Taking the equality movement the wrong way

Olivia Decker, Assistant Editor-in-Chief

By Olivia Decker

Assistant Editor-in-Chief

With every social equality movement comes those who stand on the wrong side of history, and with the recent rise of support for feminism, it was inevitable that the fedora-clad “meninists” would find their way out of the imaginary friend-zone and undermine the fight for gender equality.

This so-called “movement” started as a joke on Twitter to poke fun at men’s rights activists, but some people seem to actually see this as a legitimate cause to stand behind because they believe that men are oppressed. However, it’s preventing the world from progressing toward a better, more equal future that benefits all genders.

One of the most common misconceptions about feminism is that its main focus is on hating men and letting women take over, but that assumption couldn’t be more wrong; the definition of feminism is “the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men”. Equality is the main goal of feminism, and if somebody says that superiority is the goal then they have completely misunderstood the entire point of the movement. That being said, modern feminism is multi-faceted and also focuses on liberating everybody from traditional gender roles and showing support for those who don’t conform to gender stereotypes such as men who want to wear makeup or women who want to participate in activities that are traditionally considered masculine. In this way feminism benefits all genders, unlike meninism, which is dedicated to maintaining the current rigid gender roles that continue to ail our society.

One of the biggest complaints from meninists is that women treat men badly by “friend-zoning” them, meaning that their female friends don’t want to be romantically involved with them and would rather remain friends. This kind of thinking is extremely problematic because it shames women for simply saying that they would rather be friends with someone who more often than not tries to pressure her into doing things that she doesn’t want to do; women don’t owe you anything just because you were nice to her, so stop trying to make her feel guilty for trying to let you down lightly.

You’d think that for a group that believes men deserve more rights than they already have that the meninists would care more about real issues, however when actor Shia Lebouf bravely said he was raped during a performance art piece, meninists scoffed at him and invalidated his emotions by saying it wasn’t rape because the offender was a woman. But when feminists talk about the issue of sexual assault against women, meninists are quick to say “men get raped too”. Male sexual assault is an extremely important issue that often gets overlooked because it doesn’t happen as often as female sexual assault, but meninists using it as an excuse to invalidate feminism is extremely hypocritical considering they mocked Shia Lebouf and many other male victims who were strong enough to tell their story. Needless to say, if meninists actually cared about gender equality they would focus on helping victims rather than attacking feminists on the internet and whining about the friend-zone.

All in all, meninism started as a joke and that’s exactly what it is: a joke. A sexist, politically incorrect joke that nobody should stand behind because of its hypocrisy and refusal to accept that the word “feminism” can be a feminine word and still mean gender equality.