In late April, Donald Trump claimed that Hillary Clinton’s success and candidacy were due to her gender — not her hard work and skill.

“The only thing she’s got going is the woman’s card,” he had said.

This comment has elicited a slew of brilliant responses: posts with the hashtag #womancard have exploded on social media, some humorous and some serious. Perhaps my favorite response, though, is this pack of cards released July 11. A team of 28 illustrators collaborated to create a deck of actual woman cards celebrating the lives of 56 successful women. (The deck is composed of 56 "yas queens" and one joker, Donald Drumpf.) By no means is the list comprehensive, but I definitely learned a thing or two both about women I already admired and women I hadn’t even heard of prior.

Yes, I am proud to say this: I am a feminist.

It’s amusing because people react more strongly to that F word than the other profanity.

There is a stigma that comes with admitting that you’re a feminist. Some people are confused: "Wait, sexism doesn’t exist anymore," they say. Your reaction is labelled as an overreaction. There are people who will stop at nothing to debate that the equal pay gap is a myth, that rape is just a case of he said/she said, and that feminism is no longer needed because there are already girls attending top universities and getting top jobs. Feminists are seen as ungrateful and whiny when they declare that while women have made progress in the past century, there are still issues and injustices. Many girls even go to the extent of reassuring other people: don’t worry, I’m not a feminist. I’m reasonable. Somehow, the word feminist has become a slur for someone who is malignant and crazy, who hates men and society — not a term for someone who genuinely believes in gender equality and wants to make a difference in the world.

Why is the word "feminist" now something akin to profanity?

It’s a common phenomenon when it comes to acts of discrimination or injustice, and not a phenomenon unique to women. Some of my friends have recently posted articles talking about their experiences being black or of color in America. When people of color mention instances of racism, when blacks responded to police brutality, when the #BlackLivesMatter movement started, a lot of people came out to say that they were overreacting. #AllLivesMatter, they say. (To which I say they should read this, but I digress.)

This is because many people adopt an “I’ll Only Believe It When I See It” mentality. They are skeptical when they hear about things that happen outside of their comfort zone, things that they might not encounter (or might not notice that they do) in daily life. Sure, being a critical thinker is important. Of course you shouldn’t believe everything you hear. But these same people often fail to see what’s right in front of them. These same people don’t understand that if you constantly hear a lot of people saying the same thing over and over, then maybe you should start to believe it, or at least look into it and try to see for yourself.

This is a little bit of a continuation on last week’s article about privilege. Step one was train your brain to become more aware of when these acts of discrimination are happening. What’s step two? What do you do now that you know?

When someone whose voice usually gets silenced decides to speak up, believe their story. Take it with a grain of salt if you so wish, but go in with an open mind, not a defensive one.

When I speak up, please don’t tell me to calm down. Please don’t tell me that I’m making a big deal out of something minor, or that why should I bother to point out a microaggression when they are much bigger issues to worry about? Please don’t tell me that I should learn to let things slide sometimes, that I care too much about the little things that don’t matter.

Trust me: I have grown up learning to ignore the little things. Most girls, most people of color, have. It’s how we cope. Sometimes as the only girl in an all guys’ world, I have been forced to mince my words, to keep my mouth shut, to swallow down phrases with a smile, even if the taste makes me want to throw up.

Sometimes a professor says something that doesn’t sit quite right with me. Sometimes a classmate in a conversation makes a crack that seems a little off color. But you kind of just live with it. Bite your tongue until you can taste the metallic taste of blood in your mouth, because if you speak up, you have lost your cover.

You no longer blend in. You are no longer one of them. You have no chill. You are not a team player. You are an outsider.

An impostor.

People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones because the walls will come crashing down.

I know how to fit in. I know how to belong. I know how to be a people pleaser, to smile even when I am uncomfortable, to gloss things over even if they bother me.

But that’s dangerous.

Please don’t ever tell me that little things don’t matter. Because little things can grow. Little things add up until they become big things. Little things are more often than not the underlying roots of the problem, a little network of veins that can lead to the black heart that pumps out poison.

When we are trained to ignore the little things, where do we draw the line? What issue is small enough to be ignored, and what issue is large enough to be spoken up for?

Little things. When my UROP supervisor talks to us, he makes more eye contact with the other UROP, who is also a guy. Little things. Whenever I’m in a group project, or a new setting, I feel like I have to prove myself, because I’m a girl. Little things. A creepy guy presses up against me at the Cambridge block party while I’m dancing with my friends so I walk to the other side of the group. My friends notice and decide to relocate, even though we liked our spot. I look back. He is laughing. Little things.

Ignoring the little things isn’t good problem solving. We need to address them. When you see red flags, take them down.

The UK just received its second female prime minister, Theresa May. And the U.S. has a candidate running for its first female president, Hillary Clinton.

Sure, we are making progress. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t more progress to be made, that there aren't still red flags to take down. It’s not enough to make sure that women are achieving these high positions. We also have to make sure they are sustainable.

I don’t want any female president: I want a good one. Voting for someone just because of their gender is bad politics, regardless of what that gender is. It’s not enough to have one or two female candidates, and a couple dozen male ones. It’s not enough to assume I’m voting for Hillary because she’s a woman, not because I think she’s the best candidate for the job. It’s not enough until we have a diverse pool of candidates to choose from, not just the token female one or the token black one or the token gay one. We are making progress, but it is not enough.

I recently learned about something called the glass cliff. I’m sure we’ve all heard of the glass ceiling: it is the invisible barrier preventing women, and other minorities, from rising up in the power ladder. But what happens when they do get past the glass ceiling? There is a theory that they fall right back down again in the glass cliff.

Theresa May is coming into power after the mess of the Brexit, Great Britain’s exit from the European Union. She is coming into power at a time when the British pound has dropped to the lowest value it has been in 30 years, a time when no one wants the top job: David Cameron, the former prime minister, was so eager to leave that he left months before he was supposed to.

The glass cliff is a phenomenon originally observed in the corporate world, but can be extended to other areas such as politics. When a company or organization is in trouble, they are more likely to employ women as the top job. This might be based on stereotypes: women are nurturing, women listen, women are team players: women can build up from rock bottom. It’s a win-win for the company; if the female CEO is successful, they profit. If not, they can say that they have branched out, that they were diverse, and go back to hiring male CEOs.

Yes, women are achieving positions of power. But how and when are they achieving these positions of power? Are we, as a society, just setting up women to fail, on the premise of equality? If they do fail, do we just point and say, see, that’s why this was a man’s job?

How is that fair?

Good luck to Theresa May. I’m not saying that falling off the glass cliff is her inevitable fate, and I hope that is not the case. But that is a little thing to keep in mind.

Step one: Notice the little things.