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.
