Is feminism ethical?

Feminism. Most of us have heard of this term but I’m going to define it anyways. According to Google dictionary, it is defined as “the advocacy of women's rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes”. Let’s go ahead and define equality: “The state of being equal, especially in status, rights, or opportunities”. Basically, both of these movements are striving for the same thing, which is equality. I also noticed that Urban dictionary has defined feminism as something completely different: “Feminism is essentially the rambling doctrine of uneducated people. This doctrine is neither cogent nor sound. Feminism often makes up statistics and etymology so that it makes men historically sound bad. Feminist doctrine is flat out wrong and any educated person who can think for him/her self will see this”. This is obviously not a good sign.

It made me wonder if feminism is ethical; especially since I noticed similar actions of so called “feminists” being apparent on social media platforms.

 

Firstly, I am not here to hate on feminism. But I noticed some extreme claims that are being used widely in the name of feminism. Let’s go back and see why it emerged and why it was given that term and not egalitarianism or equality. While those two terms exist, egalitarianism and equality are very general. Egalitarianism wants equality for all including race, gender, sexuality, religion, etc. Feminism, on the other hand, focuses on women because they were the ones being oppressed in society. They did not have voting rights, equal job opportunities, equal pay, etc.

With the term “feminism” and feminist waves throughout history, women have achieved a lot. With that said, it doesn’t mean that women have reached a state of equality in modern day society. I agree that we have a long way ahead. But we need to start focusing on the major problems, rather than aiming the spotlight with those who have trivial problems.

 

Social media is very powerful and messages can spread through it very easily. With that being the case, radical feminists, who claim themselves as feminists, are spreading the wrong image of feminism. They are getting attention and spreading messages such as “men are trash”. (Example at end of article)

 

If men were to say “women are trash” everyone would be offended. There are simply good and bad people, it’s not specified to a specific gender. Another example I have is of a woman’s tweet (shown at the end).

 

Feminism wants equality, and her saying that she wants to present “feminist ideas that won’t hurt or offend men” is clearly not a feminist idea. Her subtweet generalizes men. She is complaining that good men will make an issue out of her generalization, and responded by vulgarly cursing at the whole male gender. I understand that the patriarchal system has hurt women and degraded them; however, to resolve this issue, we need to communicate with logic rather than emotions. If this behavior continues, no solution will be reached.

Feminism has brilliant original values and can be a great aid to many women who need it. However, times are changing and the “oppression” has decreased, even though it still exists. Radical feminists turned feminism into a joke on the internet and made real feminists feel embarrassed about their identity. The feminists I’m addressing are radical feminists; therefore, not all feminists are unethical. But the ones that are all over social media have become the face of feminism. Those radicals have distorted the image of feminism. Feminism is an ethical movement, currently led by unethical narcissists