After switching groups from dance group to the feminist group, because I had no faith in the project idea that the group would agree on, I started thinking about feminism and its relationship to my personal beliefs and gender equality and not I'm not sure if I should be in the feminist group either. So first, feminism. As it is defined, and as we use the term in some circles in society, is the equality of the genders then equating equality between the sexes to feminism. I had always held the assumption that gender equality was the same as feminism, but I am starting to see that it is not. When you look up the term feminism in google, it relays back that feminism is "the advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes." Feminism, by definition, does not take into account the inequality that men (and non-binary individuals) face. I would not say that men's (and other non-represented groups by the term "women") inequality is equal to that of women's, just that it exists and is different and needs addressing for all genders to be equal. The three problems I see with feminism as both a term and a movement. The first is that the word feminism, in its tied to the feminine gender by its etymology. Women make up a substantial amount of the world's population, but they don't make up more than half. Using a word that in its make up is inherently exclusive and then expecting other genders to champion its cause is obtuse. The second is that feminism is only about women's equality, not the equality of all genders. Only focusing on the rights of women is exclusivist, limited, and unproductive. Most of the liberal society has excepted that gender is non-binary and also that your gender should not affect the way your treatment. As in, the rights you have should not be determined by the genitals you have, the genitals you want, or how you express your gender. The last, and most important are the connotation that the word has now. I don't want to be a feminist, because so many feminists that have come before me, both in this wave and previous waves of feminism do not support what I believe. First wave feminism didn't want black to get voting rights before women. Second wave feminism is notorious for man-hating, which isn't cool either, and this previous wave is so fractured and full of conflicting opinions, it shouldn't be considered one movement. Gender equality on the other is defined as "the state in which access to rights or opportunities is unaffected by gender" which sounds pretty great to me. Gender equality is a more inclusive and welcoming term to describe the equality between all the gender, rather than brining one gender equal with another and ignoring the rest. So I don't think I am a feminist. I support women's rights, but I also support men's rights and all the other gender's rights as well: not just the rights that correspond with my gender.
So that's that.
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