Katherine Kulus, Sartell
I am not a man hater. I do not think women are better than men. I just happen to know we all deserve equal opportunities and we should be viewed on our individual strengths. I am a feminist and “feminism” is not a dirty word.
It all began with Emma Watson. Her United Nations speech in 2014 changed my world. I learned if I don’t act now, who would? That speech led me to the well-known feminist Lena Dunham. Lena pointed out “’Feminism’ isn’t a dirty word. It’s not like we’re a deranged group who think women should take over the planet.” Being a feminist doesn’t mean you think women deserve special rights; it means you know we deserve equal ones.
So beyond the fact women earn 23 percent less in the workforce than men, why else do we need feminism? Well, at the root of our government, women still hold less than 20 percent of seats in Congress, even though they make up more than half the population. Another outrageous issue is rape. We teach girls to prevent rape. Instead, we should teach humans are not objects. We need feminism because sometimes, a movie’s rating (PG-13 versus R) depends on how much a female appears to be enjoying sex in a certain scene. We need feminism because FGM (Female Genital Mutilation – the act of cutting off and re-stitching female genitals to prevent enjoyable sex) can happen to girls as young as 5 months old and is still practiced in 29 countries. We need it because more than 120 countries don’t have laws against marital rape and still allow child brides. Being a feminist is not a gender issue; it’s a humanity issue. I believe women should be treated the same as men: not because we’re better but because we’re human.
So if you asked me why I wear my feminist shirt and put up with relenting oppression, I’ll tell you, “Because I am a woman who believes in a world where men and women have equal political, social and economical opportunities.”