While some people are new to accepting the word “feminist” or “feminism” I have never had a problem with it. From a young age I believed in equality between people, albeit I had a very over-simplified view of the world until my later years in high school, but I knew I was a feminist before I even knew the word. My views of feminism have shifted through the years though, developing and growing as I learn more about how the world works and the injustices within it.
My first semester of college I found myself in a Women’s and Gender Studies course that was offered through the honors college. At this point I (ignorantly) thought I knew the basics of feminism, what it meant and what it was. But on the first day of class I realized how wrong I was, and how much more I had to learn. It was this day that I learned of the term “intersectionality”, a word that has become the core of my feminism. Intersectionality, in simple terms, is a word that means inclusion. To me, feminism is the most effective when it is inclusive and uses intersectionality. That means that feminism has to include race, class, sexuality, and other identifiers when discussing women’s rights.
Feminism isn’t just about fighting for pro-choice, or equal pay for equal work, it also means including transwomen, who are women, and women of color and disabled women. It means that you fight for the breaking of gender stereotypes on both sides, that women don’t have to be traditionally “feminine” and men don’t have to be traditionally “masculine”. Feminism, to me, means fighting for justice for men who survive sexual assaults and domestic violence. Feminism, at its dictionary core, means “the theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes” and to me that means fighting for equality, no matter who you are. As a feminist I fight for equality between the sexes, the inclusion of different races, classes, sexualities, and genders. Feminism has become a way to fight for justice around the world.