In Defense of Feminism

A letter from a #LetJulieSwim activist

The following letter was sent to us by Dawn Land, a woman who took part in the Port Townsend press conference last week. We contninue our reporting on that story and we will have much more to bring you soon about her experience there.

Feminism is often touted as the root of everything wrong with Western society, and women who declare themselves feminists are routinely vilified. Man-haters, feminazis, or — as Matt Walsh so famously declared — “rotten to the core”; with labels such as these, it’s no wonder women claiming feminism are regarded with such contempt.

The level of scorn shown towards feminism today is disturbing. It’s obvious that many people – particularly men- don’t understand what feminism really is. Feminism is women believing and advocating for women to have rights equal to men. It’s as simple as that. It would be disingenuous to pretend that women ever fully achieved that equality we’ve been fighting to obtain for generations. Likewise, it would be negligent to ignore the…