Feminism 101: An Online Crash Course

The word “feminism” was never defined to me until I was well out of high school. Until my freshman year of college, I, along with entirely too many other young women, had shied away from the word. Because okay, yes, “gender equality.” That sounds nice. I want that. But feminism? No, I’m not a feminist. Come on, Feminists are crazy. That’s not me. But at sixteen, no one ever told me that those two statements back to back completely negated each other. Because no one ever told me that the fight for gender equality is the very basis of feminism. Equal rights for men and women. They are the same thing. And I don’t know why no one ever clarified that, because for some reason most of us were raised thinking that feminism had an extremely negative connotation. Hearing the word “feminism” brought to mind the picture of some sort of angry female revolution, a mob of fuming women invading the streets and waving picket signs that say “down with the patriarchy” while rioting and setting fire to city buildings. Which, by the way, has never happened. That I know of.

The first person who ever straight up defined feminism for me was Emma Watson. Yeah. Hermione from Harry Potter taught me what it meant to be a feminist. I had been absentmindedly scrolling through Facebook one day when I came across an article that had been posted by the actress’ Facebook page. The word “feminism” in the title caught my attention, along with the rest of the headline… something along the lines of “it’s not what you think it is.” So I was all like “Okay then Hermione, let me have it. What is feminism, really?”

One click. A two page article. A three minute video. That’s all it took to reverse years of preconceived notions and misconceptions about feminism.

So then I did my research. Google gave me a surprisingly long list of female celebrities who had begun to identify themselves as feminists, as well as individual links to click on for each one. The entire feminist world, one that I hadn’t even known existed at all, was suddenly at my fingertips. After reading through as much as I could consume in one sitting, I walked away from my laptop feeling…smarter. I didn’t go to a class, but I felt educated. I wasn’t given a study guide, but I felt as if I could pass a test. I had learned more from the internet in ten minutes than I had in thirteen years of school.

I wonder now, if I had never come across that page, what I would be saying today to people who ask if I am a feminist. Granted, I don’t actually get that question a lot. Or like, ever. But if someone were to ask me that before I took the liberty of educating myself on the subject, I would still be saying “Yeah no, I’m definitely not a feminist. Don’t put me in the same category as them. I don’t want that label.” But today, if I were to get that question… “Are you a feminist?” I would say yes. And I would be able to say why. And then I would pull out my phone and be able to give that person a very long, very detailed list of articles, videos, interviews, and links regarding why they should be too.