I’m a feminist because the world I live in isn’t.
I’m a feminist because I feel fully human, just as human as anyone else, including any male person, but the world is not arranged as if women were as human as men.
The local portion of the world I live in is much better in that regard than most of the rest of it, but I take myself to live in the whole world, not just my portion of it. The more you take a global view of now women are seen and treated, the less sanguine you can be about things not being so bad in your neighborhood.
In Afghanistan, girls get acid thrown in their faces for going to school. In the Dominican Republic a 16-year-old girl who had acute leukemia was refused chemotherapy because she was 9 weeks pregnant. Doctors took 20 days to argue about whether or not they could legally treat her – and then she died. In Iran 36 universities have announced that 77 BA and BSc courses will be closed to women for the next academic year. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops expects all Catholic hospitals to refuse to perform abortions even to save the life of the pregnant woman (which would be a violation of federal law).
One could go on listing examples, personal and societal, forever. I don’t see how anyone could be anything but a feminist, in the light of all that. Women are treated as property, tools, livestock, sex toys, baby factories, slaves – as anything but fully human beings like other human beings.
The situation has improved enormously in the developed world, especially in the last few decades, but it’s far from perfect. Barely hidden contempt and even hatred is all too common.
It would be nice to live in a world where there was no need to be a feminist because women were never seen or treated as inferior and subordinate, but that world is not this one.