A couple weeks ago, I was talking to my mom about ideas for this blog. We bounced ideas for a moment, until my brother came into the kitchen where we were talking and I asked him. “Do you consider yourself a feminist?” And his answer kind of confused me. 

“No…but I think men and women should be equal.” And I was kinda like…isn’t that the point?

I think it’s weird how misogyny is so mainstream and so widely considered wrong, but misandry isn’t. Not saying that it should be mainstream or ‘okay’, of course, but I feel like it’s so much more normalized for women to say they hate all men. 

Well, what is misandry? It’s the idea that women are better than men, so the complete opposite of misogyny. It’s more often than not for someone to say they’re a feminist and people to automatically associate them with the ‘man-hating’ ideology. 

Feminism wasn’t created for that though. 

I see all the time these t-shirts that say “I ❤️ to make boys cry,” or t-shirts that outwardly say “Misandrist.” I can’t be the only one weirded out by this? To think that these podcasts and alpha male dudes are slandered (rightfully so) but these women are praised for being ‘such a feminist.’ Don’t get me wrong, it’s awesome to see women in power but this is overshadowed by them bringing down other people, whether that’s other men or even other women. Obviously, not all women do this, but it’s so disheartening when they do.

And to add onto this, “pick me” has completely lost it’s meaning. People use this term to describe anyone who doesn’t subscribe to the hating men idea. Where I feel like this is lost in translation is we forget that some women genuinely like football? Or building/fixing things, or Super Bowl Sunday or basketball. I think pick me actually applies to girls who try to be different on purpose to get male attention. It’s okay to be different, obviously, but these girls specifically do it for validation and for the male gaze. I just think it’s accidentally become a universal term for a girl who is different, and on the opposite side of the spectrum, men being called ‘preformative.”

The “performative male’ thing very much exists, but in the same way that ‘pick mes’ do. Where people use the term to describe someone who doesn’t directly fit into their idea of what a man/woman should be. I like football and I grew up playing catch in the backyard with my dad. I’m the youngest of my family so I rarely would have control of what we watched on TV, so I grew up with things like “Kickin’ it”, “Ninjago”, “Ben 10” and so much Marvel.

I would still consider myself a very girly person though. I love pink and purple, jewelry, dresses (specifically poofy ones), getting my nails done, doing my hair, glitter, makeup, flowers, perfume and bows. And once in a blue moon, when I did have control of what we watched, I would put on “My little pony”, “Monster High”, “Bratz” and I was soooo obsessed with “Winx Club”. But I still love watching football with my dad and going to games on Friday nights but those things aren’t inherently girly, so I’m a pick me.

When I was younger, too, my brother used to let me do his nails. In the summer, he would go to his football games with poorly applied hot pink nails, and even in the winter to his basketball games. That doesn’t make him any less of a man and it’s sad that so many people see it that way, in my opinion. Because so many people see a man who shouldn’t have hot pink nails, but at home is a little girl excited she got to hang out with her cool older brother. I don’t think any of this makes him performative.

Often times, I hear women call other women a ‘pick me’ more than I hear any one else call them that, and like I said, it is SO disheartening when I see women bringing other women down.

I’ve heard the analogy, “If someone gave you three cookies, but one of them is poisoned, would you eat any of them?” and the answer for most people I would assume is no. And while, yes, if you’ve been hurt by someone, this might effect the way you go about things. I think this analogy is somewhat fair, it’s like russian roulette, of course you wouldn’t play.

And while this might be the ‘pick me’ response people talk about, but what about my brothers? My friends? What’s not fair is the generalization that all men are bad because that would imply that my own father is bad. I think it’s so contradictory and hypocritical to say “I hate all men” and then go hang out with your boyfriend or go home to your father. I just don’t like this idea because of course in any large group of people, there are going to be bad people. We will meet people, good and bad and they will change our lives, good or bad. But just because we got hurt by these people, does it make it okay to retaliate?

If men make podcasts, books, and other things to push the misogynistic idea, can women do the same? This might be just an opinion thing, but I’m a big believer on being the bigger person. I think it’s important to step away from a situation, no matter how much it hurt you, and leave with your self respect still intact. So in my opinion, it’s not okay for ‘feminists’ to talk about how much they hate all men just because men do it first. It just turns into a competition of who can be louder.

All this to say, if you identify as a feminist then you have to realize what this actually means. For you to say you’re a feminist is to support women but men too, and a real feminist would never say women are better then men or vise versa.