Young people often have trouble figuring out what it is they want to do in life. For the past couple of years, I’ve begun to realize what it is that I could be interested in doing. As college approaches, people have begun to ask about what I am interested in doing. However, when I tell them, “I think I want to go to law school and become a sex crimes prosecutor,” I am often met with confused glances and disapproving tones.

“You don’t look like you would hate men,” and “Isn’t that a bit of an aggressive job for a girl like you?” are the most frequent responses I receive. When I first began to hear this feedback, I was disappointed, I stopped voicing my interest as much out of fear of being deemed a “Man-Hater.”

I could not understand why people weren’t as supportive as I had hoped they would be. It made no sense that they would judge me for being passionate about taking a strong stance. I was hurt that these people who were originally so interested in what I wanted my future to look like, were now so turned off by my dedication to this fight. It then dawned on me that this was happening simply because these people did not understand what I was fighting for. This was not about me trying to put men in jail. This was about me wanting to put rapists in jail.

When I was a junior in high school, everyone in our grade had to write an 8-10 page research paper on a topic of our choice. I chose to write about the misconceptions of rape culture. It was there that I learned that roughly 16 percent of men are/will be sexually assaulted. However, the most shocking thing I learned was that while it is one of the most often committed crimes, it is by far the least punished crime. This is where my desire to become a sex crimes prosecutor stems from. It comes from this gross imbalance, not because I hate men.

However, this is not an uncommon struggle to come across. I have met so many other girls who tell me how sometimes boys are not interested in them because they are feminists, or people are scared of them because they assume they are exactly like an untrue, played-out stereotype. In recent years, there have even been a large number of female celebrities who say that they are not feminists because of these things. It has been made abundantly clear that people nowadays just do not understand the true definition of feminism.

Feminism is simply the desire for women to be equal to men on all fronts. Women of all color deserve to have the exact same opportunities as men do. There is no reason that I should get less money for doing the same job as a man, additionally, there is even less reason that I should be denied the same job opportunities as a man. The battle for equality is a long one, however that does not stand as a reason to stop us from participating in it. While my feminism is something that people might not fully grasp, it’s nothing I will ever be ashamed of. I know I am part of a movement that is stronger than anyone can fully comprehend. I have grown confident enough to admit my future career goals to anyone who wants to know, and I will remain confident enough to fight for women’s rights for the rest of my life as well.