Image Source: Revesz, Rachael. “Campaign launches to make ‘Fearless Girl’ statue on
Wall Street permanent.” The Independent. New York: 2017.

Feminism is about equality; negating domination of all kinds. Id a man supports inequality, he is a feminist. Simple.

'Feminism' find its roots in the word, famina, and so, it is believed to be associated with women alone. We must realize that it had been so because the patriarchal setup gave certain privileges to men but women were barred from receiving even basic human rights (read: Primogeniture; Suffragette). That is why, feminism started off as a political movement to fight for the rights of women.

The times have however, changed due to the efforts of various women and some men who have challenged the existing norms. Women have achieved their basic rights and can now be seen as taking up various challenging professions. In the contemporary era, feminism is not limited to fighting for women folk alone. But it identifies 'domination' as the main factor responsible for inequality among genders.

Feminism is NOT about hating men. It was NEVER about hating men. It had always been about fighting for the equal rights and opportunities for women. Why only women? Well, because women have been considered as the 'second sex' in the patriarchal setup.

Feminist theory itself isn’t fundamentally chauvinistic. It considers the fact that both the sexes are incomplete without each other, and rejects the study of feminine alone. The only thing feminism stands against is gender discrimination. The contemporary feminist theory realizes the prejudices faced by men too, and so it stands for their rights as well. If you are a feminist, you don’t stand for women’s rights alone; you stand against inequality, sexism; basically domination of all kinds. It does not matter if you are a male or a female; if you support equality of both the sexes, you are a feminist. And men who realize that instead of going into the etymology of the word, 'feminism,' are real men.

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Mayur WaghNovember 25, 2018 at 2:50 PM
Hello Naina,
I must admit, you've done a good job with this write up. But, I was wondering if your stand on the 'contemporary' feminist theory will have a practicable acceptance. As is the case, I take it that you know that feminist theory has developed through 3 stages. Its earliest exponent were Mary Wollstonecraft and J.S.Mill who belong to the 1st generation. Simone de Beauvoir comes into the second generation and 3rd generation defined the contemporary theory. My argument here is that Feminist theory should be somewhat more biased towards Feminism and less towards equality. Because for Feminism to reach grassroots it has to have an aggressive edge to it. And unless it is armed with it patriarchal men will not cede any grounds for it.
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