Since its first utterance, the word “feminist” has been associated with bra-burning women and women who hate men.
However, if you’re not ignorant, you know this is not the case.
Feminism, according to Merriam-Webster, is simply “the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities.”
Nowhere in there does it say anything about bashing men or burning our undergarments.
Because of the association, it’s very rare for a man to identify as a feminist, which makes male feminists like the unicorns of the Earth.
However, “Orange is the New Black” star Matt McGorry is breaking the seal on men identifying as feminists.
The show is already notably feminist, but now one of its male actors? Score.
In McGorry’s “How Becoming a Feminist Felt Like Falling In Love” essay, McGorry wrote he came to his “awakening” after watching Emma Watson’s United Nations “He for She” speech.
McGorry wrote, “I cried. And not just a little ... I had ‘all the feels.’”
Apparently, McGorry had never been told not to cry.
He writes, “My parents never told me to ‘man up:’ if anything, they taught me that expressing vulnerability is braver than putting on a stoic front.” Bravo, McGorry’s parents.
McGorry’s parents also pushed him to ask himself how he could become a better person, which he said inevitably led him to his current path as much as Watson’s speech did.
The words Watson spoke that really resonated with McGorry were to ask, “If not me, who? If not now, when?” which are indeed wise words to live by.
After that moment, he said he felt some unrecognizable feeling inside him and some sort of shift.
He then realized the feeling reminded him of falling in love.
I’m with you on that one, Matt McGorry, because I think I’m falling in love too — with you.
McGorry previously had been a pretty neutral guy who shied away from expressing his opinions on social issues.
He feared the negative feedback he would receive from the public.
His fear quickly dissipated, however, once he fell in love with feminism.
McGorry said he decided it was time to speak up even though he knew it’d be easier to say nothing at all.
McGorry also claimed feminism helped him become interested in other social issues as well, such as the Black Lives Matter movement.
Being able to recognize your own privilege is important to understand the inequalities our society faces today and the people it affects.
Gender inequality is a real issue and to pretend that it isn’t is just plain ignorance.
I think if all men took a page from McGorry’s book and identified as feminist, our society would allow everyone to prosper.
So, use your voice.
Especially if you’re privileged, because if not you, then who?
prhurst@indiana.edu
