Radical Feminism: when People Go too Far

"Feminism, according to The Merriam Webster Dictionary is, “The theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes” (Merriam Webster Dictionary). It is a noble cause that the majority of people agree with. Sadly, in the present, feminism has a radical group of women convinced that they are oppressed in today's society and demand to be treated above men. It is clear that this group no longer want the equality of the sexes, but rather they desire the superiority of women, which they show this in their hypocritical behavior and the misinformation they spread.

Feminism states to believe in the equality of the sexes, but radical feminists have shown that they will discriminate men if they get the option to do so. In the article titled, “No boys allowed: why we still need women only spaces,” Rebecca Huval shows her reasoning on why we need women’s only workplaces, camps, and other areas. In the article, Huval brings up the idea that this would be inherently sexist, having specific areas men are not allowed to be in. Huval used a quote from the creator of a women’s only boot camp, Chelsey Tharp, to combat this argument. “I personally think that women have the right to have their own space. The gym is mostly a guy space. Men hog the weight area and if anything, I feel like guys are like, ‘What are you doing here?’ So I think in some ways, it’s uncomfortable for women to go to the gym by themselves” (Tharp). This comment is stereotyping men going to the gym as sexist people discouraging women from working out. Making out a certain group of people to all be the same is sexist. The gyms can not discriminate against women. The Equal Rights Act was passed in 1972, which made it illegal to discriminate on the bias of gender or sex. While this act was only ratified in 38 of the states, this is not stopping women from going to the gym to work out. This women only boot camp, created by Tharp, would be illegal, but it is in one of the few states that haven’t ratified The Equal Rights Act, Louisiana.

Another way that feminists state that women are being degraded, is the common usage of words that generally talk about the human race a having “man” in the word. Some examples of this phenomenon are human or mankind. These words come from latin roots, and have nothing to do with gender or sex. The feminist community has coined a few terms that are purposefully gendered to put men in a bad light. In the feminist article, “Mansplaining 101: How to Discuss Politics and Feminism Without Acting Like a Jack[Donkey],” Amy McCarthy writes about plenty of male stereotypes which are harmful to men’s image. McCarthy writes, “Women are tired of having subjects that they are highly educated in explained to them like they're children, and they sometimes react in emotional ways” (McCarthy). While many people get talked down to on a daily basis, this is not necessarily a gendered issue. Anyone speaking with the belief that they are inherently more intelligent or capable on the topic on hand is discriminatory in their actions, no matter the gender, race, or person. McCarthy also generalizes men in plenty of her statements, and intends to demean men for speaking this way to women, but does write about the option of a women doing this. McCarthy also refers all men that do not fully understands “mansplaining” to reddit, a social media website, and states that, “...There, you'll find plenty of great examples of mansplaining, and I'm going to guess that you'll find some words that you've said to women before” (McCarthy). This is problematic, because McCarthy is referring men to a social media where they could easily get false information. Overall the radical feminist only care that women be treated above men, and are excluding and putting men in a bad light.

Radical feminist do not just exclude men, they also show mostly false information about women's rights and place in society to create sympathy for themselves. The biggest example is the wage gap, which is the statement that women make 82 cents to every dollar a man makes. Radicals twist this statistic and often state that women make 82 cents to every dollar a man makes for the same job. This isn’t true, because The Equal Pay Act was passed in 1963. “...the Equal Pay Act mandates that employers cannot award unequal wages or benefits to men and women working jobs that require ‘equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and which are performed under similar working conditions’” (History.com). This makes it illegal for companies to pay people differently for the same job, but there other factors that lead to women making less on average. Rachel Greszler wrote an article debunking the wage gap, and labeling it as an earns gap. Greszler writes about the separate factors that could determine a seperate salary, and discrimination is not one of them. “...the data cited in the gender pay gap looks only at the median earnings of full-time wage and salaried workers. It doesn’t differentiate really important factors, such as education, occupation, experience, and hours, which account for nearly all of the differential in earnings between men and women” (Greszler). Another statistic that radical feminists use is that 1 in 5 women on college campuses will get raped.

This is commonly cited from a study in a 2007 study about the problem. Ashe Schow wrote an article explaining the problems with this study. “Now, 61.5 percent of the women the CDC projected as rape victims in 2010 experienced what the CDC called quote ‘alcohol and drug-facilitated penetration’” (Schow). alcohol and drug-facilitated penetration is intercource between intoxicated subjects. This is problematic because now these rapes have other factors that could have influenced the outcome. Intoxicated may have given consent, but the next day changed their minds and called rape. The sample size was also extremely small, which could lead to inaccurate results. Schow brings this up, stating “...The researchers made clear that the study consisted of students from just two universities, but some politicians ignored that for their talking point… If 5,446 sounds like a high number, it’s not — the researchers acknowledged that it was actually a low response rate” (Schow). The most absurd statistic radical feminist commonly bring up is the pink tax. The pink tax is the phenomena that women’s products cost more, which is true. Women’s products are more expensive on average, but there is a sensible reason for this.

Tim Worstall explains in his article the flaw in the pink tax theory. He uses razors as his example throughout the article, but this could be used with almost any product. “...different designs to make shaving legs (or faces) easier and so on and on. And yes, there really are designs out there that claim at least to be optimised for leg shaving rather than face shaving… the reason that a blue razor is not the same price as a pink razor is because a blue razor is not the same product as a pink razor” (Worstall). These products labeled to women usually have more ingredients, some of which add certain smells to the products. Men and women have different skin and need different products. These examples show the ways that radical feminist desire to create more sympathy for themselves. The ways they use these statistics poorly and without concern for accuracy is inexcusable, especially when they pass these on as fact.

The misinformation that is spread and the hypocrisy of the radical feminist show that their only concern is the superiority of women, and the equality the rest of the movement wants. Their biggest crime, however, is tarnishing a great movement that only wants the equality of others, with their own ideas and beliefs. Maybe the label of feminist would not be as bad if these radicals did not identify as the ones who actually fighting for good."

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