyone stays pure or that everyone is allowed to be promiscuous. They don't want to be taxed for something they absolutely need while men aren't for items that are actually luxury items. They don't want to be seen as weak or less or anything because they are a woman, because women are actually capable of exactly the same as any man. They don't want to be criticized for every little thing they do or do not choose to do. Women deserve exactly the same rights as men in every way, and that is what a feminist fights for.