Fascinating Guardian article" Feminism is "outmoded"?

In My Humble Opinion
101

The abstract, dictionary definition does not reflect real-world feminism. I have not met an individual feminist nor encountered a feminist group that actually supported the same rights for men as for women.
We have let feminists define feminism in the best light possible. Some early feminists might have claimed to support the same rights for both sexes. In practice, they widely back only the rights of women – including at the detriminent of the rights of men. They do not oppose discrimination – in fact they actively lobby for pro-feminist discrimination. And to cite just one example, they have actively lobbied to reduce a man’s right to defend himself against false accusations of rape, child abuse, etc. Under the slogan of “women do not lie about these things,” they have even demanded that a man accused of harassing a female be fired – or jailed – merely on the basis of her word against his.
Does that sound like equal rights to anyone?

If we wanted to define feminism as it really is, it would be:
A special-interest movement to promote the rights, power and wealth of its members.

102

For laughs, I ran all your posts on this thread through a word-count. You have posted more than a thousand words to this thread.
Apparently you have time.
But in those thousand words, you do not once condemn the outright hate speech lina has put on this thread.
And I submit it’s because her hate speech does not bother you enough for you to object.

Cowgirl, I have absolutely no problem condemning abusive men. Show me an abusive man and I will condemn his acts. So will nearly every man. There was a thread in the pit awhile back in which a man said a woman had claimed she was raped. There were men on the thread advocating violence – even though there was no proof as yet to verify her story! It could have been a hoax.
So you see, men have no problem condemning abusers.
Feminism has a big problem in condemning man-bashing in that feminists widely refuse to do it. When you sit by while a feminist spews hate speech against men, you are tolerating hate.

Again, here is what lina says:
**

If you object to this, Cowgirl, then make a straightforward condemnation of it. If you refuse, then you are dishonest when you say you oppose anti-male hatred.

We’ll watch for your response.
In other matters, you can present anyone you consider a major feminist. From this site, an anonymous writer says “In From Margin to Center, Bell Hooks shattered my comfortable and noble version of feminism by unveiling the hypocrisy of my white feminist sisters.”

I want the same right as this woman to denounce the hypocrisy of feminism. Going back to the Guardian article that launched this discussion, it’s obvious that many people find feminism negative and hypocritcal. Feminists cannot go on saying it’s all just backlash or an effort to keep womyn down.

Unless it’s a feminist named margin. I’m waiting for her to show up and tell us how the above comment about Hooks shows that Hooks is “waiting to inflate any incident where they don’t get their way into some huge tantrum because she’s a git who sees anything they don’t get as a rights issue than a privelege issue. What’s the matter, ex-wife get tired of you?” And so on in that adorable margin fashion. I mean, if those are the only reasons for voicing criticism of feminism, they must apply to Hooks as well.

103

No, I do not. I use the concepts of NOW and strident feminists interchangeably. Many women and many individuals do not identify themselves as feminists, which is what this thread is all about.

The trouble is that the term “feminist” used to mean someone who believed that women should have rights equal to men (allowing for essential biological differences). It has been co-opted to mean something different. A “strident feminist” is one who attempts to shout down those who use the old definition.

And kung fu lola and NOW will immediately deny them the right to call themselves “feminists”. The generalizations come from them.

You are contradicting yourself.

If NOW simply made up the reasons for their position out of whole cloth, or a desire maliciously to insult men, then it did not have a valid reason to involve itself.

So if NOW makes up some admittedly false accusations about fathers, and I refuse to believe it, this is evidence that I am close-minded?

So if you refuse to buy into Roe v. Wade, you can’t be a feminist.

If you refuse to accept whatever NOW tells you at face value, you can’t be a feminist.

Essentially, if you ask too many questions, you can’t be a feminist.

And people are surprised when feminism becomes marginalized.

Regards,
Shodan

104

Hoo…boy.

Well, I’d like to say something now. Getting back to the feminism being “outmoded” topic.

I go to an all women’s school, that some of you just might have heard of- Barnard College (goooo, Bears!). Or in the words of “The Simpsons,” Collumbia’s girl next door. So I guess I’m a prime example of someone who SHOULD be a feminist. A lot of people might automatically consider you a feminist just for going to an all girls’ school. I know at least one person, who is generally very much into activism/saving the world, who felt uncomfortable at the idea of being a feminist. Which I found interesting. I myself have no interest in helping the world, paying attention to politics, or actually doing anything. And that’s partly why I don’t call myself a feminist, but I digress. The fact that my friend, who actually knows about AIDS and heads of state in other countries, who goes to a liberal women’s college, would go out of her way not to be called a feminist did speak volumes to me. Perhaps it really is outmoded. At any rate, it isn’t a fun or trendy identity, and doesn’t that mean the most at the end of the day?

I guess the other reason I don’t call myself a feminist (the first being I’m completely apathetic about real world situations) is that I detest “isms.” Nazism, fascism, communism, socialism, onanism, feminism, they’re all the same to me. Well, maybe not onanism, I could really go for that one. I prefer to be an individual, to make up my own ideas about what’s cool. To focus on surrounding myself with creative, innovative books/movies/etc…not with subscribing to what NOW, or anyone else tells me to. The minute you make something into an “ism” you corrupt it. Like Shodan just said up there, about rules for being a feminist…rules ruin it when they become pedantic and irrelevent. I don’t want to be told what to be, or think.

Of course I’m not completely bored by feminism. Feminist film theory, which I learned about in my film class, is something I find interesting, even fascinating. But most of the time, I prefer to keep things on the level of theory. It’s just more interesting to me than going out and protesting. Easier, too.

The bottom line is, I don’t like subscribing to the group mentality when I don’t have to. I can damn well make up my own mind without the help of of a women’s organization. And for that matter, I really hate these labels. I don’t like the idea that as a woman, or better yet, a woman of color, I have a new and unique perspective on “culture” or “society.” Maybe these labels mean something to marginalized women in South Africa selling themselves into slavery, but to me they’re just so many buzz words. Personally if I had to make a rigid label for myself, it would be something like “Rabid Futurama Fan” or “Follower of Murder Mysteries.”

Plus, I don’t want to identify with people who go out of their way to seem oppressed. The fact that earlier, SAL and lina(…or was it cowgirl? I don’t even know at this point!) were arguing about who was more of an abuser, and who put more victims in the hospital, men or women, just makes me sick. Who wants to be a victim, and who wants to parade that? I’d rather not, thanks. I just generally don’t like to acknowledge my own weaknesses.

And finally…I don’t know that I’d like to be part of a group based on the fact that I happen to be a woman. I don’t always empathize with people because they’re women. I couldn’t care less what’s happening to more marginalized, oppressed women on the other side of the world just because they have the same number of X chromosomes as I do. I guess I prefer to be more androgynous…I don’t always like thinking of myself as “all woman.” So one more nail in the coffin for feminism.

Just one member of this generation’s dissatisfaction with yet another organization.

105

Then why are you bothering to post? :confused:

Just because you are interested in an ‘ism’ doesn’t mean you have to become a member of an organisation. It just means that you are interested in considering/evaluating modes of behaviour or the thinking behind actions of some members of society which happen to have been given these labels merely as a handy means of identifying the particular phenomena.
And what about the other ‘isms’ like capitalism or pluralism to mention but two that could be used to describe the society you live in? While I understand your perception of this labelling as ‘corrupting’ or ‘boxing-in’ the theories they describe this is, at the end of the day, just a perception and one that should not cloud your judgement and make you dismiss a whole theory/idea out of hand. All names or labels have implications or make suggestions but they are just names. ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’.

And as I said before, you don’t have to. You also don’t have to think about things other than TV and Murder Mystery novels either if you don’t want to, but most college students I ever knew were interested in finding out about and trying to understand the world they live in on a deeper level than this.

‘Feminism’ is not an organisation - it is an idea/theory. You are confusing ‘feminism’ with ‘feminist groups’. That’s like confusing ‘communism’ with a ‘communist party’. You can be intersted in or study a social or political phenomenon or even agree with its basic tenets without subscribing to an organisation.

It is people like yourself who corrupt ‘isms’ by your blinkered perception of them.