Feminism Isn't Splitting the Check

The conversation around feminism has deteriorated into something genuinely stupid. Women bicker over dinner bills while the point sails right past them. Paying half on a date has absolutely nothing to do with equal rights. That's not activism. That's just bad math pretending to be principles.

Feminism operates on a scale far beyond who picks up the tab at Olive Garden. The movement rests on one straightforward idea: women deserve the same rights as men. Not approximations. Not consolation prizes. The exact same legal standing, societal recognition, and institutional power.

Most people already are feminists without knowing it. They think women should own bank accounts. They support women voting. They accept that women can become doctors, lawyers, or whatever the hell they want. Congratulations. Those beliefs make you a feminist, whether you like the label or not.

The confusion comes from intentional sabotage. Conservatives shrink an entire civil rights movement down to petty arguments about splitting appetizers. They turn the word into a punchline, mocking women who expect basic respect from romantic partners. This trick works beautifully to hide what feminism accomplished and why it still matters.

Anti-feminism gets misunderstood, too. People think it means choosing traditional gender roles, baking cookies for the PTA, and driving their minivan to Target. Wrong. Anti-feminism means something far darker. It means women own nothing. Control nothing. Possess zero legal right to property, autonomy, or self-determination. Not choosing domesticity. Forced servitude.

Women vote because feminists fought for the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920 after decades of getting arrested, force-fed during hunger strikes, and publicly humiliated. Women attend universities because feminists tore down discriminatory admissions. Yale and Princeton didn't admit women until 1969. Harvard's Radcliffe College didn't fully merge until 1999. Women got credit cards in their own names when the Equal Credit Opportunity Act was passed in 1974, ending the requirement for male cosigners.

These weren't victories from ancient history. This happened recently enough that your grandmother remembers when women needed permission slips from men to participate in capitalism.

Women existed as legal property within living memory. Marital rape stayed legal across all fifty states until 1975. Oklahoma finally criminalized it in 1993. Coverture laws let husbands control their wives' paychecks and property well into the twentieth century. These weren't relics from some medieval nightmare. These were real laws that real judges enforced in real courtrooms.

The fight continues everywhere. Women die for showing their hair in Iran, where Mahsa Amini's death in police custody in 2022 sparked international outrage. UNICEF reports twelve million girls marry before eighteen every year. The World Health Organization found that one in three women worldwide experiences physical or sexual violence, mostly from partners.

American women have more freedom than most, but inequality persists relentlessly. Women working full-time earn eighty-four cents per dollar men make according to 2023 Census data. RAINN reports that out of one thousand sexual assaults, fifty lead to arrests and twenty-eight result in felony convictions. Women hold just ten percent of Fortune 500 CEO positions as of 2024.

Feminism demands real structural change, not empty gestures. The movement requires dismantling power systems that keep women subordinate across every sphere that matters. This work has nothing to do with relationship dynamics or consumer choices.

Recognizing women as fully human shouldn't require explanation. Yet achieving even partial acceptance took centuries of activism. Suffragettes went to prison. Second-wave feminists faced violent retaliation for demanding workplace protections. Contemporary activists get death threats for opposing harassment.

Claiming feminist identity matters. The word honors people who risked everything to expand women's rights. Reducing their legacy to who pays for dinner insults their sacrifices. Feminism represents duty, honor, and moral obligation.

Next time someone equates feminism with splitting costs, remember the real victories. Women vote because feminists made it happen. Women attend college because feminists forced institutions to open doors. Women control their own money because feminists demanded economic independence.

Every right women take for granted today exists because someone before them refused to accept less.

The women who starved themselves in prison cells so you could vote didn't do it so their granddaughters could debate Venmo etiquette. They did it because they understood something fundamental about power: you either claim it or someone else claims you.

@Santitos

@salinasmariasantos

Copyright © 2026 Maria Santos Salinas for FRONTeras.