"Feminism" is the radical concept that women are human beings.

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Feminists are female humans who understand the institutional existence and effect of sexism on their lives and on the lives of all other women. All women, for example, are prey, potential victims of domestic violence from some man who claims to own our bodies, potential rape victims from strangers or invading armies. We are generally despised, disregarded, demeaned, humiliated, overworked and underpaid in all nations. There is no place to which we can escape, because the oppression is international. We are not brutalized because of something we did. It is not our fault. It is institutional sexism.

Not all men are hateful or cruel, but they are all raised in societies which teach men that women are inferior, stupid, dishonest, untrustworthy, useless past the age of 40. It takes a lot of insight for men to overcome that conditioning, but those who at least struggle can be good companions.

Women are raised in sexist societies and also incorporate the same basic disdain for themselves and for other women. We not only berate ourselves, isolate because we consider ourselves inferior and inadequate, but we also join in ridiculing other women because when we do that, we get credit from the boys.

Women turn over complete control of their bodies to men. We allow men to dictate that the only attractive woman is one who is skeletel, with plastic ballons full of chemicals surgically inserted under their chest walls, and paralyzing agents injected into our faces to freeze the muscles and disguise the wrinkles. This is now normal, not bizarre. It is admired, not condemned. Magazines routinely show photos of women then discuss how fat they are, at a size 4 or 6, because today a size 0 or 2 is expected. During World War II, sizes 10 and 12 were the standard for movie stars.

The people who run the world, steal the money, condemn people to die from illness and children to live in hunger, those who start wars and murder and rape, who destroy homes, are mostly men. Anybody wants to pick apart the legacy of teachings of a person, choose a man. No need to pick on the few feminists who have a name. It helps the bad guys to do that.

Rush Limbaugh, the deaf morbidly obese impotent drug addict on the radio, calls women who speak up for their own rights "feminazis." Many men think this is clever, so they use the term too. Luckily women are used to being ridiculed and demeaned, criticized, excluded from opportunity, and paid only 79% of what men are paid for the same job. I say luckily, because we need thick skins to continue to speak up and stand up for our rights, and against men who humiliate and demean other women.

Always remember: men were the rough draft.  Women are the masterpiece.