Modern Feminism Definition

Today, only a few truly understand the meaning of feminism. Modern feminism has lost its meaning and from the deterioration, many women who believed in equality between genders have stopped identifying themselves as feminist because feminists have been too often related to misandrists. Organizations such as WomenAgainstFeminism is encouraging women to publicly denounce modern feminism. Some even consider that feminism should be banned for good. Those who denounce modern feminism should not blame feminism for what it has become today, but they should remember what feminism has done for women. To eradicate feminism from our society due to few misunderstanding is not only misguiding, but also demeaning; it undermines the works of all feminists …show more content…
Recently, Emma Watson, who was named United Nations Women Goodwill Ambassador, made a speech to introduce HeForShe, the new gender equality campaign that will “try and galvanize as many men and boys as possible to be advocates for gender equality” (Watson). The campaign advocated for the core value of feminism—“to promote political, economic and social equality of the sexes” (Watson). However, Watson did not address the reason that feminism is being strongly related to misandry. The interchangeability of misandry and feminism developed in response to the rape culture where many women argued that men accused of rape “do not have rights, and the best way to fight rape culture is to presume men guilty until proven innocent” (Parton). These women speakers are promoting injustice in loud voices and such promotion of injustice often aggravates the distrust between men and women. In the article by Newby Parton, he recalled voicing his worries towards the new standard of “verbal testimony alone should be enough to convict an accused perpetrator” and he was later “accused of being ‘steeped in rape culture’” (Parton). Parton was right to worry about false accusations based on simple verbal testimonies because such standard will promote distrust between men and women. In his article, he described, “Conflating feminism and misandry like this hurts women as much as it hurts men. Men suffer when misandry is codified, and women suffer by losing male support for the noble goals of feminism” (Parton). However, one cannot put the blame of misconception solely on the rape culture; some feminists often joke about interchanging feminists and misandry. One questions the rationale of such jokes. In the TIME article, it explores the reason behind the inappropriate joke; feminists are trying to “riffing off the misguided popular notion that they are man-haters” (Begley). What started out as a deflection of