The Scary F Word

This morning I had a weird conversation with my lover about feminism. He said, “The only feminists I like are the ones in the 1800's."

Yeah, the feminists now are just all just crazy lesbians. I had to remind him that I was a feminist and no, we are not all crazy butch women. I was really annoyed with them and his general bullshittery. I had then asked him, "So you don't like Gloria Steinem?"

It turns out he doesn't even know who she is and that he was just running off on bullshit he leaned from his family, friends and perhaps others. I guess you have to get prejudice from somewhere.

This is what makes feminism so scary to many women my age. Most people have this crazy idea that feminism is an oppression of men or that feminism is only here to have women be the dominate gender and rule as a matriarchy which is so untrue. Once they get this in their heads its' hard to get out. Then they start spouting off what is and what it isn't.

Here is the dictionary definition:

fem•i•nism   /ˈfɛməˌnɪzəm/ Show Spelled[fem-uh-niz-uhm] Show IPA
–noun
1. the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men.
2. (sometimes initial capital letter) an organized movement for the attainment of such rights for women.
3. feminine character.

There aren’t many definitions of the word, there is one. We defined it. Stop defining it as something that it isn't.

Inspired by the article: You're not a Feminist, but..what?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/07/feminist-f-word-young-women