Gina Davis from the University of South Florida published an article on The Odyssey Online on May 2, 2016. It is called "I Am A Female And I Am So Over Feminists", it began to go viral on my Facebook feed just last week. As a fellow Odyssey contributor, I decided to give the article a read and support my writing comrade. As I write this, Gina has over four hundred sixty thousand shares. I wrapped my fingers around the folding spine of my cold, aluminum Macbook Air and pulled it closer, we cuddled intimately. I turned the brightness on my screen down four notches; the light contrasting my dark apartment was giving me a headache. My eyes struggled to hold the lids open, but my heart beat faster and faster. I love writing contrarian headlines like this one and was about to indulge in another writer’s oppositional satisfaction.

I read and reread the article three times. My cheeks flushed. I disagree with you, Gina, heartily. Her author’s tagline, “My opinions aren’t to please you: they’re to engage you,” drew me in. So Gina, from one writer to another, I am glad to engage in a discussion of feminism and feminists.

As a male, I think there are few things that have been more important to the history of the United States than feminism. In fact, I believe that the patriarchal society in which we live has a stranglehold on males in a similar but different way than it holds females. I digress. This is about females, and why you are wrong, Gina and sharers of her article, all four hundred sixty thousand of you.

You begin with an easily relatable anecdote about your boyfriend in class. I can sympathize with both parties here. Your boyfriend obviously had nothing to add to the discussion, it was hostile; I do not know if I could have said anything productive either. This is partially because I am a male and partially because the popularity of male sports is the reality of the situation. I am not going to say that the world of sports has been fair to females. Here is an article, albeit an opinion piece, on the sports pay gap (See the piece here). While I maintain that professional athletes are paid far too much, the paycheck discrepancy is a red flag. Not only is it alarming, but it is indicative of inequality across the map.

You say women have never been more respected. Maybe white, straight women who have had the advantage of an educated upbringing. Women of color and varied educational backgrounds have it much worse. The Women of Color Network quote a figure by the United States Department of Justice to say that Black women experience domestic violence at a 35% higher rate than white females. You can also see on the graphic below that while white women make about three quarters the average salary of white men, Black women are at a measly 63%, and there are still other races much lower. Sure, maybe women have never been more respected, but that is not to say that all women are respected. There is still a lot of work to do for feminists.

Let’s move on to the labor force. You say, “let’s consider some historical facts…women branching out into the workforce is still relatively new in terms of history. Up until about the ‘80s or so, many women didn’t work as much as they do now.” This is an example of a part of the piece that irritated me. Your “facts” have no credible information to back them up. Facts are not facts simply because you say they are. According to the United States Department of Labor, women in the workforce have been steadily increasing since at least 1948. Women have especially increased their presence since the mid 1960s. The Atlantic published an article about generations, and according to the graphic in the piece, there have been at least three or four generations of women entering the workforce since the 1940s, are they really "relatively new"? I think you're reaching. Yes, in the late 1980s, women have become just about as equally present in the labor world as they ever have, comprising just over 45% of the workforce. So to say that women are only new to the workforce may only be relatively true when looking at the history of civilization, but in the two hundred forty years since the Declaration of Independence was signed, women have been more than one quarter of all workers for more than seventy of them. Those are facts backed by a credible source. There are graphs and concrete numbers. You may want to discuss the analysis of these facts. In fact, you should. My analysis is that women have been very present in the workforce for more than twice the time you give them credit for, Gina.

You empathize with the concern about the pay gap, but then go on to dismiss the concern because, “[the glass ceiling] is being shattered by perseverance and strong mentality of women everywhere.” You know what that sounds like? Feminism. What I do not understand is why you disavow feminism so indignantly, yet praise its pillars: equal rights, respect, pay, and societal standing? The message you send with your piece is generally positive, but it is masked in a surly and resentful tone. Maybe this article is not in opposition of your opinion, Gina, but rather to clarify your opinion. Then again, maybe I just disagree.

Here is a graphic by the American Association of University Women. They also publish an article called The Simple Truth about the Gender Pay Gap, which was published in the Fall of 2016 and outlines how the gender pay gap is real, and real oppressive. Check it out. When you say that women are making progress, does that mean that it is time to stop? Why would you ease up the efforts when the goal is still so far away? Look at the graphic above, the average Hispanic women make only fifty-four cents on the dollar that white men make. It is despicable.

It also troubles me that you pair men and women together in a way that seems to dismiss same-sex relationships. Maybe this is just my bleeding heart talking, or maybe the article was ignorant of people who do not operate on binary gender norms. As a male who is not hyper masculine by any stretch of the imagination, I reject propaganda for American gender norms. As a male, I do not have obligations to be or do anything simply because I am male. As a female, you do not have obligations to be or do anything simply because you are female. I do not need to be strong and you do not need to be emotional.

That being said, through most of your article I can understand where you may be coming from. I will disagree here and there, but at one point I did get angry. I read a line that boiled every single ounce of my body. “We are not equals.” What on earth drives a person to say that? It does not make it okay for you to say that because you are a woman. You subsequently describe biological differences between men and women. That uncited, hardly accurate information is irrelevant to the statement that men and women are not equals. Men and women deserve to be treated the same way. We are people. Even if we may be biologically different from each other, we are no more or less human beings than one another. Can you imagine substituting women for another group? That is not a statement you can make about two sets of human beings, as different as they are, we are all human beings first and therefore equal.

I want to touch upon your biological facts as well. Your argument relies heavily on the idea that males and females have different biological, physiological, and anatomical differences, specifically in the brain and in muscle mass. In the middle of the article, you go on to talk about this a little bit, “…the woman has a more efficient brain,” you say. What? Where did you get this information? Once again, Gina, the existence of this idea in your conventional wisdom does not make it true. If that were the case, I would write an article on how student debt is a farce and be relieved of my loans. This is not a point to which I just have an opposing opinion; this is a point on which you are just wrong. In the last decade, many brain studies have actually debunked the idea that male and female brains are fundamentally different. According to an article by the American Association for the Advancement of Science published in 2015, a study by behavioral neuroscientist Daphna Joel explains that there are not really distinctly male or female brains. Most brains are a “mosaic” of what have previously been deemed one or the other. Joel is quoted saying that, “There is no one type of male brain or female brain,” a statement preceded by the figure that between “0-8%” of brains contain solely “male” or “female” structures. I will punctuate this by quoting you a few more times: the idea that you are pushing is “a load a bull” and I am not trying to be rude, “it’s just science”.

I have no more facts to dispute with you, but I want to say a little more… You are doing the entire female population of the world a disservice by wrongly tying feminists to people who take ideas to their radical extremes. You are damaging the movement for equality, but you were clear about your opposition to that already. Being a feminist does not mean believing men are superior to women. Being a feminist means that men and women deserve equal treatment, economic status, and social status. Being a feminist does not mean being angry when a man wants to hold the door or pay the check. Being a feminist means understanding kindness is sexless. Being a feminist means taking your “We are not equals” statement, ripping it apart letter by letter and feverishly lighting it ablaze as we dream of a day when everyone believes that human beings are equal simply because they are human beings. Gina, I hope this article gets as many shares as yours. I hope I can dispel some of the misinformation you put forward. I also hope that your, "stop whining, it's good enough" attitude will be overwhelmed by people saying that there is no "good enough" when we are talking about inequality. As my favorite Senator Bernie Sanders said, "Never, ever lose your sense of outrage," though his speech was in the context of child poverty, I believe that is applicable to gender equality. There is only equal and not equal. Until the status between men and women is equal beyond any reasonable doubt, keep being loud, feminists. This is our fight.