Fiana Frukhtman

Period: 5

Date: May 5th 2017

Feminism and its misconceptions.

I want to start this essay off by saying I do not hate the idea of feminism, although I may
show that. I just hate what feminism has become. In this year, 2017, the United States is
considered to be one of the most diverse places in the world. The land of the free. People equal
and happy with the lives they live. One issue with this; people cannot just be equal, no matter
what, where, when, how, someone, something has to be oppressed. Something has to be the
scapegoat for another's problems. It's like communism per say. It sounds like a good idea on
paper and in our heads, but when put to the test it always, always, fails. Humans are an
impressive species no doubt, but one problem with our advancement is our human nature. We
are able to have emotions but that is our downfall. Most humans, either they admit it or not, are
greedy. When it comes to money or power our emotions allow us to have standards and want
more than what we really need. So, when we say equal is that what we truly want or do we
want a freebie? A free pass to get away with something, a scapegoat to blame our problems.
That is, what I believe radical feminism is. Women who get hurt or upset and want to blame their
problems on the world or even worse men. It is not about justice or equality, it's being treated
better by a society that really just does not care. Women make up claims like manspreading,
the wage-gap(which was in point, proven wrong on several, several occasions and is based on
different factors for different people and jobs..A.K.A pregnancy), and more seriously rape. One
might wonder, well..why? Why is a good question indeed. Ill tell you why.

Is it possible to be a women but not agree with the ideas of feminism or radical feminism.
Well, answer to that is, everyone is entitled to their own ideas and beliefs. Simply to say, you do
you and I do me. I am writing this not for your pleasure or enjoyment. I am writing this to tell
someone how I feel. You can either agree or disagree. That's another great thing about America
which is our privilege to say what we want but the difference between me and radical feminist is
facts over opinions and fallacies. If I sound passionate, it's because I am. I think by believing in
feminism(at least in radical feminism), you are believing in something weak and frail, but you
truly just look weak yourself. Most feminists believe that by being a feminist you are acting
strong and fighting oppression, but like I said before, you are just using a scapegoat for
example men are often blamed of female oppression. And yes before you say anything, women
in earlier times were indeed denied a lot of rights that men had. I call this the first stage of
feminism. Or in other words I call it the true feminists of history. Women like the suffragettes that
had a reason for their statements. They fought for the rights to vote, to be a part of our political
discussions. And yes in today's societies there are those oppressed and fighting for equality. An
example is the social standards both men have and women have. Or girls fighting for their
education and basic rights in third world countries.
In politics there are two types of feminists. The basic and most general is the feminist or
someone who supports the original intent for feminism. Or the radical feminist. Now, throughout
this essay so far youve heard me say radical feminism more than once. This is the feminism
that I truly dislike, and maybe after reading this you will hate it too. Radical feminism is a
perspective within feminism that calls for a radical reordering of society where male supremacy
is eliminated in all social and economic contexts as google defines it. I personally believe its a
bunch of women who have suffered from something or have been hurt and now feel they must
take extreme measures to blame men and have people take pity on them. I want this to be
clear. I do not hate feminism, in fact one could consider me a feminist. I feel bad. Feminism now
and days have become a joke thanks to those who are radical. Even modern day feminists like
Emma Watson believe this. I was appointed six months ago and the more I have spoken about
feminism the more I have realized that fighting for womens rights has too often become
synonymous with man-hating. If there is one thing I know for certain, it is that this has to
stop(UnWomen. org). Watson explains that down along the line somewhere, the feminism was
given the wrong connotation. Is it so bad to believe in feminism, well of course not. In fact, I
applaud you, but there is a line. And that is what my essay is about. The radical feminist and
their misconceptions and alterations. But before I sound too nice I want my stance to be clear
before you go and read the rest of my essay. I believe feminism is good, but I do not believe in
all the claims they make. For example I very heavy on the topic of, I can do whatever I want
with my body, this for those that do not know is about abortion. Now, i will cover this more in my
actual essay but to suffice for now I do not agree with everything. But again I do not hate it for
the most part. And again being a big feminist is not bad, Emma Watson states, I decided I was
a feminist and this seemed uncomplicated to me. But my recent research has shown me that
feminism has become an unpopular word. Apparently I am among the ranks of women whose
expressions are seen as too strong, too aggressive, isolating, anti-men, and unattractive
(UnWomen.org). It's not bad, it's just the radical feminists dragging feminism through the mud.
When one is passionate about something it is often seen as a bad thing. Me being passionate
about feminism fallacies might be considered as hatred and yes in some cases it is but
generally speaking I do not in fact hate feminism. And i will say it over and over because
someone will not get it through there head. Anyway, let us begin shall we.

Feminism is defined as the advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of
the sexes. Also known as women's advocacy and women's rights, feminism has made
headlines in news and our social media. You can find supporters or feminists in any corner of
the world. From the United States to third world countries, feminism is viewed as the stable for
women's equality. In recent years especially there has been a rise in feminism. In many media
outlets these feminist share their views and opinions on the equality. But with this rise of
opinions facts have been mixed with fallacies and the connotation of feminism has been sadly
tainted with these inaccurate representations of womens equality. I believe these at fault for
polluting the minds of young women of our future generation are feminist known as radical
feminist. Radical feminism is a perspective within feminism that calls for a radical reordering of
society in which male supremacy is eliminated in all social and economic contexts. Radical
feminists seek to abolish patriarchy by challenging existing social norms and institutions, rather
than through a purely political process. Another reason feminism is given a bad reputation if
extreme feminist. They believe in female domination or female superiority refers to the theory or
state of women having authority over men. These two types of (you cannot even really call them
feminist) groups have dragged feminism into a dark hole, and when it finally came back out it
was turned into something I like to call dumb. Some of the claims i'm going into today might
make you laugh, they might make you cringe, you might think they are right, you might think
they are wrong. Either way these claims made by these so proclaimed feminist are believed by
me, again i'll say believed by me, to be incorrect and simply not true. As well as false to the true
definition of feminism going on in other parts of the world. These claims include, the wage gap,
man-spreading, and abortion.

Our first claim is infamous wage gap. If you never heard of this I applaud you. This is
one of the biggest and most famous claim of the radical feminist. Its blasted through media and
blogs and news reports. It's hard to hear a feminist not mention the wage gap. If you do not
know what the wage gap is it's basically what these radical feminist use as a recruiting point. It's
like the Uncle Sam of claims in a way. I dare you look at any feminist blog anywhere and if it
does not include something about the wage gap or how men earn more money than women
than I will personally write you a little apologizing for false advertising. But if we are on the topic
of false advertisement, we are talking about propaganda, and propaganda is what these
feminist do best. The wage gap is the belief that women earn 77 cents for every dollar a man
earnsfor doing the same work. This is simply not true no matter how you want to twist it or
bend the story. There are many factors that go into job pay, one is the job choice. Activist
groups like the National Organization for Women have a fallback position: that womens
education and career choices are not truly freethey are driven by powerful sexist stereotypes.
In this view, womens tendency to retreat from the workplace to raise children or to enter fields
like early childhood education and psychology, rather than better paying professions like
petroleum engineering, is evidence of continued social coercion (Time). The truth is that
women do not generally chose the jobs that call for multiple years in college or require them to
truly be hands on with the work. This is not because of stereotypes. I know many women who
do and are able of getting there hands dirty. But generally speaking women have many
variables to be accounted for. Like pregnancy for one that requires them to take time off from
work unlike men who work full time even through the pregnancy of their wife. These factors is
what make the wage gap truly inaccurate. There are too many variables to be accounted for as
well as too many jobs to look at. The wage gap is just a statement. There is not any facts
proving that ,even without the number of factors, there is any true discrimination against women.
The bottom line: the 23-cent gender pay gap is simply the difference between the average
earnings of all men and women working full-time. It does not account for differences in
occupations, positions, education, job tenure or hours worked per week. When such relevant
factors are considered, the wage gap narrows to the point of vanishing (Time). Without any
hard evidence it's hard to believe one of the feminist biggest claims. Again, proving radical
feminist wrong and showing why one should believe everything they read or see online.
 Our next claim I chose out of fun in all honesty. I chose this claim to show some of the
dumb things these radical feminist accuse men, for why, well truly I do not understand why
anyone would blame anyone for something as dumb as man-spreading. Man-spreading is
defined as the practice whereby a man, especially one traveling on public transportation, adopts
a sitting position with his legs wide apart. In such a way as to encroach on an adjacent seat or
seats. This is just ridiculous propaganda. Women are blaming men of taking away their well
earned seats on the bus. What kind of claim is this. Its well known that unlike women, men
have genitals outside their body. This can cause uncomfort in certain positions that can make a
man spread out his legs, but this is not oppression.Women have theories about why some
men sit this way. Some believe it is just a matter of comfort and may not even be intentional.
Others consider it an assertion of power, or worse. Bridget Ellsworth, a 28-year-old music
teacher, views manspreading as sexual harassment because some men engage in it near her
even when the subway car is not packed (NYTimes). Ok now here's the really fun part.
Women think man-spreading is not only rude but consider it sexual harassment or an
assertion of power. One second, just let me laugh a little bit. Wow. I just mean wow. I think
both you and I can agree that this is completely ridiculous. A man's sitting position is not sexual
harassment. For gosh sake, let the man sit. Yes, proper manners are important but is it possible
to let a man sit how he wants without making a gender-specific action. I mean if we are talking
equality, why blame men for something like man-spreading when women do the same thing with
all of their bags. I'm just saying, everything in 2017 has to be gender-specific or some type of
oppression. Just wait, someone's going to blame men for how they hold their telephone, I mean
it's ridiculous. Sexual harassment, really. How is the touching or rubbing of one knees lead you
to believe you are being sexualy harrased. What if its a women man-spreading. Is it sexual
harassment then? How is this even a conversation of sexual harassment. Yes, Yes, it's very
rude to hold your legs wide open and not sharing your space but blaming someone of sexaul
harrasment is just unspeakable, those types of accusations can ruin a person's life.

This final claim can go multiple ways. Abortion. Either you hate it, or simply do not care,
or think it's your right. There are a lot of things that go into this topic. Now, you might wonder,
well...Fiana what does this have to do with feminism. Good question. One thing a lot of feminist
believe in is the right to do whatever you want to do on your body. A part of this broad topic is
the right to have an abortion. Some people think it's wrong, others think it's ok. In all truth, my
opinion is women should be allowed to do whatever they want with there body but I think
abortion is wrong. If you don't know abortion is, it's the deliberate termination of a human
pregnancy, most often performed during the first 28 weeks of pregnancy. Most abortions
happen due to unready parents or unknown and unwanted pregnancy. Even though its
unwanted does not mean you should terminate a young child. By 5 weeks Your baby's tiny
heart begins to beat (BabyCenter). Even though the baby is not technically a baby that does
not give anyone the right to take away its potential life. It's the same as giving someone a gift for
a week and taking it back. But feminist disagree. They believe its their body, their choice. Well
it should have been their choice to put on protection or use birth control because its not longer
their body anymore. They have to share it with an innocent child, THEIR innocent child.
Feminists believe that Abortion is a necessity for millions of women worldwide, for their health,
for their wellbeing, for their dreams of a better tomorrow. The reality is that a woman will seek an
abortionlegal or otherwisealmost instinctively and in self defense. A woman will do this
when an unwanted pregnancy presents an excessive strain on her or her familys physical,
emotional or economic resources...It is a matter of survival (Feminist.org). These women
believing killing an unborn child is a means of survival for them. Like they are the victim. Giving
birth is not a punishment, it's a miracle of life. If anything its the women have unprotected sexes
fault. If you can't have a child under any circumstance, why have sex, and then proceed to kill
an unborn because it's a matter of survival oh please give me a break. It's one thing to have an
abortion but to publicly endorse it and pursue women to get an abortion because it's their fault
they weren't ready is ridiculous and just not right. If there is one claim that needs to stop this
would be one of them, indefinitely.

In conclusion, feminism today is not what it was back in the 1800s and 1900s. Women
are using feminism as a platform to rantand make it seem as if they were hurt and oppressed
by something that really did nothing to them. These radical feminist have taken the reputation of
feminist and replaced its true intentions with facilities and unrealistic claims. Overall you might
question what this writing piece is all about. It's not persuasive, but it's informal so it can not be
informative. I, myself, believe in the expression of opinions and this essay is all about my
personal opinions on a topic i'm passionate about. Feminism has become something I don't
even want to associate with and has become a topic that I enjoy discussing in debates or just
conversations. So as a result, what better to write about. To conclude, the wage-gap,
manspreading, and abortion are only three of all the claims that both feminism and radical
feminist make, these claims are pushed and pushed by these feminist but are all ultimately just
wrong accusations, or a claim backed up with all false facts and the wrong interpretations.