I recently read an article about Michelle Phan, the makeup guru and entrepreneur who became famous by creating and posting makeup lessons on YouTube. She has been labeled as a feminist given that she is a female entrepreneur, and her general response to it was that she doesn’t think she is, as she thinks it’s important not just to celebrate women, but to celebrate men. It’s really sad that there are so many people out there, particularly women, who don’t understand that “feminism” does NOT mean that you just want to celebrate women, burn bras, and bash men; it’s simply about equality for both women and men. It’s that simple, really, yet it isn’t that simple to so many people, sadly.

People who think that the feminist movement was overdone or still is overdone have no idea how much they benefit from all the changes that have been brought on because of it to this day, every single day. I once had this science teacher in middle school who was great at science, great at teaching, but probably great at little else. He said to us one day, “I always got why you need to learn science and math and English in school. But why do you need history? What benefit does it really bring to any of our lives?” At the time, I was only 13 and thought all my history classes were so boring and all about memorizing facts and dates, so I kind of agreed with him then. Now, as a grown adult, I think he’s moronic for making a statement like that, especially to teenagers. If you can’t understand history and know it, you will be doomed to ignorance and a total lack of understanding of how and why things are the way they are today.

Women vote today because of the feminist movement. They can own property, decide who they can marry, actually divorce and have it granted because of the feminist movement. Rape crisis centers were developed because of feminists; rape is actually considered a crime now because of feminism. Marital rape became illegal just in the 1990s because of it. We can work actual professional jobs and sit in board rooms now because of the feminist movement, and not just as secretaries or typists, but as actual real business people and key decision makers. It makes me sad that so many women take these rights for granted and have no context behind these laws today. These rights are actually privileges we have today because of sacrifices that other women and men on our behalf made for us, for future generations so we wouldn’t have to go through the same pain and tyranny that they once faced. We owe it to future generations of women to ensure that they, even more than today because we still have a long way to go, become true equals of men in this society.