By: Malak Negm

Hi, I’m a feminist! I’m here to convince you guys and convince Yehia why feminism is beneficial! And NO, I do not hate all men, and i do not think all men are evil or rapists, but YES i want equality for all genders.

It is believed that all feminists hate men, despite people being told they do for over 200 years. Feminism has always been over dramatically misunderstood. Feminism is not thinking women are superior to men. People are just not told what true feminism is.

The word “Feminism” depends on how you choose to define it, and if we’re talking about equal rights then of course i do not think that there’s a single person who would not want equal rights for both sexes, but if we’re talking about feminism today and how its so radicalized, then lets not be associated with that “movements”. We – humans- have evolved, but unluckily it seems to me that the idea of genders have not.

For me, It is undeniable that the problems, women face, from wage inequality to so called “honour” violence, female genital mutilation to workplace sexual harassment, disproportionately affect women. It is also easy to notice that women are far from equal when it comes to representation in positions of power and influence. And we need to help stop this! What we feminists want is for women to be treated equal and fair, we do not wish to have upper hand on men, but we are quite sure we do not wish to be under their thumb as well. What true feminism aims is establishing and achieving equal political, economical, social, cultural and personal rights for both men and women, moreover feminism’s main goal is fighting gender stereotypes and seeking to establish educational and professional opportunities for women that are equal to those for men. And the first thing to do is to realize where the real issue occurs. And feminism takes place to help stop such extortion.

I hold a belief that the real problem is in how parents raise their sons and daughters. First, we define masculinity in narrow means, that it becomes this small cage, that we put boys in. We teach boys to fear weakness, to fear fear and to fear vulnerability, we even teach them to mask their true self. How unfair we people are? But by far, the worst thing we do to men, is that we make them believe that they have to be hard! (مفيش رجاله بتعيط مالك؟). On the other side, we teach girls to shrink, to be fragile. We make them believe that the only aim they must seek is marriage. We even pressure them to do so, we teach them ضل راجل ولا ضل حيطه, that they make terrible choices at the end, we even teach them that compromising in a relationship, is what women are meant to do. As a result to this, they grow up to be women who silence themselves So, YES feminism exists to benefit society, it helps restore people’s beliefs, it encourages them to raise their daughters and sons to be their
true selves.

I have no doubt that a man and a woman are different, we have different hormones, we have different sexual organs, we have different biological abilities. We women can have babies for example, but men can not. And yes men are physically stronger than women (but lets be honest guys, Men can not bear the birth pain). So lets try to be a fairer world, a world with happier men and happier women who are true to themselves and lets all seek equality for both genders! Because despite the very recent debates about the role of men as feminists and as part of feminist movements, the sad fact remains that girls and women cannot achieve equality without the participation of boys and men.

And here’s a reminder: Every time a woman stands up for herself, she stands up for all women. And every time she ignores what is right in front of her and speaks against feminism we move backwards. So please, You may be lucky enough and not need feminism, but there are enough women out there who are unlucky and they really do need it.

Keep fighting girls!