Limiting gender roles, gender boundaries, and limiting femininity is limiting ourselves as humans.

What a slut. Don’t be such a pussy! You know you want this D! She was raped? What was she wearing? Why was she out drinking? She wants birth control, wow, what a slut. Oh, you played a major character in a movie based on a comic book that required high acting skills, what was your diet to fit in the costume? This is sexism and it is alive.

Feminism has gained a bad reputation as of late; gaining a popular misnomer among the Internet as Feminazis. If you’re already a feminist and you understand that there are uneducated extremists in every movement and that they can not possibly represent an entire collective of activists then I have a disclaimer for you: intersectionality. If you’re feminism doesn’t include women of color, gay women, transgender women, non-binary women, asexual women, poor women, disabled women, and male rape victims then what kind if flimsy activism do you stand for?

Feminists fight oppression and injustice created by the patriarchy. Webster’s defines the patriarchy as, “control by men of a disproportionately large share of power.” The patriarchy is no one man, and it is no one man reading this article either. Often times the reason feminism gains this misnomer in an argument is because males can feel they are being personally attacked when feminists point out the systems of power that sustain male privilege.

Another reason this name has become so popular is that there are misandrists who hide behind the name of feminism. Misandry is the hatred of men and misogyny is the hatred of women. There is no excuse for prejudice and hatred; especially so in a movement mobilizing those oppressed towards self-love, social acceptance, and gender justice.

Some people believe that since women have the right to vote and that Roe v Wade is still intact (for now) that women are completely equal and they no longer need society to change. However, that simply is not the case.

The fact that there are hundreds of pieces of legislation regulating women’s bodies and there are still zero for men. How transgender women are murdered at a significantly higher rate than any other demographic because they are seen as betrayers and liars and fakes towards misogynist males. How a woman can be raped and it is circulated on social media and she is seen as a whore, the perpetrators are sympathized with, and the victim is blamed. Women lose social status if they’re sexually promiscuous and traditionally it increases a male’s. Boys are told not to cry, wear pink, or like anything their sisters can; the same corresponds to girls growing up. When breastfeeding in public is sexualized and look down upon.

Limiting gender roles, gender boundaries, and limiting femininity is limiting us as humans. Gender exists on a spectrum and we’re all just floating somewhere on a blue pink line. One side can not exist without the other. We must co-exist. If one has a disproportionate amount of power than things need to be balanced and mind sets need to be changed so that this imbalance is not normal and socially acceptable any longer.