What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word “feminist”? For me, it’s an unattractive, angry woman who blames all her problems on men. She is single, bitter and spends most of her time showering other women with withering contempt for not making the “correct” feminist choices, whatever those happen to be. She is loud, screechy and deeply unhappy. Is that a stereotype? Of course it is. But like many stereotypes, there is just enough truth in it to make it stick. It has been a very long time since women did not have the right to vote (most men didn’t have the right to vote either) or have bank accounts or own property and I don’t think any sane or rational person would say that early feminism was not a vital social movement that needed to happen, but what is feminism now? What does it mean today? Here are five things about modern feminism that guarantee I will never, ever call myself a feminist.

1. Feminism Turns Grown Women Into Children

From “trigger warnings” to “victim-blaming”, from “rape culture” to “enthusiastic consent”, feminist concepts and interpretations of reality assume that women are pathetic simpletons who are incapable of controlling their emotional reactions or confronting the slightest bit of adversity or conflict. Trigger warnings are not only completely illogical (they usually state what will be triggering, thereby triggering the trigger), they literally assume that women confronted with words on a page will be incapable of taking any actions (like maybe stop reading?) and will have their softly addled lady brains turned into a swamp of impenetrable emotions from which there is no escape. I really like how that challenges the assumption that women are hysterical and subject to uncontrollable emotional outbursts. I’m so glad feminism is out there to remind people that because I am a woman, I am emotionally fragile and unstable. Whenever anyone suggests that perhaps women should make some smarter choices about how they conduct themselves in public, an immediate feminist chorus of “victim-blaming” will begin furiously chanting, outraged at the suggestion that women are capable of being smart and savvy and interpreting their environments and responding rationally to relevant cues. Smart, rational, aware? Feminists refuse to see women as any of those things. They insist that women are perpetually unaccountable for their own actions and must always hold others responsible for their decisions. That is particularly true when it comes to consent to sexual activity.

Women are so easily intimidated by the most soft-spoken and accommodating of men that even when they say yes and consent to sexual activity, it is up to the man to read the depths of her mind to make sure she is not in fact being coerced into activities she doesn’t want. Yes, I am so lacking in confidence and self-awareness and so mentally malleable that I can be pressured into doing things I don’t want and it is someone else’s responsibility to find out what I really want and take care of that for me. Really? No thanks, feminists. I am perfectly able to understand what I want and do not want and able to communicate that without compunction.

2. Feminists Set Women Up To Make Terrible Choices

From the very beginning, when Simone de Beauvoir wrote that “no woman should be authorized to stay home and raise her children because if that choice exists, too many women will take it”, feminists have been invested in making sure young women (and men) set themselves up for a life in which their choices are either eliminated or severely restricted. There is one choice in particular that enrages feminists: the decision to marry, have a family and raise that family yourself. Girls are taught from a very young age that earning money will bestow upon them all the satisfaction and self-fulfillment they will ever desire or require. For some women, this is true, but for most women, it’s not. Most women want to marry and have children and the overwhelming majority of those women want to be at home with their children, working only part time at best. Opting out is the new dream for “professional” women who have found out the hard way that grubbing for money in a cubicle actually sucks. Feminists are not honest with women about what having a baby will feel like or about what most women will want to do: stay home. This is principally because the only way to have that life is to have a relationship with a man who is willing to pay all the bills and few men are willing to do that without getting something in return: kindness, loyalty, domestic comforts, fidelity. Fidelity? Uh –oh….

3. Feminists Lie To Women (And Men) About Sex

I have no problem at all with women (or men) who truly, genuinely love random sex with multiple partners that may or may not deliver any kind of emotional intimacy, but I do have a big problem when this kind of sex is promoted as “empowering” or “liberating”. Humans are a pair-boding species and the majority of us crave intimate relationships with deep emotional attachments that are expressed through physical actions, including sex. The idea of the empowered slut is deeply destructive for many women and they experience meaningless sexual encounters as, well, meaningless. Disappointing. Unfulfilling. In my opinion, this is the main driver behind claims of date rape, especially on college campuses. Combine alcohol with a cultural narrative that tells women random sex with strangers will be really fun and you’ll feel great about yourself afterwards and then have reality hit and there will be a lot of angry, disillusioned, disappointed women already trained to blame someone else for their choices. Guess who will get blamed?

4. Feminism Hates Men

This is the claim feminists will scream the loudest to deny. They don’t hate men! Just the patriarchy! Just masculinity! Just manliness! Just anything that tends to be characteristic of men in general! Which is totally different from hating actual men, right? Men who are not masculine and exhibit no manly traits or any characteristics typical of men in general are welcomed by feminists with open arms. Gee, what man could resist?

This hatred plays out strongest in schools. One style of learning – a verbal, abstract, cooperative style, strongly preferred by girls (and some boys) has displaced entirely another style of learning that is kinetic, concrete and competitive, which happens to be preferred by most boys (and some girls). Kids who sit quietly, think abstractly and cooperate with one another have an educational system that is responsive and effective. Kids that want to pull things apart to see how they work, think in concrete ways and compete to solve problems will likely find a handful of Ritalin in their school lunches. To say this is not hatred of boys and men is deeply disingenuous. Masculinity itself is defined as toxic and feminism works in a deliberate, systematic way to eradicate opportunities for boys and men who do not accept the feminine as superior.

5. Feminism Leaves No Room For Humans To Be Human

This is perhaps the biggest reason I will never consider myself a feminist. I love little boys who prefer kittens and bubblebaths to swords and skateboards but that doesn’t mean I don’t like swords and skateboards too. I love all little boys. I want them all to be who they are. And, I love all little girls and want all little girls to be who they are too. When we define half of humanity as bad or wrong or oppressive or privileged, we limit the possibilities for all humans to be human. It’s fine to be feminine, whether you are a girl or a boy. It’s equally fine to be masculine, whether you are a girl or a boy.

Feminism, by definition, values the feminine over the masculine. I don’t. And I never will.