I’m probably one of the first to admit that I’m the proudest of the proud to go to my school. I love Barnard College with all my heart and am thrilled to be learning in such a strong, empowering community. So much so that I was an orientation leader at the end of the summer to welcome strong, empowered young women to the wonderful world of New York.
While prepping for orientation over the summer, befriending some of the incoming students, I was glancing through the Class of 2019 Facebook page and saw that one of the girls had posted a video a while ago with a controversial stance on feminism, having to do with a photo a young woman named Lauren Southern had shared on her own page. In the photo, she stated that she was not a feminist because she "believe[s] in equality, not entitlements and supremacy." She received a lot of backlash from the photo and thus created a video in her defense, explaining that she believes men and women should be equal and women’s rights aren’t the only important issues in the world. Continuing her defense, she added that men have important societal issues too and that women are actually favored in most opportunities regarding school acceptances and employment. As expected, all these budding feminists of the Class of 2019 unloaded plenty of comments on this video, especially focusing on her misconstrued ideas on the patriarchy. My favorite comment though was, “Feminism: the belief that men and women should be equal.”
Honestly, I was a bit confused watching this video. Lauren Southern was claiming that she wasn’t a feminist, yet every aspect of her argument fell in line with exactly what feminism is. It was clear that she had lost sight of what feminism is, like most of modern society. Feminism, simply put, is the idea and movement for the equality of men and women. That’s all it is. It isn’t man-hating, it isn’t female domination, it is just equality.
(A comedic perception of what feminism looks like now--Image Source.)
What I found in this video is the popular misunderstanding of feminism among young women; society doesn't really understand what it is anymore. All people hear right now are the loud voices crying, “Shatter the glass ceiling!,” or, “Down with the patriarchy!” Absolutely there are glass ceilings that need to be shattered and patriarchy needs to be put out of place, but the focus is not switching the roles, instating female domination over male domination. It is this inaccurate perception of feminism that leads young women, with similar ideas as Lauren Southern, to claim that they aren’t feminists because they don't want to be seen as "the bad guys." Yet, they argue that they aren’t feminists because they believe in equality, which ironically is the exact purpose of the feminist movement.
One of the main arguments against feminism is that it is a “gender-loaded” word. The term “feminism” offers implications of sexism toward men and insinuates that women should replace men in their societal roles. Originally, when most people hear the word “feminism,” they, or at least I, think of the big movement for “Votes for Women” in the early 20th century. Women fought for equal rights in comparison to men. Women wanted the right to vote, the right to work for equal pay, to actually be recognized as a person with the capacity for intellect. Why was this movement called “feminism?” Because women, females, those of the feminine gender, were fighting for their equal rights. Women were the lesser sex at that time, and they wanted to better their position in society, so they fought for their equal rights as the lesser sex. In order for the two sexes to be equal, women had to become equal to men, so women were the focus of the movement. Thus the ideology of the movement was called "Feminism," the fight for equality between the sexes!
I can understand, though, why modern young women, such as Lauren Southern, may argue that they aren’t feminists. The feminist movement has lost touch with its roots to simply fight for equality among the sexes. Currently, feminism in the public eye has a lot to do with man-hating and crashing the patriarchy. The push for more women in public positions of power has increased, leading people to wonder if these women are actually well qualified, or if they were simply hired to fill a quota. Feminism has turned into favoritism toward women, giving them an advantage in promotions and universities to make their respective institution seem progressive and politically correct. Feminism has turned into shaming men for being men, so the common misconception is that everyone who is a feminist is anti-male. Feminism has turned into something different that what it actually is. Feminism is not man-hating, it is not favoritism toward women, it is not only a woman’s fight.
That’s another common misconception regarding feminism, that only women care about it and it is just about women whining that they are oppressed. That is absolutely not true. Last year Emma Watson unveiled her “HeForShe” campaign and received a tremendous amount of support. She eloquently and perfectly embodied what the focus of feminism should be. If men and women are to gain equal rights, then women should not be the only ones involved in the movement, men should be involved too. When the two sexes work together equally for a common goal, then equality will arise.
As society becomes more progressive and change inevitably occurs, the feminist movement needs to stay in touch with the principles upon which it was founded. Recently, somefeminists have strayed too much from the original argument, leading people to begin to claim that they aren’t feminists because they believe in equality, not domination. Feminism is a fight, but that does not mean that it is violent and hateful (though it certainly began that way—see the Suffragette trailer); it is about acceptance and liberation. Once the goal of feminism has been realized, then people will understand that feminism is not a malicious movement or a dirty word, and that they are, in fact, feminists too.
