I was never a very strong supporter of feminism. Really, I was just blindly following a movement I believed I was supposed to be following. As an impressionable young woman in college, I thought I was supposed to be a feminist so I wouldn't be called things like "gender traitor" and so I wouldn't be accused of not caring. Obviously I care about equal rights and everything, but the feminist movement has become a very scary, dark hole that I no longer want to consider myself a part of.

Recently, I was watching YouTube (not much of a shock there for those who know me well) when I stumbled upon several videos of women explaining why they're not feminists. I only clicked on the first video out of sheer curiosity, but it made me realize that my views were a lot different from what I thought they were. In other words, I agreed more with these "non-feminists" than I did with the feminist movement. I'm not about to recap what these videos said, because that would be boring. Instead, based on what I learned about myself as of late, I will answer this question in my own words: "Why are you not a feminist anymore?"

Well, looking back, I wasn't much of a feminist in the first place. As I said before, I was kind of just following blindly (and silently) and believing what I was told. For example, that women are oppressed, women are paid less than men, men need to be taught not to rape, etc. The videos that I saw helped me realize that these were simply not true (especially the video I linked above). The biggest thing that I noticed, however, is that many of the feminists in the first world are becoming what people like to call "feminazis." They can get loud and violent, but above all else, they are hypocrites. They hate on men and demand respect from them, while they make no effort to be respectful whatsoever (I know not all feminists are like this, but a good number of them are). This is completely ridiculous to me, because you can't expect social justice when you're attacking the so-called un-oppressed groups in the process. I'm not expecting everyone to agree, but believe it or not, MEN have social issues themselves. They are expected to conceal their emotions, and are made fun of if they can't be "tough," whereas women are encouraged to be emotional. Yet men are supposed to empathize with women's issues? How can they do that if they're not allowed to be emotional?

Also, most feminists think that only women are objectified in the media, but this is far from the truth. So it's okay for men to be objectified, but not women? For a movement that's against sexism, this seems pretty sexist to me. You never hear people talking about how they were offended by a hot shirtless guy being in an advertisement, but if a pretty girl in the same ad is wearing a slightly revealing bikini, people are outraged (by the way, I'm not talking about a specific ad). Double standards like this are what always bothered me about feminism, but I never questioned them, because I thought that supporting feminist ideals was the same thing as supporting gender equality. No, the feminist movement has become a sexist, hypocritical mess that only cares about women. If you truly support equal rights between men and women, it's not feminism you're supporting; it's egalitarianism. In my opinion, feminism has run its course. We can vote, we can work the same jobs as men, we can wear pants. At this point, "fourth wave feminism" is just counterproductive.