I’m just as feminist as the next left-wing college kid, but sometimes I feel feminism has been taken a bit too far. Maybe, just maybe, when that guy holds the door open for that girl, he doesn’t think she is too weak to open it herself. Maybe, he’s just being a nice and respectable human being. So, where do we draw the line between female empowerment and nitpicking society’s every move? 

Of course catcalling, domestic violence and unfair wages toward women are not okay and deserve a fight. They are all topics that shouldn’t happen in our modern society, but they should also not be happening to men. This doesn’t mean we should objectify men, or that a women should hit her significant others or men’s pay should be any lower than women’s pay. 

I don’t think the feminist fight should be about being better than the other gender but simply for everyone to be treated with respect — male, female or transgender. 

We shouldn’t look too far into our actions as women. We shouldn’t constantly be thinking, “This action will make me look weak, and I shouldn’t do it” or “I shouldn’t wear my pink dress today because feminists told me that it would set us back as a gender.” We should do what we want to do, by ourselves, not as a whole gender — that’s the true meaning of empowerment.

Just because I wear polka dot dresses, frilly socks and peter pan collars doesn’t mean that I’m giving into the “submission” males want from us woman according to the stereotype. It just means I like polka dot dresses, frilly socks and peter pan collars. What we wear shouldn’t have anything to do with how empowered or strong we are. I feel like too many woman feel the need to rock a pant suit in order to be taken seriously or feel empowered. A woman is giving in if she is doing that. She is falling victim to the stereotypes that United States has created. When words come out of a woman’s mouth, they are what should matter, not the clothes on her body. 

It goes the same for a lady who wants to wear a tight, short dress with five inch heels. That’s okay. It might just mean she likes tight, short dresses and tall heels, not that she wants to have sex with every man she comes in contact with.

So, just as women shouldn’t look too far into our own actions, we shouldn’t look too far into the actions of men. 

For example, like I said before, sometimes males just want to be nice to other people when they open the door for a female. But some females are too busy turning to their friends and saying “I could have done it myself. I’m not a weak flower like he thought I was” to look back and see the same man holding the door open for another man. Holding the door open for people is a nice thing to do. I hold doors open for both males and females, and I don’t think either one would ever be too weak to pull on the handle themselves. Now, if that same male opened the door for that female but then slammed it on the dude coming through the door next, I can see where there would be some issues. But in most of my experiences, that just doesn’t happen. 

Another example is if a man looks at a woman. Some women would see a man look at her and be disgusted and feel objectified. Again, maybe the man is just admiring the woman’s dress or simply looking in a direction that the female happened to be in. Everyone has eyes. 

They are meant to see with. So if a man sees a woman, the eyes are doing their job. If he takes it a step further and compliments her dress, maybe he just likes the dress and thinks she looks nice. Nothing has to be sexual about it. Again, some women would think the man was hitting on her or had an ulterior motive to the compliment. But if a woman complimented her, she would probably smile, say thank you and go on her merry way without giving it another thought. 

A situation similar to holding open the door is paying for a meal. If a guy and a girl went to lunch and the guy paid for the meal, some girls would probably feel slighted – they would think that the guy they are with doesn’t think she makes enough money to pay for it herself.    Well, what if the tables were turned and two business men go to lunch together. That same guy who paid for the girl pays for his friend. Would people think that man thinks his friend can’t pay for lunch? Probably not, they would think that he was being a generous human being. Something is wrong with how different those situations are taken when a male is swapped out for the female. 

It is sad that when a man is nice to another man it’s called respect, but when a man is nice to a woman it can be mistaken as sexist.