Fear of Feminism

The topic that has caught my interest the most while taking Introduction to Women’s and Gender Studies this semester is the fear of feminism that exists in our society. It has been proven through my own personal experience and the experiences of most of my classmates that people are afraid to label themselves as feminists. It is interesting to me to look at why this is. Why should people be afraid of feminism? 

Feminism is the belief that all women and men are of inherently equal worth and should be treated accordingly in political, economic, social, and educational settings. That is it. It is that straightforward. However, through conversations that two of my classmates and I had with students all over campus, we learned that there are a multitude of myths applied to the word “feminist”. The four most common misconceptions about feminism among Creighton students are that all feminists are lesbians, all feminists hate men, feminism goes against traditional family values, and feminism is an outdated issue.

The idea that all feminists are lesbians is wrong in very fundamental ways. The first is that it implies that all feminists are female. Women and men of all ages and social positions support feminism. In fact, 58% of men claim to be feminists (when given the proper definition). An issue I personally have with this myth is the insinuation that being a lesbian is something to be ashamed of. This issue could be an entirely different blog post. 

Then there are the people who believe that feminists are man-haters. Many times this stemmed from people thinking that feminists wanted women to run the world and men to be of lower status than women. It is in the core belief of feminism that women and men are equal. This does not allude in any way to a belief that women are better than men.

Many of the students that we interviewed felt that feminists looked down on women who held traditional roles such as stay-at-home mothers or housekeepers. The best way that I have found to debunk this myth is to talk about what feminists do not believe. Feminists do not believe that women shouldn’t be in traditional roles. They also do not believe that women should be limited to only those options. Essentially, this idea of feminism is false because feminists believe that women should have equal opportunity to men to pursue a career outside the home not that women are required to pursue careers outside the home. 

Finally, my favorite misconception about feminism: feminism is an old issue that has been completely solved and need not be talked about anymore. There are many ways of disproving this view but I will focus on only a few. There are still issues of sexism in the workplace. As recently as two years ago it was reported that women still earn on average 77 cents to every dollar that a man earns. In politics and media women are treated unfairly. They are often cast as weaker and less trustworthy and even in serious positions of power their bodies are commented on and made the focus of discussion in ways that men’s bodies are not. 

Fear of change and lack of knowledge on the basic meaning of the word are the two most common reasons that people are afraid of feminism. I believe that the only thing we can do about this is educate. It is important for people to understand feminism so they are more willing to stand with it. Having a word to unify a movement may seem trivial but in the long run I think it will make a difference. If there is a label each person can be proud of and use together maybe people will realize just how many feminists are out there and will be forced to think about why that is and what they could do to make things better. 


Kindly,

Milana Jordan
Junior, Journalism