I know what you’re thinking. How can a feminist not unconditionally support #MeToo, arguably one of the most significant manifestations of the late 18th, early 19th-century feminist movement? Before you jump to numerous conclusions about how privileged I am or what direction my moral compass is pointing in, consider that there are many women, even victims of rape, who have qualms about #MeToo. And with good reason.

The first time I heard about the #MeToo movement was when actress Alyssa Milano came out with allegations of sexual assault against Harvey Weinstein. My timeline exploded with one key phrase common to all posts: “#MeToo…” CBS News reported that the hashtag was tweeted nearly one million times in only 48 hours. About 4.7 million Facebook users globally posted over 12 million posts, comments, and reactions in less than 24 hours. At first glance, I thought, “Brilliant! Women are banding together to call out the toxic and perverted degenerates who have hurt them.” This was inspiring.

In what seemed like a matter of just minutes, more and more women began speaking out. Behind every woman who publicly made an accusation of sexual assault, an accusation that should never be taken lightly, there was an accused man. A filmmaker here. A Congressman there. Producers, coaches, actors, athletes, network analysts, chefs, political figures, businessmen, conductors, journalists, average Joes, you name it. All of these men…sexual predators? While it’s certainly true that there are disgusting and abhorrent men like Harvey Weinstein who have assaulted multiple women, there must be many more than just a small handful of men accused of sexual assault by the millions of women who came out as victims. Behind every single #MeToo post in the world, there is supposedly a morally corrupt, perverted, and sick sexual predator who caused immense pain and trauma.

It occurred to me that, if this is true, previous generations must have done something fundamentally wrong in raising the men of today. All of these men have somehow been conditioned to sexually assault as a product of upbringing, culture, and/or education. #MeToo’s contention is that close to 18 million women have been sexually assaulted since 1998. This then must mean that slightly fewer, considering some men assault multiple women, than nearly 18 million men are criminals. This just doesn’t make sense! That number is too high to be plausible. When I think about the 1 in 5 statistic that I heard so often before starting college three years ago, I also think about all the men I’ve encountered on Duke’s campus. How many of them are sexual predators? I believe that very, very few actually are. #MeToo, and the modern-day feminist movement in general, has turned into a man-hating frenzy, instilling fear in men lest they exhibit any behavior towards a woman that can potentially be called “sexual assault.”

I recently read a New York Times article reporting that Mia Merrill, a feminist and former art history student, began an online petition to take down a 1938 painting by the artist Balthus from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art because it depicted a young girl in a “sexually suggestive pose,” which apparently constituted sexual assault. The petition had thousands of signatures. This ridiculous story reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend over dinner during winter break last year. We were talking about the image of modern-day feminism and she recounted her experience of what she directly called “sexual assault,” which went something like this:

“Last week, I was assaulted. I was sitting in a cafe and a man I had never seen before came up to me and told me I had really beautiful eyes. He continued to stare at me for about a minute before he left, and I felt very uncomfortable.”

What these two stories have in common is that they are heavily misleading. The Department of Justice defines sexual assault as “sexual activities that occur without the explicit consent of the recipient, such as forced sexual intercourse, forcible sodomy, child molestation, incest, fondling and attempted rape.” To say that experiences like that of Ms. Merill or my friend constitute sexual assault and have just as much gravitas as any other experience of sexual assault is offensive to real victims. The #MeToo movement’s conflation of someone being catcalled on the street and Annabella Sciorra being violently raped by Harvey Weinstein is highly problematic. In failing to make an essential distinction between nuanced sexual experiences, the movement is undermining itself by giving so much attention to radicals who claim that sexual assault can mean anything from a nonconsensual touch on the arm (or bad sex) to forced penetration.

As a traditional feminist, I believe women should be strong. They should certainly fight for their rights, but not demand special privileges to compensate for the years of oppression women endured when they didn’t have the right to vote or when marital rape was legal. As a feminist, I want feminism to be taken seriously. But assigning victimhood to an entire gender is not feminism; it’s a bad idea. It’s a reason to not be taken seriously. Calling millions of men sexual predators and condemning masculinity as a propeller of sexual assault is not feminism; it’s just making women look weak. Marching around calling people names and wearing pussy hats is not feminism; it’s failing to realize that we are undermining the struggles of actual victims.

The only way the #MeToo movement can become a better movement is if feminists are more-open minded to criticism. Yes, the stories are personal and incredibly important, but that’s exactly why we should be striving to create a movement that serves those stories justice and doesn’t blow everything out of proportion. We need to take off our rose-colored glasses and recognize that #MeToo is not flawless just because it deals with an important cause. It needs to be better. Much better.

Does that mean trying to work with our President, despite disagreeing with him, instead of constantly labeling him as a misogynist and refusing to even consider anything he says or does? Does that mean listening to conservative women and realizing that they, too, believe it or not, have very important things to say? Does that mean taking a step back from being so self-absorbed in our “daily struggles as women in the United States” and paying more attention to women in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Eastern Europe, recognizing that our privilege puts us in a position to make their lives better? Does that mean hesitating before making an incredibly strong accusation like sexual assault? Does that mean being loud, strong, and resolute, but also open-minded, grounded, and rational? I think yes.