David Delgado//The Daily Cougar
The word ‘feminism’ seems to get a rise out of people nowadays. If you claim to be a feminist, most people assume that you’re a man-hater who thinks women should have an advantage in society.
UH creative writing and literature doctoral candidate Allie Rowbottom studied Sexuality and Gender Studies as an undergraduate. Her definition of feminism is one that speaks of equality.
“Feminism, for me, is a movement made up by multiple approaches and ideologies pointed at achieving equal social, economic, sexual and political rights for all, regardless of gender identity or biological sex.”
The idea that all feminists must be women is horrendous. Rowbottom has a theory as to how this stereotype may have come about. “The emphasis on women’s rights in feminism stems from the simple fact that women have historically been denied the same rights as men,” Rowbottom said.
However, one thing most feminists try to preach is that it does not mean you have to be a woman to support women’s rights, just as you do not have to be gay to support gay rights or a minority to support racial equality.
In regard to she feels about the stereotype that feminism has garnered, Rowbottom said it’s frustrating.
“I run up against these stereotypes every single semester in the classroom, and what I find the most disheartening about them is that the majority of students supporting them are female. Most girls, it seems, don’t want to be perceived as man-hating, because they’re not – and this is understandable,” Rowbottom said.
“What I try to show in the classroom is that feminism is not, as is the popular myth, an effort to dethrone men and put women in their place. It’s simply an effort to level the playing field, which, ultimately, is better for everyone.”
If feminists should have any stereotype, it should be the wish to achieve equality for all. It is a shame that such hatred is put on those who call themselves ‘feminist,’ because after all, wanting equality for everyone — regardless of their anatomy — should not be a crime.
The concept of feminism is not to hate on a specific gender, male or female; it is about achieving the equality every person in this country deserves — within natural rights.
“There’s so much pressure on young men and women alike in the culture today. These burdens can only be dissolved by working together,” Rowbottom said.
Had feminists not been present in this country’s history, women would still be in the kitchen, and men would still be on the battlefield.
“(Feminism) is not about getting up on a soapbox with a megaphone, but about being the change you want to see,” Rowbottom said.
“You do not have to be Gloria Steinem to be a feminist. The feminists I most look up to are my female friends who get out there every day and effect change — either in the classroom, the office, in their creative writing or on the Internet,” Rowbottom said.
Other countries that are behind the United States in terms of social issues could look at our country’s feminist movement as part of the amazing progress that could not have been achieved without everyone, men and women, standing up for what is right.
“So we’ve come a long way and I think that’s something to celebrate and respect,” Rowbottom said.
People can assume all feminists are bad people, but when it comes down to it, feminism is not a bad thing. It has affected this country in a positive way, and we still need it around to help everyone fully and freely live their lives.
Opinion columnist Blake Mudd is a journalism freshman and may be reached at [email protected]
MHRA’s would beg to disagree.
Feminism began with a good idea: equal rights and responsibilities. But then Second Wave Feminism wanted equal outcomes without equal responsibilities, and to achieve that focused less on women’s rights and more on men’s wrongs. Now today we have Third Wave Feminism, which blithely assumes it’s up to men to make the world safe for women to be super heroes, and if men fail–as they inevitably will–then men are the problem. But you see men must fail because the world is not safe and nobody–not even third wave feminists–are super heroes. This is not the fault of men. Most men are regular Joes who would rather rescue a woman from a rapist than to rape her, yet while only a small fraction of men are real rapists, the entire male gender is stereotyped by second and third wave feminists as rapist. Knowing this, how can anybody say that feminism has not devolved to become a hate movement? Read Eric Hoffer’s great little book, The True Believer. While not directly addressing feminism, but the nature of mass movements, it predicted this would happen to the feminist movement, and it predicts this will happen to the men’s rights movement. I tried to prevent this from happening to the feminist movement and failed, because as Paul Elam of AVFM recently noted, feminism is no longer a movement but the mainstream. And the mainstream crushed our effort. Now we are at a point where the men’s movement is about to become a hate movement, and the ones pushing the hardest to see that it does are the feminists.
I don’t call it “leveling the playing field” when women have the right to abort children and men have no official say in the matter. Abortion was something feminists on the left wanted women to have the right to do. Legalized baby killing. The “natural right” is allowing men to choose who they want the mother of their children to be as it naturally was BEFORE abortion rights for women. Now women choose who they want the father of their children to be instead by aborting off the children from the men they don’t want to share a child with. Actions speak louder than words. The feminist movement gave women MORE rights than men and took away natural rights from men. And feminists are demanding quotas in jobs so that women have more representation. This is an affirmative action order that discriminates against men. It’s not about merit anymore. It’s about not being a male and getting the hookups. This is not leveling the playing field. It’s gross pandering to one sex over the other by giving one sex a huge handicap/advantage to dethrone males and replace them with women. It’s a socialist movement to redistribute the wealth and power from one group via government enforcement to give it to another. And when you mention “leveling the playing field” you’re admitting that this is a war. It’s a competition of female vs male. But this is not how God or nature intended for males and females to operate. We’re supposed to be working WITH each other, not against each other for power and control. So what if there are more men in politics than women? Those men pander to women more than they do men by a longshot so it’s not like they’re doing men and special favors. And the reason they are pandering so much to you women is because you women are their bosses. You control them with your votes and you outnumber men in the US and in the UK and in every other westernized nation so it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to point out that women are going to win out every single time they vote because they drown out the male vote every single time. This is more of a matriarchy than a patriarchy and has been for a long time. Sure, women didn’t get to vote until after men. But most wives didn’t feel the need to compete against their husbands and vote against their husband’s vote. This goes against religion and basic respect for your man. If you’re going to vote against him to empower yourself at his expense then you’re not helping him at all. You’re holding HIM back from being equal to yourself. And that part about women not being in the kitchen anymore. You’re right. Women are not in the kitchen anymore. But men are STILL on the battlefield and doing the bulk of the fighting and dying so women don’t have too. I wouldn’t call that male privilege. It’s more of a privilege to be the protected and coddled sex.