I need feminism because...

"I need feminism because..." is a very interesting campaign by students at the University of Cambridge. In short, they gave people a white poster that said "I need feminism because..." and then the people would fill something in and a picture would be taken. There's a Facebook page that includes many of the pictures. Some are funny, others are very much not, and all of them are meaningful.

I first learned of this project via an article (a blurb, really) on msn.com. As usual, I made the mistake of reading through some of the comments. It's somewhat amazing to me that in the year 2013, so many are still so clueless about what feminism is. Take the author of this comment, for instance: I need feminism so my wife will mow the yard, change the oil, wash the car, etc.... Oh the ignorance.

Here is my response to those people:

Feminists don't want to be like men; we don't want to be men. We want to be treated as though men and women are, on balance, equal. Like we're worthwhile human beings. We do not want to be treated like property or like second class citizens. We want equal pay for equal work. We want to have opportunities available to us that are outside of the traditional female opportunities. If we want to work outside of the home as, say, an engineer, we want that to be an okay choice. If we want to stay home and raise the kids, we want that to be an okay choice, too. How husbands and wives divvy up the household chores is up to them. If the two decide between them that the husband is on trash, lawn, and car duty while the wife is on kitchen, laundry, and shopping duty, that's up to them. If they decide that the wife is on kitchen, car, and lawn duty while the husband is on laundry, shopping, and trash duty, that's up to them. Feminism doesn't mean a woman has to do her share of the traditional male duties around the house while a man has to do his share of the traditional female duties around the house. Feminism means that the wife is not obligated to be barefoot in the kitchen while her man is hunting. If wife and husband want that arrangement, that's cool. But if they don't, that's cool, too. That's feminism.

So, sorry, but having feminism in the world does not necessarily get you out of changing the oil in your car.