When one refers to themselves as a feminist, most people tend to look at them with condemnation as if they had sinned. Feminism isn’t necessarily a global movement with one belief and one goal; its beliefs and goals can differ depending on the country, social class, and other characteristics which it represents.  

Feminists are considered angry and bitter women who only want to subjugate and crush men. Also, there is a saying that feminism is nourished by women’s defeat, and that we should refuse to point out all women as victims.

Feminism is more like an alien attack! 

First of all, we should not fear feminism; it is not an alien attack, nor a movement calling for the elimination of men. Feminism can be considered a social, ideological and political movement that aims to achieve political, economic, personal and equal social rights for women through establishing educational and professional opportunities.

Types of feminism

As we said there are different types of feminism, so we cannot have one single definition for feminism.

There are four basic types of Western feminism:

  1. Women’s liberation movement, calling for the equality of women and men in pay and treatment.
  2. Radical feminism, aiming for eliminating the concept of gender equality through extreme procedures.
  3. Socialist feminism, calling for an end to capitalism.
  4. Cultural feminism, aiming to encouraging feminine behavior.

Each of the aforementioned types of feminism calls for different ways to fight the inequality between men and women with its own methods. All share the same principle that the reason for all of this is the patriarchal society which favors men while not acknowledging the effort of women, and not offering equal social, political and personal opportunities between men and women.

Arab/Muslim feminists  

Now, one can say that we have Arab feminists or even Muslim feminists. However, most fall behind the identification of the word feminist, and the fear of being labeled to what they don’t care to defend as a right of a woman.

Are men the villains? Not necessarily, they could be fellow victims just as women who are burdened by various social pressures. However, the bias of legal systems in favor of men is noticeable especially in Arab communities, as is evident when a rapist can still be freed after marrying the one whom he raped, and a man can also be freed after killing a woman with the excuse of suspecting her committing adultery.

Are we all feminists? 

If we think about it we all are feminists simply by demanding the slightest of rights, because you don’t need to shout out certain rights in order to be a feminist. The main objective of feminism is to provide a means for women to stand up and let their voices be heard. However,  the misinterpretation of modern feminism turned providing a platform for women to let their voices be heard into dictating what women should and shouldn’t fight for. Don’t mix those two together as we want women to speak up, and be able to choose what they want, as opposed to speaking behind a microphone and script given by the so-called “modern radical feminist”.

The last thing I would like to point out is that by saying yes to feminism, you are not victimizing yourself just as calling for human rights doesn’t mean that all humans are victimized. On the contrary,  it means acknowledging that something is wrong in the way women are treated. We don’t have to force women into speaking up, all we need to do is give them a means to do so and acknowledge that they have the right to choose how they live their lives.

After reading this article, would you consider yourself a feminist? Don’t forget to leave a comment.