Feminism is the new ‘F-word.’ The word you might often hear, read or argue about. The word that pops up on your Facebook feed every now and then. The one word that is just as important to men as it is to women.
“Stop being a feminist all the time,” my guy friend told me last evening and I flipped. Why? Because he had no clue what he was saying, he had no clue what feminism means and still, he used a word just to join the bandwagon. Of course, I was angry as to why the hell would he tell me to stop being a feminist but soon I realized how most people don’t really understand what feminism means.
So here I am, in front of my laptop screen, writing about feminism because, if just like me, you too have people around you telling you NOT be a feminist, you know you gotta shut them down and put a foot forward to explain it to them.
What Is Feminism?
To put it in simple words, feminism is equal rights for both men and women. Like Beyoncé once said, “If you are a man who believes your daughter should have the same opportunities and rights as your son, you’re a feminist. We need men and women to understand the double standards that still exist in the world, and we need to have a real conversation so we can begin to make changes.”
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Also Read: Which Type Of Feminist Are You
Who Is A Feminist?
After the incident that happened last evening, I asked four of my guy friends – Are you a feminist? And the responses were – “I don’t know”, “No, I am not”, “Why are you asking me this” and “Don’t bore me with all this feminism talk, please.”
And then, my second question followed – Do you believe in equal rights for men and women? And the responses were – “Yes”, “Yes, I do”, Yeah” and “I’m all up for equality.”
You get the drift? People are often reluctant to call themselves a feminist, especially men and honestly, that sucks. But the next question that comes is why? Why are they reluctant to call themselves a feminist. Well, either because of the pseudo-feminists or feminazis.
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Feminism Vs Feminazi
The most common perception is that feminism is about women being superior to men, which led to the birth of a new word, ‘feminazi’. A feminazi is someone who is a radical feminist, someone who advocates feminism to an extensive degree, so much so that people start calling that feminist, a feminazi.
Feminists are trying to uplift women in this otherwise patriarchal society and so are feminazis. The only difference is that the feminazis are vocal and outspoken about their views, which comes off as – women trying to uplift themselves by putting men down, and believe us, that is so not the case. The whole purpose of our movement gets defeated if the person standing next to you doesn’t understand the underlying thought behind your feminist behaviour and loosely passes it off as – “Ah, you’re just a feminazi.”
So what I am saying is, we need to understand what feminism means. We need to understand the difference between feminism and feminazi. We need to talk about feminism as often as we can. We need to push this movement forward and ask people – “I am a proud feminist, are you?”
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