Listen up, mankind.

In feminism (if your eyes just glazed over, you are a chauvinist and you don't deserve to read what I have to say), a point that is often made to justify the discourse is that man is often equated with the universal standard, prototypical humanoid, which leaves women to be "other" because she is "not a man" and is therefore "deficient." Some claim that defining women this way is even tantamount to their non-existence.

That is one way to look at it. Another way to look at it as that using the word "man" to refers to all people is actually more harmful to men. How can you see yourself as an individual, rather than a generalization/stereotype if the word that refers to your group refers to all groups put together, as well? If everyone were divided into 1, 2, 3, and 4 and the set [1, 2, 3, 4] is called 1, it is problematic to state 2, 3, and 4 are not represented in the group's name yet fail to recognize that 1 has lost it's identity to that of the group. In this alternative way of thinking, women are both included and distinguished within the group whereas as men are inclusive and undistinguished. What can be perceived as the dominance of men can also be perceived as a hindrance to the perception of individuality just as easily as the projection of any other stereotype or bias.

I think the problem posed here is more of a problem with a desire to be indistinguishable, a mere face in the crowd. Any feminist can agree that different is not the same as deficient, so how is that leap in reasoning made? Historically, there unfortunately seems to be an answer to that question, but logically, I don't think there is. Women don't want to be treated differently than men even though they are different and men are different from them, too. And there are people who are more different or different in other ways. And I'm not just talking about sex and gender. But no, different is bad. Let's all be the same. Let's all be like heterosexual men. Commercialized identity, ftw!

But with more college educated folks who know it's wrong to think different is bad, it's cool to be different. But the problem is, most college educated folks aren't "different." They're normal and the more "normal" you are, the harder you have to try to be "different." The better you fit into the dominant culture, the more likely it is that you are impossibly indistinguishable, the more likely it is that you cultivate eccentric, local, obscure, and even distasteful tastes and habits and pointedly disregard anything adopted by "the masses." If the masses do it, they will only do it ironically. This is the result of claiming reclamation for distinctiveness that is mistaken for being downtrodden and denying it to what could be viewed as privilege but turns out not to be so. I'm not saying feminism is at fault. But it is certainly exemplary, particularly in its "western" form, in contributing to the problem.