You Can Have It All -- No Questions Asked

For the past few weeks, I've been putting together and advertising for a program for students on campus.  Who Needs Feminism? is a movement started by students at Duke University in which people are invited to write "I need feminism because" on a piece of paper or a whiteboard with their reason and having their picture taken with that statement.  The picture is then uploaded to the Who Needs Feminism? Tumblr or Facebook page.

What I love about this movement is that it's not only striving to raise awareness, but also raise awareness of definition.  Within literally five minutes of putting up a poster for my event, I was hit with someone who clearly misunderstood what feminism means -- and this was at a women's college.  After pinning my flyer up on one of the dining hall cork boards, I watched a senior student rip the flyer down rather violently, show it to her friends, laugh, and crumple it some.  I was glad that they left it at the table when they got up to leave.  I picked it up and replaced it on the board.

I wasn't just upset because I had spent a lot of time designing the flyers and finding the right spot on the board for it.  I was upset because this was a woman who didn't realize that she was part of the problem.  She was making it so that she will only earn seventy-five cents for every dollar that her male counterpart makes.  Of course, this shows me that the event really is necessary, but I was shocked and sad that even at a women's college where the slogan is "Women who are going places start at Hollins," women misunderstood the concept of feminism.

Let me clear up a few things.  Feminist does not mean man-hater.  Not all feminists are man-haters and not all man-haters are feminists.  Feminists do not want to have power over men.  Feminists simply want equality.  This concept is so simple, yet so many people seem to misunderstand.  They call feminists bitches for voicing their opinion -- for daring to be as outspoken as any man.

There is a quote that floats around, and, while I can't remember who said it, it goes something like this: If there is a man in a leadership position who does a good job, he is a man.  If it's a woman doing the same, she's a bitch.

Another thing I would like to point out is that feminism does not necessarily mean that the individual feminist wants to be a pilot or a doctor or any other traditionally male position.  Feminists may want to be stay at home mothers, but they recognize that that is their choice and that other women may want something different.  I want to stress that word here -- different.  Being a doctor is not "more" than being a mother; it's simply different.

Furthermore, it's not unusual to see magazines boasting titles like "Can Women Have It All?"  This is a stupid question if ever there was one -- and despite what your elementary school teacher said about there being no stupid questions, there are.  Why shouldn't women be able to have it all?  Men certainly can.  Hell, men can have a job, a wife, kids, a mistress, and a hobby and hardly anyone thinks anything of it.  Meanwhile, it's still practically a scandal if a woman tries to have a job and kids.  Something has got to give.

I don't think feminists are asking for a lot when they request equality.  Women have been around just as long as men -- why is it taking longer for women to achieve the same status as men?

I believe it has to do with a fear of women.  Men know that women are powerful.  Men now know that women can reproduce without men, with the help of science (if you haven't heard about this, do a Google search -- it's really cool).  Men know that, through sexual selection, women have been shaping them through years of evolution to craft men who are more likely to survive to the age of reproduction and aid in raising offspring after reproducing.  But does fear justify unequal treatment?

Clearly not.  Women are not second-class citizens.  Feminists are not bitches.  Some of us need to get out a dictionary before we start hating on things we don't understand.  And this is part of my mission this Friday.  It's time that we stop prefacing things with, "I'm not a feminist but..."

If you're not a feminist, then you believe women are less than men.  It's as simple as that.