On Women Who Say They Are Not Feminists

 

There is something that genuinely enrages me about women who proudly announce, “I’m not a feminist,” as if feminism were some embarrassing little club they have decided they are far too good to belong to, while they are simultaneously enjoying rights and freedoms that generations of women fought, protested, organized, sacrificed and suffered for. I hear a woman say she is not a feminist and I immediately want to ask her to sit down for five minutes, put her phone away, stop scrolling through whatever misogynistic social media nonsense has been fed to her algorithm, and actually learn what feminism means before she proudly rejects it.

Because feminism is not a hatred of men, it is not women believing they are superior to men, and it is not some bizarre ideology invented by angry women who supposedly want to destroy marriage and families. Feminism is the advocacy of equality between women and men, particularly in relation to social, political, economic and legal rights and opportunities. That is it. Equality. The belief that being born female should not mean being born with fewer rights, fewer choices, less freedom, less safety or less power over your own life.

So when a woman tells me she is not a feminist, while she is voting, working, earning her own money, driving a car, attending university, owning property, having a bank account, choosing whether she wants children, choosing whom she wants to marry, speaking publicly about politics, leaving an unhappy marriage, pursuing a career, wearing whatever she wants and expecting the law to protect her from violence, I cannot help but think that we have a serious education problem.

And yes, I know that sounds harsh, but I am tired of pretending that ignorance is empowering.

If you truly believe women should not have equal rights, then I want to understand what exactly you think you are rejecting, because feminism did not create the rights you are so casually enjoying. Women fought for them. Women were mocked for demanding them, imprisoned for demanding them, beaten for demanding them, fired for demanding them, ridiculed by society for demanding them and, in many parts of the world, women are still fighting for them.

The irony becomes even more ridiculous when a woman says, “I don't need feminism because I have a good husband.”

Congratulations, but your husband's kindness is not a political system.

Your rights should not depend on whether the particular man you happen to love is decent. A woman should not need a good father to give her permission to have an education, a good husband to allow her to work, a generous boyfriend to let her keep her own money or a protective son to defend her from violence. Rights exist precisely because individual people cannot be trusted to behave perfectly toward everyone they have power over.

This is why I find the whole “I don't need feminism because men treat me well” argument so frustrating. Feminism is not about whether your husband personally opens the door for you or whether your boyfriend is supportive of your career. It is about whether women as a group are entitled to the same fundamental dignity, autonomy and opportunities as men.

And before anyone starts with the tired “but feminists hate men” argument, let me make something very clear. Feminism does not require me to hate men. I can love men, have male friends, love my partner, admire wonderful men and still believe that women deserve equality. In fact, I can care about men deeply while refusing to accept the idea that masculinity should automatically place someone above women.

What I absolutely cannot understand is a woman who seems to have made male approval the foundation of her entire worldview, to the point where she will defend ideas that ultimately make her own life less free simply because she thinks those ideas will make men like her.

That is the part that really gets under my skin.

There is a particular kind of social media woman who will repost something saying feminism is destroying women, feminism is making women miserable, women were happier in the old days, women should submit to their husbands, women should stay home, women should stop having careers, women should have babies young and devote themselves entirely to their families, and then act as though she has discovered some forbidden ancient wisdom that the rest of us are too brainwashed to understand.

Girl, please open a history book.

The past was not some beautiful little cottagecore paradise where women spent their days baking bread while their handsome husbands returned home from work and everyone lived happily ever after. Women have always worked, including women who worked unpaid inside the home, and many women had very little economic independence, legal autonomy or protection from abusive husbands. Romanticizing women's historical oppression because the aesthetic looks pretty on Instagram is not historical analysis.

This is where I want women to become much more careful about the things they consume online, because social media is extraordinarily good at turning complicated social issues into rage bait, catchy little slogans and completely distorted versions of reality. You can watch enough short videos and read enough deliberately provocative posts until you begin to believe that feminism means hating motherhood, that equality means women becoming men, that traditional relationships automatically mean oppression, or that a woman's only route to happiness is making herself desirable and obedient enough for a man to choose her.

That is not education.

I wish more women would realize how dangerous it is to outsource their opinions to people whose entire business model depends on keeping them angry, insecure and emotionally engaged.

Because your rights are not theoretical until you need one.

Imagine saying you don't need women's rights because you have never personally experienced discrimination, only to discover one day that the law, your employer, your family or your partner has enormous power over you. Imagine thinking bodily autonomy is some abstract feminist talking point until someone else decides what happens to your body. Imagine believing marital rape is impossible because your husband loves you, only to learn that marriage does not magically transform consent into permanent ownership.

A husband does not own his wife's body. A wife does not owe her husband sex. Marriage is not permanent consent. And rape does not become acceptable because two people have exchanged wedding rings. That should not even need to be said in 2026.

Yet women still need to be educated about these things, and men absolutely need to be educated about them too.

I also want women to understand something that I think gets lost in all of the endless arguments about whether someone is a “good feminist.” You do not have to adopt every feminist theory, agree with every feminist writer, identify with every feminist movement or share every opinion held by every person who calls herself a feminist. Feminism is not a personality cult. Feminists can disagree with each other. We can debate methods, priorities, politics and philosophy. But rejecting the basic principle that women deserve equality because you dislike some feminists is like rejecting democracy because you dislike a politician.

Learn.

Read.

Question things.

Look at history.

Look at laws.

Look at women's lives around the world.

Look at what happens when women have no economic independence, no political representation, no reproductive autonomy, no access to education and no protection from violence.

And then make your opinion.

But please, for the love of women everywhere, stop forming your worldview from a random hateful Facebook post made by someone whose entire argument is basically “feminism bad, women crazy, men good.”

I want women to be smarter than that.

I want us to be curious enough to investigate what we are being told instead of immediately accepting whatever happens to flatter our existing beliefs. I want us to understand the history behind the freedoms we have inherited, because when you don't know how something was won, you can become dangerously careless about losing it.

And yes, I want women to stop centering men so much.

You do not need to spend your entire life trying to prove that you are the least demanding woman in the room. You do not need to advertise how little you need, how much you tolerate, how obedient you are, how much you cook, how little you complain or how much abuse you can absorb without leaving. Being chosen by a man is not the ultimate achievement of female existence.

You are a person before you are somebody's girlfriend, wife, mother or daughter.

You have a brain.

You have ambitions.

You have a voice.

You have a body that belongs to you.

You have the right to earn money, own property, receive an education, participate in society, make decisions about your life and walk away from people who harm you.

I want women to teach these things to the girls growing up around them, but I also want women to educate the men in their lives. Teach your sons about consent. Teach your brothers that women are not objects. Teach your partners that boundaries are not insults. Teach your fathers that their daughters are not possessions. Teach the boys in your family that masculinity does not mean dominance and that being rejected does not entitle them to anger, punishment or revenge.

Because feminism is not only about protecting women from individual men. It is also about building a culture in which boys grow up understanding that women are fully autonomous human beings.

So when a woman tells me, “I'm not a feminist,” I don't want to immediately write her off as stupid, even though I admit that my first emotional reaction can be much less charitable, because I know that many women have simply been taught a completely distorted definition of feminism. What I actually want is for her to learn enough to make an informed decision.

And if, after learning what feminism actually means, she still says, “I don't believe women and men should have equal rights,” then at least she knows what she is rejecting.

But please don't tell me you are against feminism because you love your husband, because you enjoy being feminine, because you want children, because you like cooking, because you want to stay home, because you enjoy traditional relationships or because you believe men and women can have different roles.

You can choose all of those things and still believe in feminism. The entire point is that they should be choices.

I don't want women forced into careers they don't want. I don't want women forced to stay home. I don't want women forced to have children. I don't want women forced not to have children. I don't want women forced into marriage or forced out of it. I want women to have enough freedom and power over their own lives that they can actually choose.

That is what feminism means to me.

After everything women before us fought for, I am not interested in pretending that equality is something embarrassing that we should apologize for.

Women, educate yourselves. Read beyond the algorithm. Learn your history. Learn your rights. Learn about consent. Learn about money. Learn about your body. Learn how laws affect you. Learn how propaganda works. Learn to recognize misogyny even when it calls itself “traditional values.”

And men, educate yourselves too, because women's equality is not a women's homework assignment.

I have had enough of women being encouraged to make themselves smaller so men can feel bigger, enough of girls being taught that male approval is a measure of their worth, and enough of this ignorant idea that feminism is somehow the enemy of women when the entire foundation of feminism is the belief that women are human beings deserving of equal dignity, freedom and rights.

We can do better than this.

We owe ourselves better than this.

I refuse to be quiet about it.

Thankful for your presence, Neja