Why do people HATE Feminism?
Alike to veganism, feminism is beginning to get a bad rep. What comes to your mind when you think of feminism?
Feminism is quite simply a movement towards equal rights for men and women, which somehow in 2019 we still haven’t quite acheieved (far from it). However, a large proportion of the population view feminism in the eyes of the extremes, as that is all that is reported within the media. Unless you have actively tried to educate yourself on the feminist movement, all you probably envision is WE HATE MEN! and really, really hairy legs. While the latter is only considered a problem within society due to Gillette expanding their market to women to increase their profit in 1915, thus shifting social attitudes, the former of ALL MEN SHOULD BURN isn’t representative of feminism at all.
However, as always, the extremist views and behaviours of the more radical feminists are presented in the media to the general population who then generalise these behaviours to the whole of feminism, and thus completely disregard anything to do with feminsim. This creates a whole other problem, as feminism is being associated with more and more negative connotations, meaning that fewer people feel comfortable with publically announcing that they are a feminist, in fear of being subject to hate and controversy. This only adds to the problem in the first place as it means that fewer people talk about it and subsequently actually take action to deal with the issues that are present right now, such us equality. This is just a big positive feedback cycle wherby the more these behaviours get generalised, the more feminism is going to get disregarded and therefore societal attitudes will remain the same and we won’t actually progress at all.
The POINT of feminism is to create equality. There are real world gender issues happening that need to be broken down and changed and these need focussing on, however fundamentally whole societies will not change unless indvidiuals are actually educated and their stereotyped beliefs are challenged. Did you know that to this day there are NO sectors within the UK economy whereby both men and women are paid the same? That is disgusting and is an example of genuine discrimination that needs challenging and focussing on, perhaps rather than whether or not women should be allowed leg hair. While the latter is totally relevent and understandable, if quote on quote ‘extreme’ feminists continue to dominate the media and influence peoples’s perception of what feminism actually is, then important change will not occur, feminism will be disregarded and equality will not be acheived.
