Freedom, Liberty, and Equality. These words are the face of the United States and its ideas. The feminist movement, more focused on women's rights and equality starting in the 19th century, combined with the LGBTQ+ community, and the Black lives matter ideals, show that still in this great country, there is a push to gain more fairness for all people. Although these groups are in search of fairness and equality, their main goals have seemed to stray from the beaten path in the past few years. Straight white men have become the scapegoat and enemy of groups searching for justness, which goes against the main ideas of what these groups strive for. One main issue is that radical feminism is portrayed by many different media outlets, where women describe America as being run by a patriarchy of white men who objectify and oppress women. The feminist ideas and pursuit of equal rights is not a problem in society, it is that instead, feminism has turned into discrediting men and over exaggerating problems instead of finding solutions, breaking off from what feminism originally fought for.

Fourth-wave feminist ideals differ from what the basis of feminism was built off of in many different ways. The first wave of feminism wanted political equality and equal rights for women. To protest, women would march orderly down streets and educated women would get up in front of crowds of men and women and explain why political equality and the right to vote was necessary for women to have. Feminist Meghan Daum agrees that feminism has changed by stating, “What is now being called fourth-wave—and that's not a term that gets bandied around too much—is this kind of #KillAllMen [movement launched by] the columnist Jessica Valenti” (Gillespie Pg. 8). Daum goes on to explain how women in America are already equal to men, and that by blowing every problem out of proportion takes away the level of seriousness that women are acknowledged with. She gives examples of older and younger feminists disagreeing on the severity of acts done by comedian Aziz Ansari,

“The reaction from younger feminists was, ‘Oh my gosh, he is a terrible person. This is unacceptable. This is toxic masculinity. If you're in a sexual situation and he makes you feel uncomfortable, then that is on the rape spectrum in some way.’ Older women were kind of like, ‘Whoa,’ The record scratched. "We're having serious discussions around people like Harvey Weinstein and Charlie Rose and Matt Lauer, and suddenly, you're putting this in the same category?" That was really a flashpoint because suddenly the two generations were not understanding each other.” (Gillespie Pg. 11,12)

Because of the different outlooks that this wave of feminism has adopted, many older women shame and disagree with feminism as it is seen today. Having come so far in equality for women just to have the younger generation of feminists take what they have for granted, and then fight against whether or not what someone said is offensive is almost an insult to the older first and second wave feminism. This new wave of feminism allows women to use any situation to discredit and attack men by using terms like “toxic masculinity” and by falsely accusing men of crimes to then exaggerate the truth.

Another example of the altered views of feminism come from Flo Perry, an author at Buzzfeed who in her article uses slang and curse words to get her point across, and uses GWM (great white male) as a villainous term. Instead of proposing the idea that more diverse men and women should work harder to get a higher ranked position in the workplace, she states, “The people with the power to stop the dictatorship of Great White Males are the Great White Males themselves. They are the ones who can choose to hire someone different,” (Perry Pg. 4). Flo infers that GWM’s in powerful business positions choose to pick white men as their successors because of their lack of diversity, when in fact white men have proven they are statistically more likely to pick an engineering science or business major in college than any other group, as shown in the research conducted by Lisa Dickson from the University of Maryland. In Flo’s final paragraph, she explains how it was quite easy for her to get her job, because of the advantages she had being a woman of color. This contradicts the entirety of what feminism was based off of, giving a woman more advantages and unequal competition for men.

In conclusion, the fourth wave of feminism that has risen from the ashes of the third does not push for equality, but instead attempts to push men under women as a social class. This wave contradicts what previous feminists have fought for and believe in, making it a very controversial topic. If these women really fought for equality, they would push each other to work harder and be equals with men instead of attempting to drag men down for their personal gain. There would be no advantages in the workplace for being a “more diverse” choice. Feminists should be fighting for equality, not superiority.