The most misunderstood word I feel is “Feminism.” So many people use this word or the concept according to their conveyance. Often, people consider this concept as considering women superior to men. The idea of Feminism or being a feminist is not widely understood by people. Theoretically, understanding Feminism is the idea of the advocacy of women’s right on the basis of the equality of the sexes. Feminism at its core means equality of men and women and not sameness. There is always this counter-argument presented by people to oppose the idea of 'Feminism' that as men and women are not the same there can be no equality. My question to them is do they consider the words “sameness” and “equality” identical? There is a difference between the two. Of course! There is a difference of physicality between men and women but does that mean the later cannot get access to equal rights and opportunities?
If we take an example of two young boys studying in the same class, but one is physically stronger then the other one, would we believe it’s right to keep the less strong boy away from the access of same education or opportunities which the stronger one is receiving? Certainly not, then why does this same idea or the same situation imply in the case of females. Well, over the centuries this concept has been evolved and the same with its definition but if we simply look at the rational definition of the word it’s all about gender having equal rights and opportunities. It’s all about levelling the playing field between genders and ensuring that women and girls have the same opportunities in life as available to boys and men.
Why do so many people hate the term Feminism and the feminist movement? As earlier mentioned people have used and moulded the world and the definition according to their own convenience. Many people believe that feminists want to control the world and put men down. Feminism has been associated with forceful and angry women and a lot of this has been true as so many women use Feminism to play "Women Card." In today’s age, people who claim to stand for women are generally selective and pseudo-feminist.
Fake Feminism or pseudo Feminism is all about cherry-picks and chooses certain extremities of the third wave and use it other face goat-like bra-burning and dying armpit hair. Nowadays We see so many young girls and women on social media sharing nude photos captioning it as 'my choice' and regarding it as a stance of the feminist movement. A lot of women normalize sharing nude obscene photos, using f words and naming it as a Feminism movement. I sometimes feel this generation of ours have misused the idea and whole basis of Feminism which was actually equal rights and opportunities for all human beings and used it selectively for our own sheer purposes. It’s not about bashing men and saying all men are trash it’s all about levelling the ground for women. I would like to regard pseudo feminists or pseudo-feminist simply as misandrists which are like misogynist but for hating men instead of women. The true basis of being feminist has nothing to do with sexual orientation or discrimination of the male gender. Feminists come from all the different backgrounds and cultures to support equality and equity in general. In addition, we should also not discredit the real feminist movement as still in a large section of our society women are still behind in many different ways they continue to be paid less on average than what men get many jobs are not friendly to mothers and women continued to be responsible for the majority of household work. Furthermore, the movement is not only a gender movement but it’s also about equality between class, race and sexual orientation.
