Trigger Warning: This article discusses sensitive topics such as racism, sexism, trauma, and feminism.
I once dated a guy who, after I told him my best friend was a feminist, asked me if she hated all men. No, I’m remembering it wrong. He told me she hated all men, and he had never even met her before. He ruined the word “feminist” for me because he turned it into a generalization that would affect me later on in life. It’s a generalization that has no evidence to back it up. A generalization that would make me insecure and anxious to label myself as feminist. I would talk about female empowerment, intersectionality, gender norms, and various other topics, so people could use context clues to know I was feminist, but I was so scared of saying the word itself. I was scared because I had met people in my life who viewed feminism as a way to hate on men. I didn’t want to be seen that way. Lisa Wade wrote that “only 25 percent of people say that feminist is a positive term.”
Feminism is such an amazing and essential ideology, yet I feel like there’s still this stereotype of hating men that some people have when they think about it.
According to Lisa Wade’s article in The Society Pages, there are more negative stereotypes than just man-haters; she says that feminists are stereotyped as “ugly, uptight, angry, aggressive, strident, demanding, and dogmatic.”
These stereotypes themselves haven’t spread to me. I still value and see feminism for exactly what it is: to advocate for women’s rights, which should’ve been guaranteed on day one, but have instead been threatened for years. It’s about fighting misogyny and patriarchy.
In George M. Johnson’s memoir, All Boys Aren’t Blue, he writes “But I’ve come to learn that symbolism is a threat to actual change—it’s a chance for those in power to say, ‘Look how far you have come’ rather than admitting, ‘Look how long we’ve stopped you from getting here.'”
Johnson is referring to race in this quote, but this applies to sex, as well. When we hear “the first woman to do blank,” society makes us think of it in a positive way, like we’re making progress. However, we shouldn’t have trouble making progress in the first place. It shouldn’t have taken until 1919 for women to vote; they should’ve always been able to vote. It was people in power that prevented women from getting rights for as long as they could. It seems like a pessimistic perspective, but I like where Johnson is going with it.
Like I said, I know feminism is nothing like the stereotype claims it is. But others having the stereotype has affected me because I don’t want people to see me as a stereotype. On one occasion, an acquaintance looked at me differently after I said I wanted to see Barbie for its awesome, empowering quotes regarding women. They rolled their eyes at me. It was my worst fear coming to life. They didn’t get it. A study found that college women who were exposed to positive stereotypes about feminists were twice as likely to self-identify as feminists compared to women in the control condition (this group wasn’t exposed to stereotypes of feminists at all) and the condition where women read a paragraph containing negative stereotypes about feminists. This study shows that I’m not the only one who finds it harder to self-identify as a feminist after encountering negative stereotypes about the ideology.
Feminism is misunderstood, so I’m wondering if there’s a way to make it more understood. The first step I’ve taken is not holding back. I proudly use the label of “feminist” because I know what it means for me. I like to think that my use of the term may inspire others to use and discuss it. The same thing goes with mental health. There’s a stigma, and I’ve noticed that the more I talk about it, the more I encourage others to speak up. I want to do the same with feminism.
Anyone can be a feminist; you don’t have to be female. Feminism signifies fighting for equal human rights for all. I would consider my dad a feminist because he has always treated my mom equally. I grew up in a family where my mom does most of the work outside the house, and my dad does most of the work inside. My mom is a hard working lawyer; she is very smart and driven. My dad has always respected her and chooses to do the housework because she doesn’t have as much free time as he has. They help each other out. No one is greater than the other. Just because I’m praising my mom doesn’t mean I’m putting my dad down. I’m saying they both are equal and treat each other equally. The study Feminists and the Ideology and Practice of Marital Equality found that while there is a distinction between ideology and equality in heterosexual marriages, practicing vigilance and monitoring equality within and outside the relationship can upgrade marriage. This vigilance includes critiquing gender injustices, public acts of equality, support of wives’ activities, reflective assessment, and emotional involvement. Husbands and men can be feminists through these practices.
Women haven’t always been equal in the past. Feminism involves women being brave and strong enough to speak up. It saddens me to think that stereotypes of feminism could cause females to keep traumas to themselves. As Melissa Febos says in Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative, “I’ll say it again, because it bears repeating: the resistance to memoirs about trauma is always in part—and often nothing but—a resistance to movements for social justice.”
This is what feminism is to me.