In yesterday’s Helsingin Sanomat, Finlands biggest mainstream newspaper, there was a column titled “I appreciate feminine women and masculine men”. The columnist wanted to point out the importance of not raising children as children, but those born with a penis as boys and those born with a vagina as girls.

Now dear columnist, with all the respect; We are not all here to please you. Not everyone was born into one of two categories, and actually most of us would fall somewhere in between on a spectrum that is so much wider than you’ll ever imagine if you continue viewing the world the way that you do now,

There’s a thing a lot of people ask me about. But one area of questions in particular, seems to be more questionable than the others. Bicca, why don’t you identify that strongly as a feminist? When in meetings, why won’t you speak up for girls and girl issues? Don’t you care for sisterhood?

Now once and for all, let me break this down to you. First of all, I do support feminist values, at least the ones listed on the Wikipedia page. Sadly, way too many people seem to think that that’s all it is , women’s rights.

Now all of my work ever has been, and will always be, based on the freedom of the individual and equality between people. Those two go very much hand in hand to me. But the thing is, that not only will I fight for my female friend’s right to make a mess, be loud and dress however she feels like dressing at any occasion. I will fight for my male friend’s right to burst into tears in the middle of a meeting because he’s so sick and tired of staying strong and dealing with all this shit for so many long nights for too many days. I will fight for my genderfluid friend’s right to have a proper box to check if we have to ask for gender in the surveys we’re making, and to make sure we’re using correct pronouns to include everyone in any document we might be making up. This is what I do everyday. This is my feminism, my gender equality.

There is a LOT of cruelty in this world, including violence, unfair treatment and violating the human rights of women. Nothing makes me happier than seeing people stand up for these people and [at least try to] giving them a voice in the global debates. But these exact same methods of discrimination are practised on so many other, smaller, even more quiet groups. I honestly couldn’t live with myself if I chose to only work for one kind of equality. I can’t tell you gender inequality is a more important issue than age discrimination, xenophobia, racism, homo- or transphobia. The good thing is that we don’t have to pick our fight. It is actually possible to be against ALL forms of discrimination and support equality between ALL people.

With this being said, and with all the respect to Emma Watson (seriously, watch her speech) and other awesome feminists out there, I don’t want to hear another word about sisterhood. Or brotherhood for that matter. How can you POSSIBLY support gender equality and still choose to be more loyal to a person because the thing they have between their legs is similar to the thing you have between yours? What kind of logic is that?

It is not about he for she, she for he or they for them. It’s just us for us, simple as that.

We’ve got all the scientific proof we need. Given the right tools, what you have between your legs does not determine anything at all. Really, the only situation where it does matter is in a certain procreating situation, and that is hopefully not an everyday situation for anyone. So what we really need to do is make sure everybody understands this.

And what have we done? We’ve created all-female theater-groups and choirs, parties that mainly focus on gender inequality and this has been successful. We’ve empowered women to speak up and stay strong, work together to end patriarchy.

Wow. Was this really the whole point? Creating a battlefield, a warzone, where only those who dare to call themselves feminists and usually carry around a vagina, are allowed to fight for gender equality. Wasn’t feminism supposed to bring all genders [yes, I mean all 7 billion gender identities] closer together, and not splitting them up in two fields, one with a clear goal of crushing the other, and the other side mainly being a confused bunch of very stereotypical men that actually love their mothers, lead by a few idiots that never realised women are people too. And then the middle field, with even more confusion and questionmarks?

Why do we make it all into such a big deal? Is it really, really more important to be brave enough to call yourself a feminist than to just silently be that everyday gender equality hero that really does make the big difference in the world?

I’m going with no. I’m an egalitarian. Equality between humans is my passion.