That’s the myth I routinely have to bust to guys I meet who hate feminists. I ask if they think women should have the right to vote. When they yes, I say that’s feminism. It’s simplistic and I usually follow up with other basic rights until I get to the contemporary issues. I say that if they want all that stuff then they are also feminists. Their reaction after this depends on how entrenched or how stupid they are.
It’s easy to fall into motte-and-bailey reasoning though. The motte is an easily defended simple thing most people agree with. The bailey is a controversial thing you want to advance. If the bailey is debated, you can retreat into the motte and make claims that it’s simple and uncontroversial. Most ideologies or systems of thought have a core that many people agree with, and then that’s taken as approval of all its extrapolations. For example, do you believe that people should be able to decide what they use their money for? Well, then you must agree with laissez-faire neo-liberalism. Do you want children to be safe online? Then you agree that the government should inspect all your communication. Do you want everyone to be equal? Then you must agree with everything the soviet union did.
With feminism, it’s easy to defend the core ideas, but it also encompasses implementations like affirmative action which not everyone agrees with, and practices that are not about dismantling hierarchies but rather just “wanting a better seat at the table of tyranny”, to quote White Lotus.
On a personal level, I work in a female dominated workplace, where women hold all the positions of power. There’s a lot of remarks and actions that would absolutely not be ok if the genders were reversed. A constant flow of explanations why men are stupid, sexualizing male workers, “playful” sexual harassment, ridiculing men etc. Many of them are self-proclaimed feminists. And it’s cheered on and praised as a form of “girl power”. If you ask me to identify as a feminist, these are the people I think of.
I have struggled a lot with setting boundaries and not letting myself be taken advantage of, so I’m very reluctant to be a part of something that requires self-flagellation over which group of people I belong to. I agree with the core of feminism, but to call myself a feminist I’d like my voice to be as welcome as a womans voice, which is rarely the case in my experience.
I’m sorry that you’re in that situation and it doesn’t sound like they are true feminists to me.
There’s a bit of… something, irony maybe, in my experience that I’m trying to be aware of. I can’t judge a movement by the not-true-feminists while feeling hurt that I’m judged by what other men have done. Maybe there’s a difference between an ideological label and a gender, but still. It’s this generalization that feels similar. I know that when I am given compassion I am much more likely to care about others. And vice versa. Maybe I need to look past the loud not-true-feminists and try harder to see the points of the true feminists. Maybe they need to look past bad men and not treat me as a villain by default. It’s this stalemate I feel locked into.
We all live in our own little bubbles; they may not be true feminists to you, but they sound quite consistent with the people around me who describe themselves as feminists. A significant portion of feminist activists in my online bubble also seem to subscribe to the same ideas.
“Feminism” is just a sloppy term. It’s “egalitarianism”: people deserve rights, your demographic shouldn’t decrease your rights. Those who you’re referring to when you use the term “feminists” will insist upon this interpretation, for good reason.
“Feminism”, as a term, conjures images of the uplifting of women, which was a potent image when women weren’t allowed to vote or work most jobs. Now, with many of those low-hanging battles won, equality is largely the case, and the image of uplifting women feels a lot more like favoritism and bias than leveling the field.
Yes there are gender specific issues, but those exist in both directions much more equally than when the “feminism” label was solidified. The goal should not be to uplift women, the goal should be to trivialize the influence of gender and sex on the involuntary conditions of life. When that results in the uplifting of women, great. But men face struggles intrinsic to being men too, and naming your egalitarian movement after femininity only deepens the divide with marginalized men.
I don’t think feminism is the wrong word in this case. The way men are harmed by patriarchy is directly related to how women are understood as lesser. Male only drafts, male worth based on possession of women, unequal familial rights, and harmful beliefs about men’s emotion all exists as ways to subjugate women.
For the draft and emotions, men’s “violent nature” is cultivated because “we have to protect the women.” The only emotion you allowed to have is righteous anger used to defend women. This dynamic ties neatly into men as predators. Men are naturally violent, look at how that violence protects the women, but when improperly raised they become monsters.
Men often feel as though they have no social standing if they haven’t had sex with a woman. The way that relationship is framed is often conquest and power rather than mutual connection and understanding. The truth is men would benefit far more from connection, understanding, and knowing that they can have social standing beyond fucking somebody.
Unequal family rights are directly related to the societal expectation that women are the primary care givers. Which frequently results in women working full time jobs, taking care of the children, and taking care of the house.
I don’t think the term feminism is really the problem. Billions of dollars have been spent by right wing billionaires to control this narrative. It’s no wonder young people have a skewed perception of what feminism is. I don’t think changing the term to gender equality really would have helped much.
The truth is men would benefit far more from connection, understanding, and knowing that they can have social standing beyond fucking somebody.
Please stop viewing men as defective women. Maybe fucking somebody is more important than you think. Maybe the problem is that instead of supporting men we’re telling them to stop wanting the things they want.
Yeah, but no. To refuse the term feminism is like to say “white lives matter too”. Of course men deserve rights, and of course white lives matter too. But white people and men don’t need to fight for themselves.
Swing and a miss, mate. Many people who have a problem with the name feminism are nonbinary people, who want equality but have been excluded from the movement by enbyphobic women, AKA TERFs. While there are lots of feminists who say feminism also means uplifting enbies, some enbies feel misgendered by this terminology, and reality is nonetheless more complicated. But your comment reducing every opponent of the term to male privilege is perfectly symbolic of the nonbinary exclusionism practiced by many who use the term feminism, and demonstrates exactly why some nonbinary people have a problem.
Except that that is the theoretical definition of feminism. Modern radical feminism (what we see around us) is hardly that
“what we see around us” – where? there are very few “modern radical feminists” in real life, they’re all on shitty youtubros’ channels and weird conservatives’ twitter feeds. i guarantee you’ve met a ton of feminists without even knowing, hell a lot of your childhood idols and role models were probably feminists (there are a lot more self-identified feminist role models than you may think).
specifically focusing on the distinction between “modern feminism” and “previous feminism” is a conservative talking point that has unfortunately made its way into common internet culture, there is nothing less righteous about the modern feminist/equality movement than before – although there are bad parts of it which still exist like TERFs. “it was okay before, but now i can’t tolerate it” is basically what righties say whenever a movement threatens the hierarchy too much and they want to make it seem “radical” and therefore “bad”. the reality is that the past of the feminist movement has had many flaws and a lot of bigotry (especially in the context of LGBT), which “modern” feminists have made significant improvements on.
And in doing so, they drill the idea of “men are at fault for existing” down the brains of little boys. I have said this before and I will keep saying it: feminism was defined as promoting women’s equality with relation to men, but it’s now about the equity women can get from men
So then do you think women’s right to their own body is not an issue we should be concerned about today? Assuming you’re from the US.
