And with that devious rhetorical flanking manuver, you have lost the argument. Anything you say can and will be held against you in future debates. It doesn’t matter what an intelligent, erudite, level-headed individual you were before; you have now become the batsh*t crazy feminazi. Your mouth wiggles furiously but nobody hears anything you say.

Sometimes, I have to put my life on hold and just let myself be baffled.

Because you know what gets me? That guy who’s been insisting to me that Frank Miller isn’t a mysogynistic assh*le is probably a feminist himself. And if I were a betting man, I’d bet good money that you are too, even if you don’t know it.

Case in point: I was walking around London with a female friend, and a glance at the newspaper headlines lead to a debate about politics, then social issues, and then the f-word came up. “I’m not a feminist or anything,” she said. “I mean, I think everyone should be equal, and we should be allowed to do what we want, make our own choices, all that stuff. I think civil rights for everyone is obviously very important. But the whole man-hating thing, I don’t get that. I don’t think I’m a feminist.”

“Yeah? Is that so,” I said.

Because you know what? Feminism, at its core, is mostly about being nice to people. It’s not about hating men and their big, dumb penises, and if you asked most feminists, they probably wouldn’t tell you that all heterosexual sex is rape. The name is probably the worst part, because it implies that you either need to be a woman or believe they’re superior to men in some way. But it’s not about a battle of the sexes, and it’s not about choosing sides — well, to be more accurate, it’s about letting everyone choose their own side.

I have a friend who lives in a pink, fluffy world. She has luxurious blond hair — dyed, but it doesn’t look it. She loves chick flicks, baking cookies, and wearing pretty dresses. She loves kissing cute boys at parties. And she also loves marching in women’s rights parades and chanting ferociously at protests and working to save the world at our school’s Women’s Center.

I have another friend who loves swordfights, spaceships and comic books. She got a buzzcut before coming to college and is given to wearing suits and fedoras.

And I’m just some dude who thinks men and women aren’t really that different and maybe we should stop making all those rape jokes. Also, I think girls with short hair look so damn good.

And we’re all quite proud to call ourselves feminists. You don’t have to have certain opinions about a political candidate, the right to choose, hairstyles or fashion be a feminist. You just have to spend a little time in your day thinking “Hey. Was I a jerk today? If I was, how could I go about being less of a jerk?” If you think men and women, who can be collectively referred to as people, should be equal, you’re a feminist. Actually, I might prefer “peopleist”, because really — that’s all it’s about.

We just need to stop being so afraid of that word. People wield it like a weapon. That dismissive sting, I’ve found, hurts a bit less with some simple mental editing:

“You’re a reasonably decent human that wants us to get along, aren’t you?” Ouch. Damnit. You win, man.