Here’s A Big F U If You Don’t Think We Need Feminism
By Becca Martin
If you Google feminism that’s what you get.
The advocacy of women’s rights to be equal to men.
That’s it.
But some people still don’t think we need feminism. Some people still think “meninism” is something to joke about. Some people believe women do already have equal rights to men.
If you don’t think we need feminism, you’re selfish. That’s the only way to put it.
Feminists aren’t a group of angry women who come together and hate men. That idea couldn’t be further than the truth and if that’s what you believe you need to do us all a favor and educate yourself. Sure, there are the extremists who take things too far, but there are extremists in every cause or fight. And those few extremists are not the general consensus of what being a feminist means.
Feminists are simply people who believe that men and women should have equal rights. They aren’t people who believe women should get special privilege or that women are better than men. They are simply supporting the rights of women because most of women’s firsts in history are still recent.
In the even the last 100 years we have come so far. In 1917 we had the first woman ever enlist in the U.S. Navy as anything other than a nurse. In 1921 Edith Wharton was the woman to ever win a Pulitzer prize. In 1932 Hattie Caraway was the first woman ever was elected into the U.S. Senate. In 1978 Mary E. Clarke was the first woman to achieve the rank of major general in the U.S. Army. In 1994 Judith Rodin was the first permanent female present of an Ivy League University. And just last year Hillary Clinton became the first woman to be nominated for president by a major U.S. political party.
Those are all huge milestones in history, yet in some countries women are still getting murdered just for being women.
Feminist has become more of a common word, but it’s still not common enough. Some people still don’t think we need feminism, like one of the anti-feminism movements where a female actually wrote “I don’t need feminism because getting drunk at a party and having sex with a stranger is just irresponsibility, NOT RAPE.”
That is NOT okay. If we all had that mindset there would be a lot more people like Brock Turner in the world and we’d all be screwed.
I don’t even understand how some women believe that feminism isn’t needed. I don’t understand how you don’t respect yourself enough to fight for equal rights. I don’t understand how you could be okay with men getting paid more for the same job, I don’t understand how you could be okay with men telling you what you can and cannot do with your body. I don’t understand how you can be okay with any of that. And just because you are blind to the messed up reality of the world doesn’t mean others shouldn’t keep fighting for the right cause. Your anti-feminism thoughts make you ignorant. You actually have a voice and instead you’re using it to say that the 76 percent of women in Niger who are forced into child marriages aren’t worth fighting for.
If we don’t fight for these girls, no one will.
We need feminism.
If you don’t believe in feminism that means you don’t think your mother, wife, sister, girlfriend and/or daughter should have the same rights as you if you’re a man. You think that they are lower than you and that they don’t deserve the same political, social or economic rights as you do and that is selfish. That is so fucking selfish.
There are still woman who are being being forced to undergo female genital mutilation in 30 countries. Sure, you’re probably not in a place where that would happen but if you were how you would feel if your daughter was cut just because she was born with a vagina? Women are still being raped, killed, abused, sold into the sex trade, forced to marry older men. Maybe not in your country, but it is still a real and relevant problem in the world. And just because it might not be happening in your country (or so you think) doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter.
It’s all disgustingly fucked up and if you don’t see a problem with that then so are you. It’s selfish to think you’re too good to be a feminist. It’s selfish if you let your pride stand in the way because you’re uneducated about what being a feminist means.
Being feminist doesn’t mean you think women deserve special rights or treatment, it means you think women deserve equal rights and treatment. That’s it. Feminist isn’t a dirty word, it isn’t like females want to take over the world, we just want to equally contribute. We want it to be fair.
You might think you have equal rights, but feminism is still needed until every woman in the world can feel they also have equal rights and unfortunately we’re not even close to that point.
The fact that we still associate words like “pussy” with being weak is a problem. The fact that we still tell people to “stop acting like a girl” is a problem. The fact that we still have to make a case that rape is wrong is a problem. The fact that in India one in five men openly admitted to forcing their wives into having sex and there is no consequences because marital rape isn’t a thing in that country is a problem. It is also a problem that marital rape isn’t a thing in many other countries. The fact that young women and children are still being forced into marriage is a problem. 15 millions girls are married every year before the age of 18 and THAT IS A PROBLEM.
All of that is a problem, just like the wage gap and the fact that women are being told what they can and cannot do with their bodies.
Every person is entitled to their beliefs, but it’s now 2017 and if you don’t believe in feminism then you’re selfish. Just because you might feel like you’re being treated as equally as the men in your life doesn’t mean that the 12 year old girl who just got forced into a marriage feels the same way. Try looking her in the eyes and telling her that feminism is wrong and doesn’t matter. Just because you don’t feel oppressed doesn’t mean it isn’t happening all around you.
Stop being so damn selfish and self-absorbed to realize what you’re actually saying when you say we don’t need feminism.
Feminism isn’t a gender problem, it’s a humanity problem. Feminism will be needed until every woman in the world can feel like they have the same rights as men, and unfortunately we still have a long way to go, but I will keep fighting.