Do you consider yourself a feminist?

In My Humble Opinion
181

Here, I’ll share my smelling salts with you.

Getting back on topic, certain words get demonized at certain times. When I was growing up, both right wing and reactionary were generally considered to be negative in my cohort. Nowadays, in my area, most people pride themselves on being conservative/right wing. Rush Limbaugh popularized the term “feminazi” (I don’t know if it originated with him or not) and made feminist and liberal seem like insulting terms for people.

It’s a question of who gets to define the terms. Are you pro-life or anti-choice? Are you pro-choice or are you a baby murderer? Most people don’t think very deeply about the terms they use, and will use the most popular phrases, and let others define the terms.

182

Gonna try to express this without being a total idiot.

You know the whole idea of privilege? I personally think it’s misused fairly often, but is really a useful idea in certain contexts. Most especially, there’s the idea that folks in power ought to spend time listening to folks out of power disproportionate to the time they spend talking to folks out of power (that is, powerful folks? Talk less, listen more). Folks with traits that tend to put them in power–male, white, straight, wealthy, etc.–get their basic stories told a lot, whereas folks with traits that tend to deny them power get their basic stories told much less. So in a discussion of gender inequality, men oughtta spend a lot less time talking than they spend listening, because the experience of masculinity is considered the default, and everyone’s already heard a lot about the experiences common to masculinity, whereas the experience of femininity is not the default, and folks tend to have heard a lot less about those common experiences.

So far, so good. And that’s why I’m a feminist, and why I tend to listen more than talk in threads like this.

But: have you noticed how many feminist women in the thread have said things like, “I’ve never encountered the nutty feminists that you’re describing”? That suggests to me that you’ve either not heard the stories common to men who’ve associated with feminists, or you deny those stories because they don’t match your experiences. I don’t know that it’s right to say that you benefit from privilege here, but it’s something analogous (and, it goes without saying, much less pernicious).

I’m a feminist. I not only believe in equality between the sexes, I also believe that historical and current social patterns lead to a tremendous inequality of power between the sexes, and I think that we need to take active, sex-aware steps to mitigate this imbalance.

That said: my high school girlfriend got a bunch of books by Dworkin and Daly from a woman at our church who was going through an ugly divorce, and boy did those books make life fun for insecure adolescent me. A (terribly manipulative and dishonest) woman in a group I was in pulled the “misogynist” card on me during an argument for no reason other than to push my buttons. I’ve had a few other things like that happen.

By no means have most feminists I’ve encountered behaved like this. But I have no reason to doubt that the obnoxious feminists out there direct their obnoxiousness disproportionately at men. And it makes sense that men would disproportionately have unfavorable impressions of feminists.

It doesn’t excuse folks making overbroad generalizations about feminists. I think it just indicates that reasonable feminists, both women and men, shouldspeak up and make it clear that they’re not gonna use feminism as a way to try to silence men.

183

I somehow missed this one earlier:

If I am raped, fondled, or beaten by a man and not taken seriously by whatever powers that I go to and in turn start hating men, that makes me a misandrist, not some other fun name you decide to call it. If you are raped, fondled, or beaten by a woman and not taken seriously by whatever powers that you go to and in turn start hating women, you’re a freaking misogynist.

Let’s call a spade a spade, friend.

184

Yeah, like feminism ever had a chance in hell of silencing men. Get real.

185

And beyond that, I feel like that’s what I’m constantly shouting. How many times in this very thread have multiple people tried to make the point that the ideas of feminism are not part of some greater, zero sum game?

186

A lot of women didn’t feel included when the words man or mankind was used to describe people in general. Example: Star Trek’s “to boldly go where no man has gone before” was changed to “boldly go where no one has gone before.” I understand why a lot of women don’t feel included even though by definition they are a part of mankind. I don’t really care if other people call me a feminist but it’s not something I’ll call myself. I’m a man and I feel excluded by the word feminist.

187

I wasn’t being clear at all, I’m afraid. Feminism at a whole never has a chance in hell of silencing men as a whole, absolutely not. But obnoxious individuals have, in my experience, tried to use feminism as a way to silence me in inappropriate fashions. All I’m saying is that such behavior is obnoxious, and that you as a woman probably haven’t experienced that specific behavior.

Of course it’s not, and people who say it is are being silly. This doesn’t address the specific obnoxious behavior I’m talking about, a specific behavior that men are subjected to more often than women. (And in case it needs repeating, no, this specific obnoxious behavior is not remotely comparable to the specific obnoxious behaviors that women are subjected to more often than men, e.g., rape, sexual assault, hiring discrimination, etc.)

188

Ok, but as a man, I haven’t experienced that either.

189

I definitely do not consider myself a feminist, not by a long stretch. For the record, I’m a man going through a divorce after a 10+ year marriage, so after hearing my lawyer explain today how I’m about to be fucked by the courts, I’ll admit that I’m biased as all fuck.

I’ve seen many threads regarding “creepy” guys where women are annoyed at men because these creepy guys aren’t being .. you know, creepy, when men are around. They save their creep-on for when they are alone with women. For the record, I have no doubt this happens. I have seen women call out men on this, and I have seen women get frustrated with men, who have never seen this creepy behaviour, and thus they don’t believe it.

Now turn it around, and point out that anti-male feminists tend to be a lot less aggressive when it’s just women around, and they save their real crazy for when men are around. It’s funny how women tend to act just like men do in the reversed situation, which means to ignore, downplay, and act condescending. My cite?

190

That’s fine. As Mithrandir points out, there are guys whom my women friends think are really creepy. Although those guys haven’t creeped on me, I don’t dismiss their experiences as invalid just because they don’t match mine. I respect that they’re telling me the truth about their experiences, and conversely, I expect them to offer me the same respect.

It may be, Inner Stickler, that your high school girlfriend didn’t get a stack of Dworkin and Daly books from an older woman at church. Am I right? It may be that you’ve never had someone call you misogynist because you challenged her leadership of a group (in case it matters, several women friends burst out laughing when I told them about this, and reassured me she was way off base). Am I right? If so, that’s awesome for you. I’ll trust you won’t use your experiences to suggest that mine are invalid.

191

I’d say it’s male privilege. It’s easy not to see the need for a social movement when you’re the one benefiting from the status quo. Especially if you’re the open-minded, progressive type who thinks he’s not buying into the patriarchy.

192

Did I say that your experience was invalid? (Don’t even know what the fuck an invalid experience would look like.) I’m saying I haven’t seen the same behaviors you have, so classifying it as an issue of gender is misleading. It’s an issue of personality.

If every female friend I have told me a particular guy friend is creepy, I’d take that pretty seriously.

193

I suppose it’s unladylike to be condescending then? Or is it your contention that feminism actually has a chance in hell of silencing men? Oh wait, just silencing one man at a time when they can’t come up with an answer quick enough. Oh, how horrible of us feminists, damaging the fragile male ego.

194

Hear that Mithrander it’s really because of your male privilage that you’re not a feminist.

Young men out there reading this. Don’t get married, don’t shack up, don’t have kids focus on yourselves. Safer that way, not worth the risk. You have a 50/50 chance it’ll work out. Would you jump out of a plane if the intructor told you, your chute has a 50/50 chance of not opening ?

195

Women have less reason to care about the anti-male factions of feminism, for obvious reasons. And people are less likely to consider them self-hating if they identify themselves as feminist.

196

Don’t even get me started on the idea of male privilege. Instead, let me ask you about male obligation. Like the draft. Or giving up the last seat on the lifeboat for the women and children. A lot of women complain about male privilege, and I have never heard one talk about the flipside of the coin. They want “equality”, but not real equality. The fact that over 90% of workplace fatalities are men? Ever heard a women claiming they want an equal chance to die at work?

My ego is fine, thank you very much. I just saw your post dripping with condescension, and used that as a convenient example.

As regarding to feminists silencing men, it already happens. Feminists tend to try to shout down and insult any man who doesn’t agree with them. Straight white men are strongly discouraged from complaining about any injustice they suffer. “Man it up” they say. And as a rule of thumb, women are considered more deserving of empathy than men are. So a lot of men keep silent, not wanting to deal with the fallout.

I think it has more to do with my disgust at the lack of female obligation. Women are encouraged to do whatever they want, men are not. When my wife refused to go back to work when the kids were all in school, no one had any sympathy for my frustration, how dare I assume that she was being lazy? On the other hand, if I quit my job and decide that my life’s calling is to be a street mime? I’m a deadbeat dad, worthy of being locked up and being treated about half a step up from murderers, paedophiles, and smokers.

And that is why I am not a feminist.

197

Huh? Did your wife become a street mime? :dubious:

My papa was a sahdad, and that was the '80s. He was the epitome of cool, not a deadbeat. But, yes, if he’d become a street mime he would’ve been considered a deadbeat, not least because he wouldn’t be very good at it. Same for my mum.

198

Well, yeah. Mimes.

199

It was just last week that I went down to my job as a grinder-loader at the Pork Sausage Factory And Rickety Ladder Warehouse when I was greeted at the door by a Navy recruiting officer. One look in his sorrowful face and I knew what he had come for.

“Sorry, kid.” he said, a single tear sliding down his face. “You’ve been picked for the draft.”

I knew someday that it would come to this. I swore I would be brave. But I had one request to make of him. “Will you do me a favor, Sir, before you send me off to fight those bloodthirsty Australians?”

“I’ll do my best, ensign, so shoot.”

“Tell my ex-wife she’s a dirty skank.”

Days later, my entire battalion was sunk by the enemy’s new Drop Bear Stealth Torpedoes. They ordered me to man the lifeboats, and man them I did. 15 boats to hold 30 passengers… and I was number 34. I loaded a toddler and his dumpy, unrapeworthy mom into the last vessel and turned to face the setting sun.

Listen for me when the coastal winds blow.

200

Warning: Occasional F-bombs Those privileged blue bundles of joy