Actually, yes, the F-word. People's aversion to the word feminism is kind of perplexing (if not somewhat obnoxious). So why the hate and claims of anti-feminism?
I haven't done any in depth research on the origins of feminism, nor have I taken a college course relating to it or any kind of gender studies. But it takes a very small amount of time and effort to find out what a majority of feminists campaign for. The internet is a vast place, and there's boundless sources of information out there to draw a conclusion from. In my own experience and perusal of the glorious and supernatural interwebz, I have found that feminists generallyyy care about people as a whole.
This includes, but is not limited to, gender equality (equal pay, equal opportunity, non-discrimination type deals), sex education (benefits all genders), marriage equality and non-discrimination against diverse sexual orientations (benefits LGBTQ community - which is not strictly related to gender! Surprise!), and so on. Of course, there are things they also campaign for that are more related to women than men (maternity leave, reproductive health access, promoting women in STEM), but this by no stretch of the imagination means that ONLY women benefit.
In fact, I have noticed that a good number of people who purport to disagree with feminism are also self-proclaimed humanists or egalitarians. But what is a humanist or egalitarian but a person who believes in the equality for all people. Which is exactly what a feminist is also aiming for.
In fact - and yes, I'm going to be that ass that pulls the dictionary out - the definitions are quite similar.
- Feminism: The doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men.
- Humanism: Any system or mode of thought or action in which human interests, values, and dignity predominate.
- Egalitarianism: Belief in the equality of all people, especially in political, social, or economic life.
I will grant that, yes, these are very broad definitions, but even so, they encapsulate the core belief in each philosophy, and that is equality. If that's so hard to understand, people best be avoiding complex social and psychological theory. (Just sayin'.)
BUT, you say, what about those women that just claim to hate men (or what have you)? Well, with emphasis on the word 'reason', it's important to say that not every person in the world is capable of reason. The world is a complex place made up of complex actions, interactions, and reactions amongst people, and not everyone can make the same sense out of it as others can. And this can sometimes lead to misguided (if well-intentioned) opinions of what gender equality is and what feminism should look like to achieve that goal.
In the end, you end up with what is commonly referred to as extremists, and these people tend to exist and have existed in every kind of movement, like, ever. At worst, they should be ignored. They do not speak for a movement as a whole, and they most certainly do not speak for other individuals. At best, educate them. Tell them why what they have to say may be inaccurate, illogical, misinformed, or unreasonable. If they won't listen... Well, you can't convince everybody.
In the sense that humanism and egalitarianism promote equality for all people, feminism can be viewed simply as a subset of this bigger picture. One is not necessarily mutually exclusive from the other. Feminism is simply a focus geared more towards gender and undoing those social constructs much like other movements focus on ridding our culture of racism, homophobia, transphobia, classism, ageism, et cetera.
It's high time we quit trying to alienate each other. You will run into people you may not agree 100% with. You will run into people you don't agree with at all. Let's not make this (or anything we aim for that benefits our overall human condition) a battle of "Whose side are you on?!" Let's focus on what we can do to actually make it happen. What we choose to label ourselves in the process is totally arbitrary , so let us focus on ideas. The ideas - not the title - are what inspire people into action.
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