I’m a man, and I’m a feminist.

This was first published on 8/12/15 on my Tumblr. Minor edits have been made.
This piece contains sexist slurs.

What’s that I hear you say, that these things cannot exist together? I once was convinced of that very notion myself! But I am here to tell you that it is in fact not an oxymoron, not all men are like sharks circling for blood, some of us are like the nice sharks in aquariums — we don’t bite! Haha!

Feminism is the belief that the two genders should be equal, but aren’t right now. Historically men believed that women are inferior (some men even believe that today, can you imagine!) and it’s up to my fellow enlightened men in the present day to help fix that. Feminism was started by some angry women in the 60s and has since grown into an international movement that can claim movie stars, politicians, and yes — even men — among its numbers. It was one of feminism’s founders, Germaine Greer, that said: “It takes a great deal of courage and independence to decide to design your own image instead of the one that society rewards, but it gets easier as you go along” and I think she was explicitly referring to the path feminist men have to take in our lives. I would know too, I got a credit average in gender studies.

My journey to feminism was a difficult road, as is the case for many men. We aren’t subjugated to the same oppressions that women are every day and so it takes a lot more work to open our eyes to the reality of the patriarchy. Do you know what the patriarchy is? It’s like the force in Star Wars, it exists all around us and affects our every thought and action. It’s like FIFA, in that it exists to support those already in power, in this case white cisgendering heterosexualed males like myself! (See how I put in a sports reference without explaining it? That’s because women can like and understand sport too. #Feminism)

Feminism for men isn’t just about getting sex either (though sex with feminist women is great! I could write a whole post about sex with feminists haha!), it’s about empowering women to make their own free-willed choice to sleep with you! It’s much more appealing to have relationships with women who understand their sexualities (will consider threesomes) and are confident women in their own right (have hot SJW friends), unlike the kind of sluts you see at the club that go home with dickheads. You could say, feminism enables us to be gracious people; we are nice guys, if you will.

The bitter truth is that feminism isn’t just a label, you need to work hard to be a feminist and this means constant evaluation of your beliefs and thoughts. Being a male feminist is actually very quite thankless work, despite the best efforts of Emma Watson (one of the greatest feminists of our time)! I would even go so far as to say that male feminism is the purest form of feminism, as it doesn’t actually affect us. Of course women would fight for equal pay — they want to be paid more, but men, in our generosity and often-unthought-of propensity for empathy are feminists because it’s the right thing to do. There are no prizes for men who are feminists (note to self, ‘male feminism trophy’, there’s a ring to that), we do it because we love women. We really, deeply, intensely love women. Possibly too much.

So consider this a call to arms: men, you can and should be a feminist — not only is it the right thing to do but it is also a great way to appear easy to talk to and get followed on Twitter by lots of hot feminist chicks and not the crazy ones that are trying to lure someone into settling down or stealing their sperm (you know the ones I mean haha). Let us aim to be like that Matt McGorry who has a lot of RTs that are probably from women and was also pretty good on that Orange Is The New Black show even though I only watched it because my stupid ex was obsessed with it, bitch.