8 Habits Feminists Should Ditch in 2015

Stop using outdated/manipulated/false statistics.

While American women make less money than American men on average, that is a result of their personal choices.

Women tend to choose lower earning majors in college as well as work less hours and choose less dangerous jobs than men, but when all of those factors are accounted for, the wage gap does not exist. 1 in 4 or 5 American women will not be raped or sexually assaulted; those statistics come from poorly conducted surveys with low response rates that ask misleading questions. If a movement has to rely on falsified information to scare the public into supporting it, I’m forced to question its substance.
Stop talking about rape and sexual assault as gendered issues.

On occasion after occasion I’ve seen feminists treat rape and sexual assault like only men are perpetrators and only women are victims. On the off chance that feminists are actually having a thoughtful discussion about male rape victims, they’re most likely talking about homosexual rape, or an adult female molesting a boy. Feminists are all about “destroying ideas,” and if there’s an idea that needs to be destroyed, it’s that a woman can’t rape a man or that it’s rare for women to feel sexually entitled to men.

Stop demanding that women call themselves feminists or support their agenda.

The way feminists demand that all women submit to their command and brand themselves by the movement is eerily reminiscent of a tyrannical, empirical monarchy. The way that feminists berate and attack female celebrities for not ascribing to their doctrine is so hypocritical it’s almost comical, because it’s completely okay to tell women how to feel, what to think and what to do as long as you’re a self righteous feminist.

Stop acting like jokes about bath bombs or Starbucks or uggs are something to be legitimately upset about.

Women in developing countries are being stoned to death, sold into sex slavery, don’t have legal rights to their own bodies and you have the audacity to cry oppression over a social media meme about some popular overpriced commodity? Moreover you see nothing wrong with making “straight white boy” jokes? I’ll speak to you guys in your own language: check your privilege.

Stop claiming to care about men’s issues yet constantly belittling them or somehow making them about them about women.

A commercial that initially seems to be focused around the masculine gender roles that get in the way of men being able to emotionally express themselves, ends up being about violence against women. The video’s message was that boy’s that aren’t allowed to cry end up bottling up their frustrations and taking it out on women, which is all well and good, but why is it that men’s problems are only worth discussing as a society when they affect women? Why did we have to end it with a battered woman for anyone to care?
Stop dismissing everything that makes the movement look bad as “not real feminists” or “radicals.” 

If the entire Republican Party is going to be held accountable every time one of its members do or say something ridiculous, feminists should be treated no differently. Obviously, not all people that call themselves feminists are militant, hypersensitive, man hating sociopaths but instead of crying “not all feminists,” they should acknowledge and rebuke the problematic aspects of their movement.
Stop taking credit for achievements of 1st and 2nd wave feminists and trying to use them to guilt women into calling themselves feminists. 

I fully recognize that I wouldn’t have many of the rights that I take for granted today if it weren’t for the efforts and sacrifices of first and second wave feminists, but I’m going to need modern (third wave) feminists to stop pretending that the people “banning bossy” and protesting school dress codes are the same people that got me my rights to work and vote. If every woman has to be a feminist because Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony were feminists, every black American has to vote Republican because Abe Lincoln and Frederick Douglas were Republicans.

Last but not least, stop using the dictionary definition/“you just don’t understand it” spiel.

I saw the VMAs. I know what Beyonce said feminism was. But putting “world’s best pizza” on the front of your store doesn’t mean you have the world’s best pizza, and calling a movement “equality” doesn’t mean that’s what it is. There is nothing more patronizing, insulting or arrogant than the assumption that as a woman, my rejection of feminism is a result of ignorance or lack of understanding.

anti feminismfeminismpolitical correctnessraperape culturesexual assault