Everyone doesn't agree with everything I say? DAGNABIT. When will the world start working exactly how I want it to?

I had crossed my fingers and hoped and prayed that this post would not get any backlash or negative feedback.  I had really, really hoped that I was a good enough writer to make my points clear so that people would all see my perspective, agree with me, and go eat cotton candy while skipping under rainbows.   Unfortunately, that's not how the world works.  I HATE debating and arguing, but when I post my opinion on something I believe in... people are often going to disagree with me.  That's life.  It's not my favorite, but neither is staying silent.  So... here we go.

Here's the tail end of a long train of comments on my instagram post (which was about this this blog post).  If you have time, feel free to read them all as it will probably help you get a little more context before reading this, but if not - I think you'll still understand.

"so I looked up the actual definition of feminism not just Emma Watson's definition. Here it is "the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men." So obviously the reason we focus on the root of FEM and define it is more of a thing for women rather than gender equality is because that's what it is. It's not about men feeling like they are treated poorly. It's obviously about women not feeling equal. You can send people to your blog which sends people to some random site that May or may not be credible. So my questions for you start with what exactly does it mean to have gender equality? I want your opinion and maybe an example of how you've felt you don't feel equal to men? And please don't send me to some blog or website. I won't go to it. My next question is if a guy didn't open your door or buy you dinner chances are you're not gonna go out with him. So how is that equality? How many times have you opened the door for your date? Equal means being the same right? So you have to switch off opening the door and paying for dates if you want "equal" right? You also said something about feminists that speak out don't understand what feminism is yet the feminist you're quoting is the one who is speaking out. I'm a little confused. In closing I don't think God deals with reading between the lines. It should be clear as day what he wants and since there is so much confusion it doesn't seem like it's clear. You've mentioned rape and trafficking like those are huge things that have to do with gender equality. Please explain to me what rape has to do with gender equality? Explain to me how women not choosing how they dress has to do with gender equality and not about religion? Don't you think that if you're in a high infection area that if you have sex no matter what you're more likely to get HIV? And pornography? I'm pretty sure a lot of the women in these films choose to do this. And most pornography films have a man in them too.  You're naming all these problems with the world but you didn't write what they have to do with gender equality. The only way I can see you relating them to gender equality is the fact that it has to do with men and women. Men and women have different callings because they are built differently. ALL human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose. Each have their own purpose and destiny. Each have their own purposes."

First of all... I still don't think you read the last post.  Please read what I write before arguing with me.  You are arguing about a lot of things I did not write about and do not agree with.  I would also super appreciate it if you would look at the websites I posted and read up on the facts I'm giving you before disagreeing with me.

I believe that men and women are different, and that they have different roles.  I am in 100% agreement with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on that and EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF DOCTRINE the church has regarding gender.   Not one part of me disagrees with that at all. I think our church is the perfect example to the world of how there can be equal rights and respect between genders while still having different roles.

Now... in response to your comment: 

First of all, I think that you and I are reading that definition differently.  You're reading:  "The advocacy of WOMEN'S rights on the grounds of political..... blah blah blah".  I'm reading:  "The advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and ecomonic EQUALITY TO MEN."    Why do they focus on the women's rights becoming equal to the men's?  Oh, probably because there is not a single country in this world where the general population of women has more rights and respect in those areas than men.   That's why.  It's focusing on the change that needs to happen.  As I stated, I wish there was a different term that had a root focused on the goal instead of what would need to change to get us there.  The goal is equality, women's rights need to increase to get us there.

Now, on to your questions:

You asked what it means to have gender equality 
Ah!  A WONDEFUL question.  Seriously, I wish someone would have asked this sooner because I feel like if that was clear we wouldn't have much of a disagreement.  I wish I would have stated this in my earlier post.  I believe that gender equality means that women and men are equally respected.  Women have a voice politically (They can vote, I don't think we need to have 50/50 men and women in political office, but everyone needs to be able to vote for which men or women should be in office).  I also think that women should have a right to make decisions for themselves (Their husband or father should not be able to decide their lives for them.  In many countries a girl's father is completely in charge of making all decisions for her and her life until she is married - to the man he has chosen for her - and then the role of making her decisions is now her husband's).

You also asked for an example of when I have felt or how I do not feel equal to men.
I do feel equal to men.  I feel that I live in a society that - although not perfect - is pretty darn close to achieving gender equality, and one that is much much MUCH further along than most of the world.  I consider myself a feminist because I want every woman in the world to enjoy the same freedom and respect I get.  I'm not a feminist to fight for my rights, I'm a feminist fighting for the rights of women around the world.

You then asked some questions regarding dating and gender roles and made a point about how men pay for dates and open doors and yada yada yada.... 
I'm not going to spend time debating something that has nothing to do with my original post, and something that I don't consider to be an issue.  I even stated that the post was not about that.  "I'm going to leave out a lot of the first world problems - because I've already delved into some of those issues here, and I don't want this post to be so long that it takes a half hour to read."    I probably should have also mentioned that I disagree with many of the first world "inequalities" feminists take issue with - but that was kind of what I was hoping to imply with my opening paragraph. In my opinion, inequality in dating is a non-issue for the most part, and in general the US does not have a whole lot of gender inequality.  I completely understand that most feminists are caught up in those things and take issue with them.  I'm not most feminists - which was the point I was trying to make at the beginning of the blog post.

You asked what rape, human sex trafficking, the spread of HIV, and pornography have to do with gender inequality
and I'm going to ask you again to please go read the post you were commenting on.  With rape and human sex trafficking it refers to respect, and the same with HIV.  Here's a surprising fact for you (which was on the web page I sent you to in my last post because I didn't want to quote the entire webpage): In Kenya and Zambia, a study found that HIV infection rates were higher among married girls than their unmarried, sexually active counterparts - girls who had more license to choose their sexual partners.  Childhood marriage is a result of a lack of respect for women and their choices, and a lack of education in women.   When it comes to rape (a crime of power) and human sex trafficking (slavery), these are gender equality issues because of the enormous preference these crimes have towards women.   I'll spout these stats off again since you didn't read my post - or didn't see how they applied to gender equality when I posted them there.  9 out of every 10 rape victims is a woman.  To me that says that women are not being given enough respect.  I'm no rapist, but I'm guessing that in general they don't rape people they have a great deal of respect for.  98% of human sex trafficking victims are women or girls.  That tells me that women are seen as objects - aka not respected.  As for pornography... I probably shouldn't have brought that up in the comments on instagram because I don't have many statistics and facts on the matter and I really don't know enough personally to be coming into this without facts.  All I know is what I've heard from anti-porn organizations, and that is that much of porn involves mistreatment of women, with men 100% in control and treating women as objects that are used for their sexual pleasure.

Finally, I want to say that men and women are different and have different roles, I firmly believe that.  HOWEVER, I do not believe that men are higher than women, or vice versa.   I don't advocate for women to have the same roles as men, only the same rights and respect given to them.     

We may end up just having to agree to disagree on this.  I'm pretty passionate about the subject, but you may have a different perspective and as much as I don't like it... that's life.