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.
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.
I’m not sure the mere existence of TERFs has led to any significant movement to rename feminism among the NB community.
It’s a complicated issue. I’m being a bit reductive when I say every enbyphobic feminist is a terf. There’s lots of people who think of themselves as trans allies, but still don’t believe in genderfluidity, xenogenders, or two-spirit. They think they’re allies of nonbinary people, because they simply choose not to believe in the nonbinary people they exclude and oppress. Does that make them TERFs? It’s complicated.
We haven’t assembled into a movement about this because it’s not that big a deal, and we have more pressing problems like impending genocide. We can’t waste time organising about a word. But on a personal level, the word still makes us uncomfortable. When we’re told feminism is for nonbinary people, some of us feel like we’re being called female. Misgendered. But if feminism isn’t for nonbinary people, well that’s a bigger problem.
The debate around terminology for spaces intended for women (and the tendency for folks to make nebulous assertions about the inclusion of NBs) seems to me to be an entirely separate issue.
Fundamentally, I see what you’re saying but I’d like to push back on the idea that the term “feminism” needs rethinking at this point in time.
I’d even go so far as to say the parent comment where a rejection of the term feminism is portrayed as tantamount to “all lives matter” is more correct than the idea that “feminism” is a poor term because it feels like misgendering. This is a space centered around the idea that feminism is good for men because feminism is not a term that should leave you feeling gendered in it’s primary usage.
