Ridiculous People Pwned

“The more I have spoken about feminism the more I have realized that fighting for women’s rights has too often become synonymous with man-hating. If there is one thing I know for certain, it is that this has to stop.”

This had been said by Emma Watson, an actress who once had given a United Nations speech on the issue of gender equality. I believe that this quote illustrates two important points. The points are that outspoken women’s rights activists are actively silenced and that for the ones that do get a platform, they are taken out of context, straw-manned and smeared as people who hate men.

There are many groups that would want women’s rights activists to be silenced. In believing this, these groups of people are stifling any movement to the future and providing a disservice to any progressive group for human rights. This ‘silencing’ typically is done more directly by oppressive Middle Eastern and fundamental religious groups such Christianity and Islam. This is wrong and should be condemned as backwards-thinking, clearly. However, more modern ways of suppressing and silencing women’s rights include not inviting activists on news programs and if news stations do invite on activists or even women guests in general, sometimes they will invite on fundamentalists, extremists or men’s rights ‘activists’, if you can call them that. This more subtle way is rampant in society, and while I believe everyone has the right to their own opinions, if one claims that it is their freedom to restrict other’s freedoms, they are ridiculous.

As for the main point of Watson’s statement, I completely agree with her that this backwards-thought has to stop. Feminism is not ‘man-hating’. The people who believe that are also ridiculous.