The Thick Line Between Feminism and Misandry

Feminism simply means the advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes.

Misandry means dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against men. Simply put, Misandry is hatred towards men. Now I don’t get how people think advocating for women’s right equals hating the male sex. This conception has gone ahead for too long and it’s sabotaging the actual context of feminism so bad that some women who should be feminists shy away from it because they believe it entails a set of women who are likely lesbians and are bitter towards men. Some people have bastardized the concept of feminism that they physicalized it by taunting feminists to be muscular or bearded. Some people think feminists detest marriage and do not always marry. Feminists are not trying to be men in anyway. Let’s dive into this already.

I believe as humans, we are entitled to our different opinions and I don’t intend to attack anyone but I think it’s about time people stop believing this lie that feminists hate men because these lies are being passed unto a younger generation. Some individual feminists hate men.  A lot of feminists might hate men. You might even argue based on what you find on the internet that most feminists hate men.  It’s irrelevant.

As a woman, if you have ever voted, attended/attending a university, if you know/have any female in the military, if you have a bank account, you can thank feminists throughout the course of history for that.

Through the course of history, people have been told “all feminists hate men” Lies! All misandrists hate men. I understand that there are radical feminists, but every political and social group an entire group cannot be defined by their radicals. Oftentimes, radical feminists can be misandrists just operating under the guise of feminism. Females  who say, “I’m not a feminist because I don’t hate men” do not know what feminism is.

Feminism is also not just for women. John Legend, Ryan Gosling, and even the Dalai Lama are all self-proclaimed feminists. Even in this regard, you’d come across some females that says they can’t stand men who are feminists because the word – feminist is for women and men just want to be a part of everything and steal their shine; that’s  sheer stupidity, don’t fall for that and that doesn’t entail feminism either. Feminism is more than just a word for females.

Why can’t we all just be humanists or egalitarians? We can. And we should be. But we should also realize the feminism falls under both of those categories, whether you like the word “feminist” or not. By being a humanist, you advocate for human interest and human value. If you advocate for that, you should realize that you also advocate for the equal value of women by default. If you are an egalitarian, you advocate for the removal of inequalities among people. In doing that, you’re automatically advocating the removal of inequality between women and men.

What matters is that feminism, distilled down to its absolute core, is about gender equity.  The goal of feminism is to create a society in which individuals’ genders don’t restrict them from an equitable shot at success and happiness.

However I’d like to make few corrections:

Being a feminist doesn’t mean you believe “all men are rapists”.

Being a feminist doesn’t mean you think all men are evil.

Being a feminist doesn’t mean you blame every man you know of oppressive behavior is sexism.

Being a feminist doesn’t mean you won’t get married

Being a feminist doesn’t mean men are scum/trash

Although the media has done well in popularizing the feminist movement but sensationalism is a good way to distract from real issues; bloggers and media outfits have somewhat contributed in bastardizing the actual concept of feminism when they put out a headline that’s not entirely true but just for the sake of getting a few clicks, some don’t read the article but just assume already on seeing the headline while some read but don’t see past what the headline insinuates because a certain ideology has filled it already. Chimamanda’s The Daily Show interview on men opening the door for women was totally taken out of context because these tabloids already put out a sensational headline hence their sentiment just revolves around what the headline suggests instead of dissecting every word of Chimamanda.