“Humanity requires  both men and women and we are equally important and need one another,” Beyoncé said. If you believe in feminism, you’re in good company. If you don’t, it’s time to get on board.

Dictionaries and activists define feminism as “believing in equal rights for all genders,” we define it as common sense. If everyone was as ‘woke’ about feminism as they are about football, Sequoia and our world would be much better places.

At Sequoia, the Feminist Club, the Girls Learn International (GLI) Club and IB English classes that examine gender equality already encourage feminism.

In GLI club meetings, members discuss and come up with ways to advocate gender equality and raise awareness about the need to protect human rights, like making posters for International Human Rights Day on Dec. 10.

“GLI is a national club started by the Feminist Majority Foundation, [a feminist group in the US] but they teamed up with the UN,” GLI adviser and art teacher Mozy da Costa Pinto said. “The initial pretext was to ensure that women and girls around the world get education because for many girls, that opportunity does not exist.”

IB English also promotes feminism through discussing books, such as Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” a look at a total patriarchy in dystopia, Sonallah Ibrahim’s “Zaat” a tale of a woman facing sexism in Egypt and Toni Morrison’s “Beloved,” a look at post-Civil War life for female ex-slaves.

“A lot of [books in IB] have to deal with female protagonists,” senior Avery Amaya-Adle said. “Some people I’ve heard have said it’s almost idolizing women too much; it’s taking the importance away from men.” However, he disagrees. “If the point of the book is to express the opinions of women, [the writers] should be able to write whatever they want.”

Some critics incorrectly label feminists as “misandrists,” or “man-haters.” On the contrary, we believe in the equality of all genders, men included. The reason why we may seem more pro-women is because we have to be; in the world we live in now, there are still more women’s equality issues than men’s.

For those who care about the name, as long as we call the human race ‘mankind’, we call gender equality ‘feminism.’

Feminists’ goals is to not hurt men, just the patriarchy.

Whiny, childish and forever-alone anti-feminists who equate today’s feminism with violence or witchcraft are confusing Lady Gaga with Lady Macbeth. Today, feminism focuses mainly on rights and justice for LGBT+ women, body positivity, social aspects of equality, and third world feminism.

We don’t need feminism – we want it; girls in the third world need it. To any doubters, try telling Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani girl who was shot in the head because she dared to open her mouth about girls’ education, that you don’t believe in gender equality.

We identify as feminists because we believe in the equality of the genders. We’re feminist-activists because we believe in fighting for it. The world is not made of sexist pigs, but they are among us. Don’t be one of them.