The word “feminism” has been misinterpreted ever since it was coined in the 1890’s. When people hear the word, they usually think of it as a negative term. When I hear the word, I think of men and women living as equals.

Feminism is the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes. Over the years, feminism has been morphed into a controversial topic with a ton of meanings. Senior Classman, Nolan Fernandes stated, “When I think of feminism, I think of a bunch of crazy women fighting for rights they already have.”

An anonymous woman stated, “I don’t need feminism because I believe in men and women should be equal, not that women should belittle men.”This example is both terrifying and completely annoying.

If you truly believe the whole idea of feminism was created to “belittle men”, then you need to seriously read something. Feminists believe in equality for everyone (unless you’re one of the extremists). By extremists, I mean those people who demonize men and infantilize women.

Emily Swanson from The Huffington Post ran a poll that said 16% of men and 25% of women classify themselves as feminists. Then she released another poll that said 82% of Americans agree that men and women should be politically, economically, and socially equal. What a difference (note the sarcasm?).

Basically, the polls asked the same question, just reworded, and got different answers. This is because people don’t know feminism, as I mentioned before. Because of it’s negative demeanor, people don’t want to be classified as such.

I’m a feminist because I have common sense. People deserve to be treated equally. That is the basic, core definition of the word, “feminism”.

I will admit, modern-day feminism is completely different then it was back then. Is has become negative because those extremists use to term to mean anti-men or pro-choice or other things that it’s not. In Emily Shire’s article, “You Don’t Hate Feminism, You Just Don’t Understand It” she wrote, “People don’t realize that you can be a feminist and pro-life or a feminist and a stay at home mom.”

The stereotype for women is the whole “cook for your man, serve your man”. If you like to do that for him, if you enjoy cooking and cleaning for you husband or boyfriend, do it! Doing something that you like doesn’t make you any less equal to a male.

Feminism isn’t just for women, it’s for men, too. Angela Wang from The Huffington Post wrote, “Society expects men to not have emotions, be able to fix anything, and most importantly, have a strong body. Feminism is about equal punishment and outrage toward women who rape men as that of men who rape women.”

Just because some ignorant people tarnished the word and what it stands for, doesn’t mean that it’s overall definition is different. For those who still don’t understand, feminism is EQUALITY. When people say they are anti-feminist, they obviously don’t know what it truly means.