Why Are People Afraid of the "F" Word?

Honestly I feel like every time I talk about feminism, you would think I summoned Satan (who’s obviously a meninists)

I’ve been wanting to write this article for a while due to multiple occurrences in the past (which I will get to in a second), but now I finally have the motivation thanks to the new Miss USA. If you actually watched the Miss USA pageant or read about it a couple of days later (like me) you probably know it was a good year for feminists and people of color in many aspects. Out of the five finalists, four were women of color, the previous Miss USA, Deshauna Barber, wore her natural hair as a tribute to her mother, and the topic of the importance of feminism came up from Miss New Jersey.

In the end, Miss District of Columbia, Kara McCullough, won the title of Miss USA and, sadly, had some words about feminism as well. When asked the question, if she would call herself a feminist, McCullough replied: “So as a woman scientist in the government, I’ve liked to lately transpose the word feminism to equalism. I don’t really want to consider myself like this die-hard, you know, like, ‘Oh, I don’t really care about men.’ But one thing I’m going to say is though, women, we are just as equal as men when it comes to opportunity in the workplace. And I say firsthand, I have witnessed the impact that women have in leadership in the medical sciences as well as just in the office environment, so as Miss USA I would hope to promote that type of leadership responsibility globally to so many women worldwide”

As expected that didn’t go well with the feminist community. Many people didn’t like how McCullough used the word “die-hard” and believed that feminists didn’t like men; to them, it seemed that McCullough had a very ignorant view on feminism. Which was shocking to some especially since McCullough talked about how equality in the workforce is so important and how feminism is literally about equality.

Now, I get that many women especially women of color don’t join feminism for many understandable reasons. In the past, feminism hasn’t been very equal when it comes to religion, race, and sexual orientation which is why many women support female empowerment, but not feminism. I completely understand this, but when someone says that they’re not a feminist because they don’t hate men, or they think that it's too intense, or because they don’t wanna take their shirts off and run down the streets, that’s when I have a problem.

I honestly shouldn’t be surprised to hear about this, McCullough isn’t the only strong woman figure who claims to support women, but not feminism. Celebrities like Carrie Underwood, Lana Del Rey, Kim Kardashian West, Madonna, and Shailene Woodley are just a few examples of women who support equal rights, but still think feminism means hating men or think that ‘feminist’ is too strong of a word and prefer ‘equalist’ or ‘humanitarian’.

It’s just crazy to me that so many people literally will spell out the definition of what feminism is, but they’re still afraid to say the actual word. What is so scary or dangerous about saying that you’re a feminist in the public eye?

One of the reasons is probably because some people think that feminists hate all men. They like to translate calling out men for sexist acts and comments to a feminist wanting to bite men's heads off for breathing. That’s not true and is really weird because there are male feminists and many feminists have been speaking up about how men shouldn't be held up to such unrealistic social standards as well (sips tea). I remember one time last year I was talking with a guy friend who was complaining about the books that we had to read that year. They all had women who were the main characters and he was complaining that our English teacher who happened to be a feminist was trying to make men look bad...because she was a feminist. I just remember staring at him telling myself that making a scene in a crowded hallway while trying to get to class probably wasn’t a good idea. Even this year I hear guys hating on this English teacher claiming she’s a “feminist who hates boys”, but I’m pretty sure she hates them because they eat, go on their phones, sleep, talk, and are lazy in her class (sips some more tea).

While it is true that women do feel bitter towards males due to all the crap they gave back in the day and still give us today, we don’t hate men; we just hate the misogynistic things some of them do.

Then there is the stereotype of new age feminists. Anti-feminists really love to illuminate how crazy and angry we are by showing us screaming and topless and saying “Look! Look, how uncivilized these feminists are!” which again fuels the hatred against feminist. People think that we’re a group of naked maniacs screaming at people because we can’t get a man. Of course this was created due to a lack of education and simply looking at an intense photo. I understand that seeing a topless woman is off-putting, especially in a society where it's frowned upon (we'll talk about that later), but you still need to research things about feminism before you make assumptions on a photo.

It seems to me the main culprit for people being afraid of feminism is ignorance. Which I can’t judge, feminism is a group of passionate people fighting for a cause they care deeply about, for someone who doesn’t know what feminism is can see this as frightening at first, but instead of automatically thinking it’s bad because it’s not normal and not what you think is okay. Even if it’s something interesting or weird, it’s just polite to research it. Not trying to understand something is how homophobia and islamophobia is created; it’s due to people looking at something they don’t understand and instead trying to understand, they automatically deemed it bad.

I , myself, can vouch that ignorance is why feminism is hated a lot because back in the day I was one of those ‘I support female empowerment, but not feminism’ types. I used to judge girls who wore makeup, short skirts, girls who had confidence, I even followed that ‘I’m not like other girls’ crap (shameful, I know).

I grew up in what I considered a family filled with strong women, but they were all in the same page as me. As a child I knew that I was all for women empowerment, but I had no idea what feminism was until the sixth grade, thanks to me reading the news. The new word perplexed me and I didn’t really associate with it because I was told that feminist was a whole new level of activism that I wasn't ready for. It wasn’t until I was in the 8th grade that I found an article that talked about what it means to be a feminist. I realized that I already believed in these things so I just decided to be a feminist.

We need to stop this ignorance about feminism. I’m not saying that this will help us gain more feminists, (while it might) people can also see the bad parts of feminism, but they will still be educated and that is the main goal. I rather have an anti-feminist who uses actual problems in the feminist movement to go against us then someone saying 'But I like taking care of my husband, so I can't be a feminist'. Ignorance is a two-sided problem, this means that feminists needs to keep on speaking up. The way I came to feminism is a perfect example of this: feminism spoke up about their beliefs while I decided to look for these beliefs. We as feminists, need to keep on educating and when a topic comes up about equality we listen to people’s views and tell ours. We need ask people why they hate feminism and have a discussion with them about their views. We need to educate the younger generations as well as the current generations. We need to keep on talking so that feminism isn’t a dirty word that people avoid, but a word that simply represents what it initially represents: equality.

Information provided via Forbes

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