There are always things that people say that get under my skin and make me want to stand up and shout that is NOT feminism, do you hear what you're saying right now?  One self identified male student in my 9AM class this morning was telling a story about one of his high school teachers who was very one-sided. The student decided to stereotype his teacher by then saying, "I could tell my teacher was a feminist by the way he taught, not that he was gay talking or anything, but with...ya know how he taught." My first thought after hearing him say this was, okay, so this guy thinks all men who consider themselves feminists have a higher chance of being "gay"? I thought this was a great example relating to my last post in men and feminism and how our society is constructed to think that feminism is solely a women's movement. I think another misconstrued idea is that people automatically assume that people of different sexual orientations are feminists. Again, people are not born feminist or are feminists because of there human condition; people become feminists because they want equality and freedom. I Also know that this student in my class is a very outspoken liberal and I find it unfair to say that feminist views conflict with his own views of capitalism. In conclusion, I wish this student was educated about feminism enough to realize that stereotyping his teacher as  a feminist (being negative) was not correct. To be a feminist I believe one must be a critical thinker and consider all views. I think this student's mistake was a common misconception about the definition of feminism and is a great example that demonstrates how feminism needs to be more globally defined.

I have been reading The book, Feminism is for EVERYBODY by Bell Hooks. And, I have been noticing a topic that keeps reappearing in her book, in our class discussion, and in my other gender research is how MEN fit into feminism? "Feminists are made, not born" is an important quote I took from Hooks's book. I think this quote says not only are some women anti-feminist even though they are women, but men have the chance to be feminist too. I think, and it seems Hook does too, that Men are a crucial part to gender equality. A mistake that most people make is they forget men have roles and rules to abide by just like women do in our society. Men are some times portrayed in commercials as lazy slobs who watch TV and grill steaks.  Women, men and others are in this feminism "thing" together or in other words feminism not only supports women's rights, but it supports people's rights. By keeping people out of institutions is how feminism was started so by only letting women in would be contradictory!