Austin+P’s+2015+OpEd+Article

= ** Feminism: Equality or Something More? ** =

**Feminism**: the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.

By definition __I am a feminist__; I believe women and men should have equal opportunity in political, social, and economic areas of life. Plain and simple.

However, my encounters with feminists have all but one been negative because rather than them trying to assume equality in the situation if it wasn’t already an “equal” situation, they spend their time trying to belittle me as a man. Some women who claim to be feminists don’t exactly understand what feminism is, and instead act as if they are pursuing a female supremacy of sorts. They act as if they, as feminists, should be able to push men below them in search for world-wide equality.

Just a few days ago, I had a rather unpleasant situation with a few colleagues of mine. While sitting in class speaking of business ideas with my seat-partner I overhear a student say “oh, Austin Pecoraro? I hate him” followed by “Oh my gosh did you see what he tweeted?!” At this point I realized this group of females may have not remember that I was sitting just a few seats away, so I listen in to hear them complain about my anti-feminist views. This was amusing to me because none of these people know me or my views and are judging me solely based off of a joke I retweeted on twitter. It struck me as unfair that they as feminists, who claim to fight for male-female equality, were treating me unequally solely because they got the impression that I didn’t believe in the same things as them. In simpler terms, these women were taking hypocritical actions, making me inferior to them due to an ignorant assumption that I am an anti-feminist.

This act was hypocritical in itself because rather than fighting for equality, they took an “equal” situation and lowered me socially by gossiping of ignorant assumptions. When conversing with my sister who, like myself, agrees with feminism, she told me that “Feminism is the equality of the sexes, not feminine superiority so they [female colleagues] are making themselves the minority by assuming a higher class above men; Which is not promoting equality.”

I agree with feminism completely, but dislike how most feminists treat me and other men. I admit my exposure to feminists has been small, however the pure disrespect, and hypocritical actions I have received and witnessed from these women has showed me the truth about certain feminists. They are ignorant of the ideas associated with feminism and/or may not be interested in simply achieving equality of the sexes.

"I 'm not an activist; I don't look for controversy. I'm not a political person, but I'm a person with compassion. I care passionately about equal rights. I care about human rights. I care about animal rights." -Ellen DeGeneres