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No Need For Meninism

Written by Catherine Robinson 

We’ve all seen it. The ever so popular “Meninist” twitter account that not only dishes out anti-feminist, often hateful thoughts from the mind of a meninist, but they even have their own clothing line! Go figure! But what does this all really mean? What is the meninist “movement” even about? Who is it helping?

            Let’s take a quick look at our history, shall we? The original leader of the feminist movement, Susan B. Anthony. She was a member of the Equal rights movement and founder of the Women’s Suffrage Association, which was dedicated to fighting for a constitutional amendment to enfranchise (give the right to vote to) women. Because of her and many other women’s fight for equality, the 19thamendment was passed on June 4th, 1919, guaranteeing all white American women the right to vote, African American women were not allowed to vote for another 46 years. This was obviously a very slow victory, it required decades of protest and agitation.

            Now let’s take a look at the history of meninism. It’s a long one considering our entire country was and in some ways still is the poster child for meninism, or at least white meninism. White men have never been disenfranchised, they’ve always received superior pay to women and minorities, they’ve practically had a better future handed to them on a silver platter. There has never been a question about whether or not they were allowed even the most basic of human rights. This cannot be said for women. As we have discussed, women were not allowed to vote for way too long, and even now, women only earn 77 cents to a man’s dollar. That may not seem like a lot, but it starts to become very evident when you have to pay bills and take care of yourself on a day-to-day basis. Women are shamed for breastfeeding their babies in public, while men can walk around shirtless whenever and wherever they please. There is a very obvious disconnect in treatment between the sexes.

            Feminism was created to fight for women’s rights. That’s it. It has nothing to do with hating men, but everything to do with equal rights and equal treatment. There is no need for a fight for men’s rights. They were born with the “correct” gender, therefore they were awarded every right a human being deserves. That’s how it has always worked.

One thing that I’ve noticed is that “meninism” became popular around the same time that men were sharing their discomfort regarding the the fast growing feminist movement on social media. They needed a counter. They needed a way to fight back. Their weapon of choice was meninism. The discomfort and anger of extremely closed minded individuals masked as a social movement. Very clever, I must admit.

So in short, the meninist movement was not created to help anyone, but to make the work of feminists that much harder. It is essentially a roadblock. But as we have learned, even the biggest of roadblocks cannot stop our fight, and eventual victory for equal rights.

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