[Cin]

I don’t think there is a kind of feminism whose definition is that it is against men. I don’t think there is a kind of lesbianism that is against men either. I think there may be people who identify a certain way that may be against men. They may be against puppies, chocolate or rainbows as well but I doubt anyone would advocate that puppy-hater, chocolate-hater or rainbow-hater, in the case of feminists who hate them, should be added to the word feminist and made into a type of feminism. I think there may be men or women, for that matter, who are any number of things, perhaps they are straight or queer or trans or religious or republican or roofers or sports writers who are also misogynist. That does not mean roofers or queers or any of the other things I mentioned should include women hater in their definition. I don’t think it is right and certainly it is not prudent to confuse the purpose and meaning of feminism and instead to define it by the actions of some feminists.

As women we are heirs to a legacy built by women’s libbers and the suffragettes who came before them. Most women will profess to believe in equal pay for equal work, in a woman’s right to choose, in the chance to play on athletic teams, run businesses, graduate from college, enter graduate school, run for public office etc., but if asked if they are a feminist, many will answer that they are not. They hold feminist views but reject the feminist label. Odd? Not really. Feminism has ended up with a rather nasty reputation.

But I suppose when you consider the size of the machine and the enormous power behind it that feminism had to face when it began it’s slow move toward both the vote and some semblance of equality, and add to that the extremely powerless position women were in at the time, it’s more than amazing that we have managed to come this far. Bad press was probably the least of our problems. But more than a hundred years of scare tactics designed to deter women from embracing the ideas of feminism have failed. But the sacrifice to the god of patriarchy seems to have been the term itself. Most women do embrace feminist ideas and ideals. It is identifying as a feminist that is unappealing.

I just think in a world where honor killings, acid attacks, female genital mutilation and other horrific injustices against women are still perpetrated at an alarming rate, and in a country where less that 6% of rapists serve jail time, where approximately 18% of congress is female, where decriminalizing domestic abuse is a reality, where, right now, a bill is in the works that will allow hospitals, if they wish, to let women die rather than performing a life saving abortion or transferring the women to another facility where they could receive the life saving procedure, it is an exercise in extreme folly to reject feminism.