Why is it such a Negative Label?

I am a Feminist.

Gasps! Horror! Shock! Um, whatever.

Yes, I am a Feminist. I have always been a feminist, but have had such a hard time admitting it and with everything going on about Shailene Woodley's comment about feminism, I feel like this is an appropriate time to share how I came to the realization that I am a feminist.

It has been fairly recent since I a have fully claimed that I am a feminist. Seriously, it was a conversation after seeing the movie "Frozen" with my older brother that really spurred me to go on this journey. We were discussing the idea of how the women in the movie weren't villainized or weren't pitted against each other or needed saving by a prince. I said that I was happy that his goddaughter would be able to have a Disney movie like this grow up with. As I was saying this, he mentioned how this is very much a feminist film. I looked at him and completely disagreed. He then said, "Kelley. You like the fact that she didn't need a man; you liked the fact that it treated everyone equally; you liked the fact that women weren't portrayed as weak and could defend themselves, right?" "Yes." "Then you're a feminist." In other words, I was like Shailene and associated feminism with the farthest extreme and not for what it actually stands for.

Those words, "Then you're a feminist," resonated with me and caused me to evaluate much of myself. Everything I believed in with equality for all people no matter the gender aligns itself with feminism. I mean, even some of the blogs and websites I would read consistently fell in line with the feminist idea (Rachel Held Evans, Hellogiggles, etc). I even looked up what feminism was in the dictionary: 

1:  the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes

2:  organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests

Why was it so hard for me to claim this title if I was already living the lifestyle of a feminist? I mean, my favorite person in history to study is Francis Willard (a suffragist and activist), my mother and father encouraged me to pursue any field I wanted to and believed that I could achieve anything if I put my mind to it, I had many female role models who held high positions and I was always taught that a woman can do anything a man can do, so why couldn't I just claim the label?


The Reason: I didn't want to be categorized as one of those women.

A lame reason to be afraid to claim who you really are, but it's true. Even when I would talk to friends (male and female) about feminism, I felt like I had to hold back when they would make a horrible judgment about what it was (typically it being the highest extremes possible). And to a certain point I can understand why they would have negative thoughts about feminism.

For example, my mom graduated college and worked in her field for a little bit, but decided to be a stay-at-home mom because she wanted to be an influence to her children. There were many women (feminist) who gave my mother a hard time for not using her education and staying at home (To give some reference, this was in the early to mid 80's). My mother wanted to be at home to be a part of her children's lives to influence them, but that wasn't good enough for some women because she wasn't using her degree. May I add that if it wasn't for my mom being at home, I wouldn't have been able to have my strong beliefs that women are equal to men.

This judgment of women is hurting feminism, especially in cases like what my mother had to face and what Shailene Woodley is facing. This is playing into the hands of everyone who is against feminism and this is why people don't take feminism seriously. We need to stop shaming each other and need to unite! I know that uniting isn't an impossible thing, because I have seen it on different online communities. Believe me, go on tumblr and you will see that feminism isn't something extreme, but a way to fight for equality!

So here I am saying: This is what Feminism looks like. It is not something extreme; it is not something that is negative; it is not something that is ignorant and one-sided, but is a movement for change and fighting for equality for all.

PS: Check out this video of Courtney Martin's TED talk about Reinventing Feminism. It's 11:26 min, but is completely worth the watch.