Since the Women’s March(es) last Saturday, I have seen a lot of people I know both from high school and college sharing hateful, anti-feminist posts and articles. Usually, I bite my tongue and scroll pass all of the hatred and close-minded comments. I try to remind myself that even though I am aware that feminism is absolutely necessary and essential, that not everyone has had their enlightenment and would rather remain in their set ways than research and try to think freely. So in my response to all of this hatred, I am trying to avoid the nastiness I have seen and even produced on social media in the last week.

Recently, some of my girlfriends have been working on a project for their Gender and Politics class and they have reached out to me for some questions. The recurring one has been, “what is feminism to you?” I was so excited when they first asked me and I could not wait to formulate my long answer with research and facts. But as I thought about feminism and what it meant to me, I couldn’t think of anything else to say but that it was a way of life for me. I cannot pinpoint the moment I realized I was a feminist; I guess it was just my constant state of mind and being. Feminism is not just something to me, it is everything to me.

Then I started to wonder why feminism is so important to me. And I thought back on a time when I was watching two children color and the little boy told the little girl, “Here are the girl colors. I’ll color with the boy colors.” From even a young age, there is always such a divide between boys and girls and we are taught that we are so different when biologically, we are more alike than we are different. Yet, we are still treated as inferior to our opposites.

I thought of all of the young college girls who were too scared to report being sexually assaulted because it boils down to one question: what was she wearing? As if clothing has anything to do with rape. How these survivors of assault are the strongest thing known to mankind. From the time women are born, we are coddled and treated as if we are fragile moth wings that could break with just a heavy sigh. The strongest people I know all have one thing in common: they’re female.

I think of all of the women of color, transsexuality, and homosexuality who face oppression every single day. Who earn lower wages than anybody else, and are seen as an oddity in a culture that prides itself on diversity. I think of the stay at home mothers who are working so hard to grow and nurture the future of our nation. And the mothers who work endless hours just to provide for themselves and their families.

So when you’re talking about how you don’t need feminism, remove yourself from your own life. imagine yourself as a single mother, as a woman of color, as a woman of transsexuality, as a woman of homosexuality. Feminism may not be something to you, but it is everything to someone else out in the world. And if you cannot recognize that and respect that, well then that is quite a shame.