Feminism gets a bad rap - like any other philosophy - due to the extreme viewpoints, such as "ALL men are violent brutes" or "women are not REAL women unless they act like and believe _____ ".

Feminism means a different set of things for different people, it seems to me. I'm a male and consider myself a feminist. For me personally it means: the genders are equal, but different (we each tend have our own gender-specific strengths and stereotypical traits, but that isn't a black-and-white issue); one gender vying for some kind of "power" or "privilege" over the other is to me simply vindictive; and a woman has every right to define herself according to whichever set of norms she chooses, as long as they are not inherently self-limiting (and again, that is open to a wide degree of personal interpretation).

I believe that every woman should have the freedom of choice to define her own self - not limited by what either men OR women as a group or within a subculture declare is "the one right way to be". I believe people have a right to simply be themselves at their optimal personal best, not constrained or judged by someone else's definition of how one should act or be treated according to gender, and that discrimination based on stereotypical gender expectations and assumptions is simply unfair.