Why We Need Feminism In Modern Society

We hear the term ‘feminism’ daily, yet its commonly used with the wrong definition attached to it via popular media sources. The media do a pretty good job at portraying ‘feminists’ as man-hating, bra-burners who want to crush all mankind and only seek to see the rise of females. The craziest part is this misconstruction is still ongoing when all it takes is a quick look at the oxford dictionary where it clearly states the definition of ‘feminism’ is ‘the advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes’. Mistaking feminism as the equality of one specific gender is like mistaking Coca Cola for Pepsi, I mean there’s a bit more to it than that, but you know what I mean, it’s outrageous. Although, it appears that some young women today do identify with the ideology of feminism and just hide away from the tag ‘feminist’ due to perpetuated stereotypes. Why we need feminism in our modern world? 

Its clear that many are outdated with this ‘intimidating’ concept. Researcher Jessica Ball claims that 55% of people think that men can’t be feminists, while 10% believe all feminists are lesbian. Are you kidding me? They can be men and women, old and young, absolutely anyone. Feminism is the belief that men and women should be equal. Both should be able to be CEOs, both should be able to be stay-at-home mothers/fathers, both should be able to marry or not, both should be able to control their own body, finances and life. I’ll assume you probably were unaware that actively there are more CEOs in this world named John than there are female CEOs at all. Just let that sink in.

One of the main issues of the feminist ideology is that so-called ‘feminists’ do belittle men. Feminism and misandry are two separate things, but with shared misandric comments there’s no wonder why people get the two crossed. Don’t get me wrong some men are trash but its unreasonable to think some women aren’t. But feminism isn’t about putting down men, its about empowering women to be as equal as men. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Us girls have been subordinates for so long. There shouldn’t be a problem with me exclaiming, “Women are great!” without it coming across that I despise all men.

With that being said, the confusion between the definition of feminism is common and therefore created the argument that feminists should rename their movement to the more appropriate term of egalitarianism. Which can be seen as a more neutral term to define the equal rights and opportunities for males and females. Plus, it’s also confusing seeing all this hatred for boys out there, and the majority of it is unnecessary. Some girls think that captioning their latest post on Instagram “I hate boys” is going to be ‘edgy’ or ‘quirky’ and this receives no criticism because we see it so often. Yet if a boy was to tweet “I hate girls” a storm of hate is guaranteed to come his way from us females. This whole equality of the sexes thing works both ways people.

So, this is currently where we are today: years of feminism have got us to where we are today through impactful figures like Rosa Parks, Malala Yousafzai – women who created milestones within the movement of feminism and there’s many more who have done the same. But although we’ve come far, we’re not done yet.