The colorful, speech-bubble-shaped sticky notes fluttered softly in the wind as I walked up to the Her Campus table at the Memorial Union last week. The board that was full of notes promised glimpses into the minds of the people at UC Davis, who jotted down how they wanted to complete the sentence, “I need feminism because…”
I was expecting the usual responses. “Everyone is equal” and “We need to fix the wage gap” showed up among the sticky notes, as expected. But there were so many other responses, some that were surprisingly funny (“otherwise the Army would suck”), and some particularly thought-provoking (“A man alone with a lot of women is ecstatic; a woman alone with a lot of men is terrified”), that caused me to rethink what feminism stands for.
As a basic definition, we are taught that feminism means believing men and women are equal. More complex definitions, which one may stumble upon during a Google search or a gender studies class, show that feminism is the advocacy of women’s rights to be equal to men on the grounds of political, social, and economic status.
But this board full of notes definitely changed how I view feminism. Reponses like “the gender dichotomy is WACK AF,” “stop victim blaming,” and “the patriarchy hurts men-identifying folx as well” made me realize that feminism is more about basic human rights, not just the advocacy of women’s rights. The world is no longer male versus female, and neither is feminism.
Now, more than ever, feminism fights for the rights of people across the entire gender spectrum. Going through all of these responses and seeing the range of responses showed me that feminism is morphing into a movement that seeks to respect and protect all people from the harm that comes from the institutions that insist some people deserve more than others. Whether you are oppressed because of race, economic status, or gender identity, feminism is rooting for you.
Essentially, feminism has become the name of the oh-so-radical idea of respecting the basic human rights of all people. Two notes, in particular, summed up this idea: “we deserve to feel safe, respected, and valued” and “everyone deserves to be their own person.” Whether you identify as a woman or not, this concept still holds true. We all deserve to feel worthy of our lives.
It was such a simple idea to have a board where people had the freedom to respond however they wished. I expected the plain definition of feminism to guide the responses, and some of the notes certainly did align with the “women are equal to men” mentality. What I didn’t expect was for so many of the other responses to display the gradual rebranding of the movement. In today’s world, feminism is an all-encompassing fight for the rights of every human, no matter how they identify themselves, and I’ve never been prouder to be a collegiette at a school where so many of my peers are a part of it.