In case you haven’t heard, I’m a feminist. Shocking, I know. I’m pretty outspoken about it, and often get written off as just another loud-mouthed, angry bitch that hates men. A lot of people don’t like me; my car has been vandalized, I’ve been assaulted, and I’ve gotten the “slushie facial” made famous by Glee. In college.

I’m not going to apologize for being outspoken and assertive. I’m not going to change. It’s who I am. I’ve come to terms with the fact that a lot of people don’t like it, but I’m not concerned with being well-liked. I’m concerned with equal rights for all,  making our society safe for everyone who is not a straight cis-man, and getting shit done. I’ve been called a lot of names because of my brand of feminism. Among them: crazy dyke bitch, ugly skank, and Marxist feminist dyke.

An actual note left on my car, along with a nice key mark.

The name-calling ticks me off. It’s childish, immature, and usually a card played when the person on the other end of the debate can’t back up their argument but still wants to ‘win.’ But it doesn’t really get to me. I have more important things to worry about than whether or not someone thinks I’m a “Marxist dyke.” There is, however, one name I’ve been called that really, truly offends me. It makes my skin crawl and leaves me so angry I can hardly articulate myself. Feminazi.

Feminists and Nazis are hardly one in the same. Fighting, whether aggressively or ‘politely,’ for gender equality is not even close to being on the same level as killing 11-17 million people. Committing genocide isn’t on the feminist agenda—trust me. The only people anyone should be comparing to Nazis are Nazis.

It is incredibly offensive to claim that feminism is in any way, shape, or form like Nazism. Equating a group of angry women with Adolf Hitler is disgusting and infuriating.

Allow me to educate you on a little piece of history known as the Second World War. Adolf Hitler let the Nazis to capture, torture, and murder more than 11 million people. Jewish people, Romani people, POWs, homosexuals, disabled people—all victims of the Holocaust. Why? Because Adolf Hitler believed that they weren’t deserving of life because they were biologically “inferior” in his mind.

That is not what feminism is like at all.

Feminists have never been responsible for mass murder. We do not advocate erasure of a certain type of person from humankind. It takes a special kind of asshole to warp the goals of feminism to somehow be related to Nazism. Feminists fight for equality. Nazis acted (and still do so today) on a belief that their victims were not equal to them. Their goal was to ‘better’ the human race by wiping out people that didn’t fall into their idea of the perfect human beings. Come on. You actually cannot compare that to feminism’s goal of empowerment and equality for all, and when you try, you completely disregard the struggles of the millions of people affected by the Holocaust.

Feminists aren’t here to destroy you. I can promise you that. It is not too much to ask to be treated with the respect that all humans deserve. I offer a resounding “fuck you” to anyone who tries to compare us to Nazis. Get your facts straight or shut the fuck up.

Written by Alisse Desrosiers
Follow her on Tumblr and Twitter, and check out her blog, femetits!