Like just about everything else in our society today, feminism has acquired a stereotype. We have stereotypes for people by race, gender, income, sexual orientation, heritage, size, age, national origin—and just about everything else.
Unfortunately, stereotypes can be incredibly detrimental and offensive mechanisms that are more often false than true, and regardless serve to divide people based on arbitrary observations.
Feminism is no different. The stereotype around feminism is however, I have found, remarkably far from the truth. The stereotypical feminist is the never-effeminate (or "butch") gal of tomboy style, most likely a lesbian, who is going to vote for Hilary Clinton regardless of her agenda. Ms. stereotypical feminist has no male friends (and never a boyfriend), drives a pickup truck, wears a lot of plaid and overalls, and likes to interject her cries of women’s rights and feminist inequality into even the most unrelated of conversations.
This is NOT true. Just the way that other stereotypes can be so incredibly false (i.e., a lot of gay people are not flamboyant at all, and low-income people can be extremely intelligent and achieved). I know, I know, someone somewhere is going to freak out when I say this, but: Feminists can be men (gasp!). Feminists can be career girls and teenagers, Julia Child-types and soccer moms. They can be male construction workers, college professors, the extremely effeminate or the very tomboy; they can be fathers, sons, brothers, sisters, daughters. They can be of any income level, age, race, etcetera.
So what is feminism, when we get rid of the stereotype? It is the fundamental value that women should be equal—not radically superior, as the goddess-loving stereotype declares—with men. That’s it. And it can very woman by woman, man by man. Women should be equal to men; there is nothing inferior about the feminine. Feminism, then, is simply the belief system or course of action that tries to endorse this idea of equality. In my opinion, by this definition feminism is not radical or unique at all—it is equality, normality, natural justice. But feminism it is NOT a stereotype; it is NOT an insult.
Find out what feminism means to you—you, your own person. Shrug off the stereotype that tries to pin a face and a lifestyle onto a lovely and enduring value.
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