Are you interested in this hip new trend called feminism, but confused by all the long words? Or maybe you’re not really sold on the idea, because it all seems pretty complicated.

Never fear – here’s an easy guide to a movement that’s not actually that hard to understand.

Intersectional Feminism

Feminism is a broad term, and has been used to describe lots of pretty different movements – Germaine Greer once suggested a woman who felt sickened by the idea of tasting her own menstrual blood had a long way to go to being a feminist*, while Beyoncé recently publicised Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s definition of a feminist simply as ‘a person who believes in the social, economic and political equality of the sexes’.

In the past, feminism was dominated by and mostly addressed the needs of white, middle class women, but these days the focus is on a more inclusive feminism that takes into account the connections between sexism and other issues including racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism and classism.

This is intersectional feminism, and it’s great because it promotes equal treatment of everyone instead of just middle class white people.

*This is obviously bollocks, but GG’s said some pretty wise stuff too

Women

First things first, gender and sex are two different peas in two different pods.

Sometimes people who are assigned a particular sex at birth (male, female or intersex) feel more strongly aligned to a different gender (a spectrum of characteristics ranging from masculinity to femininity with loads of stuff in between) than would traditionally be associated with their assigned sex.

A woman is anyone who identifies with a more feminine gender. The distinction between sex and gender also explains why guys referring to girls as “females” is so grim – it’s a reduction of a person to just their biological sex. Seriously though, try searching “females” on Twitter, it’s a goldmine of creepers.

Privilege

Having certain attributes (I feel like we all know what these are but to spell it out, being straight, white and male is a good start*) makes life an easier ride.

Most of the time people can’t help having or not having these attributes, but recognising you have them is pretty important, because society treats these attributes as the norm and people without them often feel alienated or silenced.

Here is a fun example of how society sometimes entirely ignores all of us poor gals who don’t have the privilege of being male. Pretty shocking, but it’s possible that these guys don’t even notice the lack of women, because privilege means male is taken as standard, and anything else is unusual.

If you ever get called out for saying something people find insulting, it’s worth checking if you’re speaking from a privileged position and how that might affect things.

*although not an exhaustive list

Slut shaming

We’re all aware of the difference here – that guy who pulled 30 girls in a night and documented it on his Snapchat story gets given the grand titles of “young Casanova” and “lothario” courtesy of Metro (such honour), while any woman who accomplished the same feat would be more likely to be featured in the Daily Mail’s sidebar of shame.

Even wearing clothes that other people might interpret as suggesting you might be interested in having some sex one day is enough for a woman to be labelled a “slut”. The big problem with this is that it opens the doors for women to be blamed for aggression against them – if her tits are out, surely she’s asking for it?

Calling girls out for what they wear and how many people they get with makes assailants and rapists think they’ve got an excuse – don’t be that person.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrkkPvSBwHk[/youtube]

Trigger warnings

When people have a traumatic experience, they tend to want to avoid reliving it – trigger warnings at the top of news articles, blog posts and so on alert people to content that might trigger a severe emotional reaction or panic attack.

It’s not hard really. Things like graphic depictions of sex, violence, abuse and eating disorders deserve a little mention. This isn’t protecting kids from vague references to the ganj with a 12A certificate, this is a simple, quick way of stopping people being forcibly reminded of awful things that might have happened to them.

Consent

Pretty simple really – consent isn’t the absence of a “no”, but an active, enthusiastic “yes”. A recent campaign promoted the idea that “consent is sexy”, but let’s be honest, we don’t need consent because it’s sexy, we need it because it’s a pretty basic level of respect to make sure someone wants to have sex with you before you jump them.

Compulsory consent workshops in Oxford this Fresher’s week have got morons everywhere pointing out the “double standard” between being forced to go to a workshop to open up a discussion about consent, and being raped.

Yeah. Not the same.

Mansplaining

Sometimes men have lots of things to say, and sometimes they really want to say these things to women. Now, there’s nothing wrong with the bountiful sharing of knowledge, but mansplainers assume the ignorance of their non-male listener (because she’s a girl, duh) even in situations where their listener might be better informed than they are.

My personal favourite is when boys try to tell me how women might feel about getting an abortion. Rebecca Solnit describes the concept as “the intersection between overconfidence and cluelessness”, which is a great way to capture the kind of patronising sincerity mansplainers exude.

If you’re a guy, and you have lots of things to say, by all means say them, but remember other people (even women!) might not be total novices to the subject.

‘Misandry’

I have put this word in quotes because honestly, it’s really not a thing. The word refers to the hatred and oppression of men based on their gender, but since our society consistently prioritises and rewards men over women, it is less relevant than Peter Andre (I’m joking, Mysterious Girl is an absolute classic).

When women objectify or insult men, it’s just not harmful in the same way as the reverse, because it’s not backed up by thousands of years of oppression. If you’re interested in discussing misandry further, here is a useful and informative resource.

MRAs

If you’re not convinced that misandry isn’t a real thing, these guys are your new best friends. MRAs, or Men’s Rights Activists are concerned about the rising tide of manhating women on the prowl, catching and friendzoning unsuspecting young nice guys.

You can find them in the corners of the internet, asking why feminism isn’t called ‘equalism’, posting videos to YouTube complaining about women not being attracted to them, or lamenting the declining image of the trilby/fedora (apparently there’s a big difference).

Not All Men

Lots of men (not all!) resent what they feel is the cruel stereotyping of their gender by feminists as aggressive, violent rapists.

Talking to boys about how many of my friends have experience some form of sexual assault, or the casual sexism all of us receive daily often results in the response, “Yeah that’s awful, but I’d never do that!”

That’s not really the point – we don’t really care whether you personally would or wouldn’t. The point is that all women experience these things, and it’s not about you and your nice liberal views, it’s about us and what we have to go through.

If not all your questions have been answered here, I’d suggest Google. Alternatively, try this.