Feminism is something often looked down on by people because of the toxic feminists circulating social media. Feminism was once interpreted as getting equal rights for women. Now, feminism is often interpreted as “women are better than men, prove me wrong”. And instead of trying to show people that women and men are equal, other women support this idea and claim themselves feminists. 

Toxic feminism should be something people are comfortable about because it’s a real issue, it might not have as much light shone on it, but toxic feminism is something that needs to be addressed. 

Senior Marit Summers says, “I think toxic feminism is the type of feminism where people try to take down the patriarchy, no men in anything.” Summers went on to say, “I think there are people who hate men for whatever reason they have to, but then there are some people who misunderstand feminism and misinterpret that.” 

Tearing down men just for the sake of “feminism” isn’t the way people, especially these toxic feminists, should respond to men just because of some questionable things certain guys have done in the past.

Granted, there is still toxic masculinity floating around, and there are a lot of women who are subject to stereotypes and abuse from men, but that doesn’t mean “all men are…” with people filling in this blank with words like terrible, abusive, shallow, crude, and/or pedophiles. In an article written by Habin Hwang, “Toxic Femininity: The under-addressed gender calamity”, it says, “Male hatred stems from the misdirected battle against patriarchal society, which many feminists view as solely a collection of fights against individual men who committed heinous crimes, such as sexual assault.” 

Bashing and verbally attacking men isn’t the way to get rid of toxic masculinity, and isn’t the way that society is going to get people to stop assaulting others. A lot of people, especially these toxic feminists, don’t realize that men and women can be sexually assaulted by women too, men aren’t the only people capable of assaulting or harming others. 

After asking Freshman cheerleader Aidan Allen if he considered himself a feminist, he responded with, “I guess, in a way. I do believe that women deserve equal rights and opportunities, but I wouldn’t say exactly feminist because there are a few extremities that feminism goes to.” 

In a survey done by the Pew Research Center, it says that out of the men who participated in the survey, 52% saw feminism as polarizing and/or outdated, and 38% of women agreed with this statement. The dictionary definition of feminism is “the advocacy of women’s rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes.” The definition hasn’t changed, just the way some people perceive it has. 

Spreading awareness about how to recognize and prevent toxic feminism is one of the ways to return feminism as something people will be proud to support. Striving for equal rights, opportunities, respect, pay, among other things is what feminism is. Generally speaking, men aren’t better than women, and women aren’t better than men. There will always be bad people from both genders, but that doesn’t make one superior or inferior. A great example of a modern day feminist is Emma Watson. Click here to read her HeForShe campaign kickoff speech, and here to watch it.