Feminism has become the other “F” word. Speak it in any friend circle and you’re likely to provoke a myriad of emotions and strong responses. You either embrace the movement or you hate it; there doesn’t seem to be much middle ground here.

A colleague recently shared with me the sordid details from her book club’s current selection. Just one chapter in and she was quite shocked with the steamy storyline.   Being the helpful person that I am, I recommended the book Jesus Feminist by Sarah Bessey. My colleague caught up with me a couple of weeks later to let me know that most of the women in her group were receptive to the title, but at least one replied “Uh (insert friend’s name here), please- you know how I feel about that (feminism).”

The rest of our conversation went something like this:

Me: “So, let me get this straight…it’s okay to read about giving your BOYFRIEND a blow job, but it’s not okay to read a wholesome book from a Christian perspective about the radical notion that women are people too?”

Colleague: “Yep, pretty much.”

Me: Very loud sigh of frustration.

I used to be a closet feminist. I believed (still do) in the movement, kept myself apprised of the movement’s progress and educated those closest to me about the movement, but my thoughts and opinions went no further than my inner circle for fear of judgment. My turning point was five years ago when I became an ordained minister. My teenage daughter was attending a Christian fundamentalist high school at the time and for the next four years she was ridiculed for both her feminist beliefs and my ministerial ordination. She was called a Nazi Feminist, told that women cannot be president because they are too emotional and challenged daily on her interpretation of the Bible as it relates to female pastors.

Two of my closely held beliefs are: (1) People fear things they don’t understand and (2) People need to be educated. Since I was a lead pastor at the time my daughter was in the frying pan, I began to preach more on egalitarianism and the dangers of patriarchy. I didn’t saturate people with the ideologies and I ensured my approach was gentle; I literally preached on these topics maybe once every other month. On one occasion, a female congregant told me that I might want to consider backing off.

What makes a person a feminist and aren’t feminists man haters? I’ll answer the first part of this question by providing a definition of the term in a moment, but my response to the second portion of the question is CERTAINLY NOT! I am not a man hater! I am married to a man, I have two sons and two grandsons and I love each of them dearly.

A quick search on the Internet returned the following definitions for feminism:

• The advocacy of women’s rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes.
• A range of political movements, ideologies, and social movements that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve political, economic, personal, and social equality of sexes.
• The radical notion that women are people too.

If after reading the above definitions, you still firmly stand against feminism- you really need to ask yourself this question: “Do I really believe that all human beings deserve equal rights?” Because at its core, this is what feminism is about…equal rights. Whether you love or hate feminism, every woman alive today has benefited from its fruits. Here is a short sampling of our benefits:

• The right to own property
• The right to vote
• Access to contraception
• Higher education
• Access to broader job selections
• Equal pay
• Decrease in domestic violence rates

I encounter a lot of folks who are happy to share in the benefits of feminism as long as they don’t have to do the hard work to bring about equality or claim the feminist label. All I am promoting here is the notion that we need to be having open conversations on this topic instead of running from them and spewing unkind words at each other. When we come from a place of understanding instead of fear and hatred, the world is a nicer place for all of us!