Misandry Is Not Feminism

Very often, men are mislead by the idea of feminism. This could be due to the fact that they’re uneducated on the issue or just uninterested in women’s rights, but there are other reasons why some guys think the idea of feminism is fanatical and are intimidated by it, and I think I have figured out why.

Whilst searching through the “feminism” tag on Tumblr, I came across this post: “I’m moving today, and as I was putting things in my car, some 20-something construction workers in a pick up truck drove by and the driver stuck his head out the window and waved to me and said hi. It sounds dumb, but I was really bothered by it. I have never seen this guy in my life, and I could tell exactly why he was doing it. It was really dumb of [me] but I flipped him off. This hasn’t ever happened to me before so I was just really upset. I felt so violated.”

Is a man telling a women hello and waving ACTUALLY VIOLATING? Is this feminism, or plain ignorance? To me, it seems as if some women are looking for a reason to get offended. Through the eyes of a teenage girl who attends an all-girls high school, it’s my opinion that feminism is starting to be blown out of proportion to the point where it is not about equality, but instead trying to put down men and automatically make them bad people, which I don’t believe in.

I am surrounded by tons of great women and, and as I am trying to become one myself, my view on feminism is becoming skewed due to the male-bashing I see on the Internet, especially Tumblr. Many women have the idea that a man being kind and friendly automatically means he has bad intentions of sexual harassment and rape, and that is hard for me to understand. How is a man with good intentions supposed to act? Harshly? Are women looking for reasons to commit misandry? I thought that feminism was about all women having equal rights, not to complain about men cat calling women on the side of the street. As a young feminist myself, I don’t believe that generalizing all men to be disgusting pigs is “feminism”. I think that feminism is donating towards girls in other countries who need an education, and I think that feminism is voting for a girl to be President! I don’t think that it is the idea of putting down guys, because if we start thinking that we’re better than them, then aren’t we going against everything we’re fighting for?

Feminism is important to me because I think all girls deserve an education. Feminism is important to me because there are girls who have been raped and are not allowed to get an abortion. Feminism is important to me because I am often called a “lesbian” purely based on my attending an all girls school. Feminism should be important to the world because some people have the mindset that men are above women; and to stop this, feminists shouldn’t be thinking the opposite. It’s all about thinking of everyone as equals.

Featured image via ShutterStock