I am what one would call a feminist. ‮

I want equality for all genders, and for women to be able to exist in this world safely like men without having to pay a price. But every time I tell someone I am a feminist, most of the timetheir first response is, “Oh, so you hate all men? You think all men are dangerous?” 

And when I open my mouth to explain myself and tell them that is absolutely not the case, I quickly realize, they’re right. Although most people on social media seem to not say anything when a woman on social media makes a “man hating” post in the name of feminism, it seems to me that they are hiding their misandry behind feminism.

It’s ironic how a movement that is supposed to be centered around women still ended up being all about men, right?

American feminism took off in the early nineteenth century as a movement hoping to open up opportunities for women, especially when it came to suffrage. Later, it shifted towards women’s sexuality and reproductive rights, and now, safety. 81% of women in the United States have reported a sexual harassment experience, so it’s reasonable for a woman to say “I stay away from men because I feel unsafe.”

However, a common response from people is “But it’s not all men.”

But guess what? I actually agree with the men on this one. I know, shocking coming from a so-called feminist, right? But let’s look deeper at the meaning behind both of these statements. 

When women say “I hate men,” this comes from a place of personal experience. A woman will most likely say this because she has had a bad experience with a man, so she takes precautions around all men because one or a few specific men in her life have made it hard for her to trust all men.

But when a man responds to this by saying “but it’s not all men,” he is disregarding the fact that the woman is speaking from experience and has a reason to not immediately trust all men because he feels generalized and lumped into a group that he is not a part of.

Here’s where the men and I share a common ground. Men say “it’s not all men” to defend themselves from allegations because they feel generalized and labeled. When I say “it’s not all men,” I mean that it is redundant and regressive to continue generalizing and avoiding a whole gender group instead of focusing on the core beliefs of feminism. 

Hating on men (which, by the way if you didn’t notice, is 50% of the entire human population) in the name of feminism is wrong and not the way to bring about real change. When women make these posts online saying how they hate all men, they are viewed as “divas” and are praised. But they are doing exactly what the men that feminists have been fighting were doing. 

They are generalizing and making it harder for themselves to find the good men out there. Women have been generalized by men as bad drivers and emotional wrecks, so women feel justified to do the same and generalize all men as creeps and offenders.

But when you do this, not only are you distancing yourself away from all the good men, you are also making it harder to hold actual rapists and sexual harassers accountable for their actions because the severity of the term becomes diluted and meaningless. A “boy who cried wolf” situation happens and now real victims don’t get the justice they deserve. 

Now, I am absolutely not saying women need to stop having doubts about all men when they first meet them and trust them on a whim. They have every right not to. There is a line between taking precautions about men and blatant misandry.

However, that line has become blurred and it is now acceptable to go online and say “I hate men” and get called a diva for it, but it is not acceptable to say “I hate women” even if you have had a bad experience with every woman in your life.

I should not be ashamed to be a feminist because that term has become synonymous with misandrist. Hate is still hate, whether it is “justified” or not, and the point of feminism is to bring equality to all, not to generalize and hate on one group to uplift your own.

So let’s re-redefine feminism and not call misandrists divas.

Each opinion represented in The Panther Press is the view and voice of the writer. Opinions, as the selection and curation of content by the editors, do not represent the views of the entire Panther Press staff, the adviser, the school, or the administration.