It happens every time. I talk to men, smart, funny, sometimes even well-meaning men, and the moment I say the word feminist, their body language changes. They smirk. They say things like “Oh, you’re one of those feminist types,” or “We don’t need feminism anymore, right?” or “It’s just about women hating men these days.” So what is feminism, really? At its core, it’s about equality. Feminism belongs to every part of the world, and it’s much older than tote bags and profile bios. It is the ancient and revolutionary act of women claiming their humanity, again and again.
Feminism started long before the 1960s and long before hashtags. It started when the first woman refused to be property. It started when Fatima Sheikh and Savitribai Phule walked into classrooms full of caste hatred and taught girls, including Dalit girls, to read. It started when Qiu Jin unbound her feet and joined the fight against the Qing dynasty, demanding freedom for China and for its women. It started when Tahmineh Milani made films in Iran that exposed patriarchal hypocrisy in spite of government censorship, and it went on when Mahsa Amini’s death sparked a revolution in the streets, led by women who burned their hijabs to demand the right to choose. It started when Rosa Luxemburg, a Jewish Marxist woman in the heart of Europe, called for a world where workers and women were treated as people with minds and dignity. It started in the whispers of Indian textile workers, in Adivasi women marching for land rights, and in the healers and midwives of medieval villages who were accused of witchcraft for caring for women’s bodies. It started in the body, and it stays in the body. Feminism is about the right to vote and work, and it’s also about the right to live in your body without shame, to speak without being called too loud, to bleed without hiding, to age without apologizing, to say no, to say yes, to walk home without being followed, and to stop being the punchline or the accessory in someone else’s story.
It still makes people uncomfortable because it asks us to face the fact that most systems were built without women in mind: architecture, medicine, law, religion, science, art, even language. A woman’s assertiveness still gets called aggression. Her ambition is either fetishized or feared. If she dresses modestly she’s repressed, and if she dresses freely she’s “available.” So yes, I’m one of “those” feminist types. I want little girls to grow up with fairy tales and stories of revolution. I want boys to grow up knowing softness is strength, and that equality costs them nothing. I’m tired of explaining that feminism has nothing to do with bashing men. It’s about freeing everyone from the rigid roles we’ve all been forced into. Feminism tells women they can be respected without being warriors, whole without being mothers, and worthy without competing with other women. It tells men they can be men without playing god.
Feminism is for the trans woman reclaiming her femininity in a world that tells her it isn’t real. It’s for the single father who teaches his son to cry, for the factory worker’s daughter who refuses to stay quiet, and for the mother who never learned the language of self-love. For me, it’s the path to equality that takes seriously how deeply inequality is sewn into everyday life, into the clothes we wear and the taxes we pay. The next time someone rolls their eyes at the word feminist, I hope they remember that the freedoms they enjoy were fought for by people who believed in equality.
Yes, I’m a feminist, loudly and softly, with care, rage, and hope. I believe in the full humanity of every gender, and this fight is still going.
