As has been pointed out, there is no agreement on what “real” feminism is, including by women calling themselves feminists.
And if someone asks a man if he’s a feminist, he certainly has a perfect right to decide what it is he’s being asked about and clarify his answer.
The ERA was a stupid idea in general although somewhat understandable at the time it was introduced. You can’t just add stuff the Constitution and expect to have control over what consequences it will have decades or centuries later. In defense of earlier feminism, they already achieved the vast majority of their goals and it was probably the most successful social movement ever but the need for it is gone now. You just get a bunch of flakes pushing their alternate version of bigotry among a small of group intellectual masturbators trying to force other people to adopt their divisive ideology.
They still cal themselves progressives or liberals in general but they are anything but that. It is time to move on, rethink, relabel, and get with the 21st century. That is what reasonable progressives and liberals should strive for (equal rights for all regardless of sex) but th irony is that true feminists are still hopelessly stuck in the past.
Things women fought for in regarding women’s rights/equality I absolutley agree with it. e.g. My team leader is a woman, the CEO of where I work is a woman. Women are well represented, well paid and well respected where I work. In an organization of over three thousand. Comapred to how women are treated in other parts of the world I believe our western culture is doing quite well in this regard.
There’s was just too much, and there still is a very vocal minority of woo-hoo misandric bullshit associated to feminism, so as a male. I will never say I am a feminist. I realize of course most women who identify themselves as feminist don’t fall into the koo-koo for co-co puffs category. But it’s the nutty vocal minority that’s a big turn off.
On the flipside, I’ve been paying attention to the MRM and men’s issues for a couple of years now. A lot of the issues they discuss affecting men are very real. Reproductive rights, custody and divorce issues. But just like feminism the MRM and MRA have their mysognistic nutters. I’ve lurked some of the forums, read the posts and said to myself there’s no way I want to be part of this. It’s obvious some of these guys hate women. I don’t.
So if anything I’m all for true equal rights for both genders. Not a feminist, not a MRA. Humanist ?
I’m 35. I’ve never once heard a girl or woman, me or otherwise, being told anything remotely like any of these statements outside of the pages of a book or off a tv screen. Stories told by other women from the times before I was born, sure, but no first hand experience or witnessing. I know such sexism still exists, but it’s hardly as pervasive in the US as some would make it out to be.
But anyway, I’m pro-life. I don’t identify as feminist.
Oh, little unimportant things like inequality in pay scales and promotions, expectations about family care, the rampant lookism in society, double standards, stuff like that.
Whether men (or women) know it or not, sexism is still a problem. And feminists have the right to address what are specifically women’s issues without being made to feel like they are being selfish by claiming a term which specifically relates to those issues. Of course, we are for equal rights for all, men and women. But women still have matters to attend to for themselves.
Just today, someone winning the lottery offered a million to build a sports stadium for their local school on one condition. They stipulated that the visiting team’s locker room be painted pink. The condition was granted.
Harmless, right? But think about it. Pink is a girl’s color, so the visiting boys sports teams would be dressing in a (gasp!) pink room! Like a bunch of girly girls. So the home team would have an instant psychological advantage, ha, ha, ha.
The donor said she made the stipulation as a joke. It no doubt was. But the meaning still lingers. Boys are better than girls. Pink equals women equals demeaning.
But don’t mind me, I’m just a cranky feminist witch.
Preach it!!!
I’m 55. And my parents absolutely did not make my brother do girly chores, and my sister and I were not allowed to do masculine things. If I wanted to help my father when he was doing woodworking, I was told to go help my mother clean house, for instance. I was not allowed to have a regular job after school, but it was OK for me to have random babysitting jobs.
In one high school, I was not allowed to take wood shop. Nor was I allowed to take a second year of science, I was put into a Home Ec class instead. That state allowed girls to take a year of Home Ec instead of the second year of science. The particular high school that I went to decided that just about all the girls needed to be in Home Ec, and my parents agreed that it was better for me, despite the fact that I was intensely interested in science.
So our mileage varies. I think that both of our experiences are valid…and I think that this points up the need for legislation to REQUIRE that all students have the same curriculum, that both boys and girls can take any class that they want to.
For a while, I was on a business mailing list, and I used a male name for it. I was contacted off list by other male names, and sometimes they’d gripe about women. It was…eye opening.
Ad campaigns LOVE to co-opt movements and exploit and twist their messages to turn a profit, and media pundits love to create controversy to increase viewership. Neither advertising nor mass media journalism really cares about providing a nuanced treatment of a concept; they just want soundbites, and then these soundbites get twisted and of course the most extreme elements get covered more often, and then the movement runs the risk of being derailed because the tail is wagging the dog. I think this is the main reason why the number of women who identify as feminists has waned over the last decade.
If men can’t be feminists (that is: engage analytical/critical, participate in its evolution, etc.) then by that same token white women can’t be not-racists. Indeed, anatomy is destiny.
Sheesh, even Malcolm X regretted his response to the well-intentioned white college woman who asked what she could do to help: “nothing.” But us men may participate only by rescinding whatever privileges we have been judged guilty of holding.
Right now, the most powerful feminist on earth is, by your reasoning, wasting her time since she herself is not Syrian and has no firsthand knowledge of what it takes to govern Syria.
“I’m not angry because I’m a feminist, I’m a feminist because I’m angry.” - nope, don’t remember where the quote is from.
I don’t think I’ve run into blatant sexism IRL, but our culture still has a hell of a lot of nasty subtext going on. The only way to get rid of it is to call it out and make people aware of it. So I guess that makes me a feminist.
And yes, there’s a hell of a lot of nasty subtext out there about men, too, which also needs to be gotten rid of. The feminists I hang out with are well aware of it and fight that too. Ironically, the same myths tend to top the list of most harmful for both men and women. “Men are controlled by their boners” is a big one right now, so is the “women are emotional, men are logical” split.
The ‘feminists hate men’ thing is a straw man, and a very tired one. I think I’ve seen one or two man-haters. Online. Considering that online misogyny is generally considered completely invalid as evidence of actual sexism in the world at large, I’m going to go ahead and dismiss the tiny amount of man hating I’ve seen online as well.
I believe in gender equality. Whether it “benefits” women or not. Even if a particular law or circumstance happens to only seem to apply to women it should still be worded gender neutrally.
And it should benefit men equally too - after birth child care time should be awarded to them too for example. And more work should be done on the myths about women being automatically better at child care and never the abuser in relationships or sexual encounters. Sexual careers should be regulated but not illegal.
If a job requires physical attributes then any women who meet them should be eligible. Likewise, those sorts of institutions should strive to have positions available to both men and women who can’t meet the physical requirements.
I think the only thing I’m still torn on is gender division for privacy - dorms, doctors, bathrooms, locker rooms.
“I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat, or a prostitute." - Rebecca West, 1913.
I’m way too old and crotchety to be worried about people thinking I’m a hairy-armpitted manhater if I claim the title of feminist.
Feminism is just another flavor of sexism. I’m a humanist.
Please tell us more. Your respect for women is legendary.
I don’t respect women (or men) as a blanket category at all . I respect some people in general and judge them all on their individual merits. That is a distinction that self-proclaimed feminists need to learn so that we can move away from pointless labels, stereotypes, and discrimination among all people. You can try to dress up the ideology in pseudo-inclusive terms but feminism is divisive movement by design and should be viewed the same as any other divisive group like The Black Panthers. If doesn’t truly mean that to you, change the name or, better yet, just view yourself as an individual with nuanced viewpoints who doesn’t need to cling to labels to classify them.
Okay, I seriously agree that this is ridiculous. Though if I can go on a slight tangent, we really need to do away with the “pink for girls” thing. There is literally no congruent color for boys.
“But Jragon!” You may say, “blue is for boys.” No way, not in the same way, not at all. “Blue for boys” doesn’t follow or define us, not after two years old at least. Ever been in the boy’s toy aisle? Lots of colors, blues, sure, but a ton or reds and yellows and the rest of the rainbow. Girl’s toy aisle? PINK OVERLOAD.
If somebody proposed painting the girl’s locker room blue, literally nobody would think that we’re trying to treat women like men, but paint a boy’s locker room pink and we’re treating boys like girls. See a blue painted bedroom in a TV show? “Huh, I wonder whose room that is.” A pink room? “Oh, that must be the girl’s!” It’s completely ridiculous. I’m not saying you’re wrong in making that assumption, Two, you’re absolutely correct in making it, because that’s exactly what it is. I just think it’s a bit eyebrow raising that girls have this weird color label that follows them through life when boys have nothing similar. It is an example of sexism even regardless of the “haha the away team are weak like girls” shit.
I’m male, I do not consider myself to be a “man”, I’m genderqueer. (Although I don’t quibble at each and every opportunity; if the bathrooms are labeled “MEN” and “WOMEN” I use the one labeled “MEN”). I consider myself feminist.
Man and No. I support equal rights for all people, but I don’t think that as a man I get to call myself a feminist. I would if the name were appropriate, because I agree with the idea.
I took an introductory women’s study course where the professor told us that her definition of feminism was simply that you believe in equal rights for everyone, men and women included. And that was it. She said that if you believe everyone should have equal rights, then you were a feminist in her eyes.
I raised my hands and asked, “Well if that’s the definition, what makes feminism different than humanism? Humanism believes in equal rights for everyone too.”
And she kind of hemmed and hawed about how humanism was interesting and had an “interesting” history (I think she was being negative about it), and said that the difference was that feminism holds that if you guarantee women’s rights first and foremost, the rights for everyone else will fall into place, more or less.
Suffice it to say that I consider myself a humanist, and if your definition of feminism is just that everyone should have equal rights, you’re a humanist too.
These are the sentiments I wanted to post, only you’ve phrased them better than I would have.
Once men and women are on an equal footing, I’ll start considering “feminist” to be an outdated term and I’ll go with “humanist”. That day is getting closer for most of us, but there are still stunning examples of how fragile the rights of women actually are in a lot of places. The viciousness of the reaction against mandated coverage of birth control, for example, makes me think that the U.S. has not yet quite arrived at parity.