To make the generalizations that men cannot possibly be feminists and that it is not a man's place to have a say in feminism are gross misconceptions and greatly unjustified. Just as it was wrong to think that all white men in the past were slave owners, all Muslim people today are terrorists, or all illegal immigrants are Mexicans, it is equally wrong to assume all men are sexist misogynists. There are plenty of men, including myself, who believe strongly in the securing the equality of women once and for all. However, what I don't like about some feminists is their desire to give women more rights than men and to overshadow men just as they were for so long. That is not the point of feminism; the inherent basis of feminism is about the equality of the sexes and should not be twisted or distorted into any other context, or applied exclusively to females.

Just as it has done to many other subjects, social media has misconstrued the meaning of feminism and altered it to possess a sexist connotation. There are some self-proclaimed feminists out there who use feminism as a platform to advocate against female rape, domestic violence against females, and even citing societal pressures in the media to look a certain way. What these "feminists" are forgetting, is that men face these same issues as well. Men are also undoubtably raped, by both males and females; they are the victims of domestic abuse as well; and society pressures men to have a "perfect" image as well (Magic Mike, anyone?). Now I'm not saying I am against or ignoring these issues plaguing our society, because I'm not, but I strongly believe that if these issues are to be used as a talking point for feminism, they must be applicable to men too. Otherwise it is sexist and completely corrupts the point of feminism.

As a man, it angers me that females only make 78 cents to a male's dollar; there are plenty of women in my life who are very real depictions of this gender pay gap disparity, and I cannot fathom why this is still the case in 2016. Furthermore, the 78 cents figure is merely the average amount women make compared to men; I understand some women likely make closer to the full dollar, but there are plenty of women who make even less than that. Just a few days ago, a few soccer players from the U.S. Women's National Team filed a complaint to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) arguing the disparity between the women's salaries compared to the men's national team. In this complaint, they cite that some female players make as little as 40% of their male equivalents, which is simply unacceptable in this day and age. Now this is a real issue that feminists can collectively support.

One of my favorite organizations advocating for feminism is HeForShe, an campaign started by UN Women and promoted heavily by Emma Watson and Wolf Blitzer. The reason I predominantly support this organization is that its goal is to enlist both men and women to fight for gender equality, rather than simply round up as many females as possible to speak out against sexism. By bringing men and women together to fight for this common cause, HeForShe is a pure embodiment of feminism and equality of the sexes. If more organizations out there recognize the male feminists in the world, feminism would greatly intensify and become uniform, and satirical terms such as "meninism" would not be invented to mock the ironic sexist nature of some feminists.