Recently, it came to my attention that an Odyssey article titled, “I Am Not A Feminist, And That Is Okay” has been circulating around Facebook and other social media outlets. As a feminist myself, I usually try to avoid articles with the message of anti-feminism for my own mental well-being. However, after the fourth share of this heartbreakingly misinformed article on my newsfeed, I found myself giving in and reading it. While I in no way mean to disrespect the author’s personal values, I feel compelled to break down this article so others aren’t misguided by the narrow and inaccurate “feminism” it describes.

For the sake of countering this specific article and the author’s individual viewpoints, I will be focusing on the issues women face even though men experience many, if not all of them, as well. It is important to note that feminism is fighting for the equality of all genders and not just women. Now, in the spirit of National Women's History Month, I urge you take a moment to step back, recognize your own privilege and celebrate feminism with me.

The article begins by stating that although the author is not a feminist, she’s all for equal pay.

Wow, wouldn’t it be wonderful if equal pay was the only issue on the feminist agenda? If all we as feminists had to worry about was a lack of 22 cents each hour women work? The wage gap is no doubt an issue, but to place it in the forefront over hundreds of other barriers modern feminists are trying to break down is ignorant at best. Not to mention that 78-cent statistic isn’t even representative of women of color who make even less than that each hour.

Women across the globe are facing issues of violence, human trafficking, rape, harassment and stalking, public shaming, assault and murder and more on a daily basis. While many of us, myself included, have the privilege of being women in the western world (a white woman, speaking for myself), there are millions of women who do not have this luxury.

If you think a 15-year-old girl in Somalia who is facing the absolute horror of female genital mutilation cares for one second about American women making 78 cents to each dollar a man makes, you are tragically mistaken, my friend. The wage gap is an issue we must confront but is most definitely one of westernized feminism and not all-inclusive global feminism. Intersectionality is key to the fourth wave of feminism that was so utterly butchered in this article, and I welcome you to research it independently to understand it in its entirety.

“I don’t want the things that these feminists are fighting for. And further explaining it won’t change my mind.”

Before preaching about the goals of feminists, please understand that the tiny sect of feminism that you, the author, may have encountered due to your privilege is not representative of feminism as a movement. Accepting privilege is a constant process of learning and unlearning ingrained societal behaviors. I myself am still constantly discovering its impact on my life. Many people become angry and defensive when accused of having privilege because they assume it suggests that a person has not earned what they have in their life.

But, this is not the case. Having privilege simply means that because of who someone is, they were either given or refused certain beneficial opportunities. When I say who they are, I am referring to their race, economic background, social class, sexual orientation, gender identity and so on. I do not want to make an assumption that I cannot back up, but I can see for myself that the author is a white, cisgendered woman who has the option to marry who she pleases and potentially be a stay-at-home mom.

In that one tiny piece of her identity, white privilege, cisgender privilege and wealth privilege are all present. I am happy that she lives a life where she has these luxuries, as I do too. However, please consider for a moment that feminists are not fighting for the things her and I don’t want but rather for things people without those advantages do not have. Feminism is not about one single person and what they want. It is about allowing women everywhere to have a say in what their futures hold.

The article goes on to discuss why the author believes it is “perfectly okay” to be a stay-at-home wife and mother, to take your husbands last name, to submit to your husband and be the “fragile” woman you were made to be.

I really don’t even know where to start with this section of the article. If the author is reading this, honey, you’ve got a big storm coming. Firstly, not all women are biologically female. Gender and sex are two completely different things – having a vagina does not make you a woman and not having a vagina does not make you any less of one. Neither gender nor sex are binary, and there lies two massive spectrums of identities within both of them. On this same note, not all women marry men. And some women, believe or not, don’t want kids. A woman’s choice in not bearing children does not lessen the fact that she identifies as and is a woman. In generalizing women as the gender rather than sex that bears children, the author is marginalizing those who cannot or choose not to. The same thing goes for women who choose not to marry men, or those who choose not to marry at all.

And a woman taking her husband’s last name is, once again, a choice. While the ideas the author described may be her own personal goals and preferences, as I said before, accepting privilege is key here. Of course, it is perfectly okay to do these things and live a life with traditional values, but many women don’t even have the choice to. There are women that don’t have the option to be a stay-at-home mother or even to be a mother at all. There are women who don’t get to choose who they marry or if they will ever get to see their families again after being married. There are girls as young as eight years old in the developing world that are being married off to men older than their own fathers, and the author believes all wives should submit to their husbands? There are young girls being raped, beaten and killed through this forced submission.

Biologically, yes, the female body is built less muscularly than the male body. Setting aside for a moment the fact that having a female body is not necessary to identify as a woman, the strength of a person is not simply physical. And even if it was, the female body has physical strengths – such as having an extremely high pain threshold – that the male body lacks. While the author may feel inferior to men on this front, she is not the only woman on earth.

“I am not a feminist, and that is okay. I do not want the power that men are assumed to have, and that is okay. I want to be a mom who takes care of her children and doesn’t miss out on their lives. And that is okay.”

I hate to break it to you (actually, I don’t at all), but if you think all human beings are equal, and that women are indeed human beings, you are a feminist. Across the globe, this movement is tackling issues that many of us have had the luxury to not even have to worry about.

And plot twist: you can be a stay-at-home mom and a feminist because feminists are not anti-family contrary to common belief – feminists simply believe that this lifestyle should be a woman’s choice rather than an obligation. The author’s choice to be a homemaker and a wife is great, and that choice is what it all comes down to. I am happy for this author and the blessed life she was granted. But the life of one is not the life of all. Check your privilege at the door, please.