Well why should a Feminist be a person who want’s equalist for BOTH sexes. Feminist conotates someone who is for Feminine rights. Now if they truely wanted to be equal, hell why stop at somen and say “all people are equal” because after all aren’t they? Humanist is a much more pleasant title anyway.
To deal with men by force is as impractical as to deal with nature by persuasion.
It is awfully hard to rally people around a cause if you aren’t allowed to draw attention to it. If I call my new organization “All People Are Cool” [APAC], it may be more “pleasant”, but if my immediate concern is that some of the cool people happen to be getting shortchanged and we don’t think that’s fair, how is anyone going to know what APAC’s cause is?
Feminists are indeed people who believe in sexual equality, but they are also people who believe (with good reason) that, historically speaking, sexual equality has been opposed by a specific form of sexual INEQUALITY in which women ended up on the short end of things, see? And this is a situation that feminists felt needed fixing.
If you feel that this world is post-patriarchal now, and that sexual equality has been achieved, you may feel that there is no need to be a “feminist” per se, and may choose not to call yourself that even though you applaud sexual equality. But there’s nothing anti-male about someone saying they don’t agree with you, that they think there are still persistent inequalities that oppress women, leftovers of patriarchy that aren’t fixed yet.
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Re Humanism: There is also the fact that “humanism” already refers to a specific philosophical system, associated with Erasmus of Rotterdam, and more recently clarified by the wonderful John Ralston Saul.
Was it Andrea Dworkin who said that all pornography is inherently harmful to women? Straight pornography I can see. But gay pornography? Lesbian pornography made by lesbians for lesbians? Can someone explain what her reasons are for saying this? Or has she been misunderstood?
The focus of my politics BA was obscenity law so I have read plenty of Andrea Dworkin and no Matt, she has not been misunderstood at all. Lesbian porn she refers to as “self-hating.” I only remember one instance of her discussing gay male porn, but her objection to it seemed to boil down to: by lusting after male bodies, the men are expressing their hatred for women.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t in Andrea’s world.
For a class-A example of irony see the sex scenes in her own “novels.”
And no, she is FAR FROM typical of contemporary feminist thought.
The reason that making up a new word that means feminism would never work is that word would just as quickly be defined as “man-hater”.
The reason that feminist is a separate term from humanist or any word expressing belief in equal rights is that feminism specifically addresses the exclusion of women from most opportunities to fulfill themselves. It makes us all feel nice to say that we believe in promoting the rights of men and women, but the reality is that the “rights” of men have always been promoted over the the rights of women.
Now we have people saying that is is okay for group X to have equal rights as long as they do not tread of the rights of those who are already in charge. The problem with this is that in order for equality to be realized, some white males will have to give up priveliges that have been previously assumed to be rights.
Don’t think that I mean freedom of speech or anything like that and get on a high horse. I am speaking about the indignation that some people get when god forbid a woman or a racial minority gets a job instead of a white guy. Immediate cries of affirmative action! Well, sometimes the white guy actually isn’t the best person for the job. Equality means equality.
And feminism means that you believe in equality as an ideal and know that it is not achieved. Equalist is too soft and squishy a term-it is too people-pleasing. I’m afraid that people have to be hear unpleasant things sometimes.
Matt, being called a feminist, especially if you are male, is very tricky as it is a very high ideal to keep.
As for those comments about Andrea Dworkin,
there are always extremists of every sort around & she is one. Ever see a picture of her?
“but if my immediate concern is that some of the cool people happen to be getting shortchanged and we don’t think that’s fair, how is anyone going to know what APAC’s cause is?”
Italian sunglasses for all–NOW!
[[MacKinnon is more widely painted as an opponent of freedom of speech.]]
A painting that is, by and large, accurate. She is also not particularly honest in her advocacy.
I think another term is in the process of being coined, not to replace feminist, but feminazi. At least, I’ve been seeing it a lot lately, but then I’ve been hanging around some pretty unsavory web pages. That word is “fembot.” See, now feminists are the ones who are being brainwashed and controlled. Supposedly. Sad sad sad.
“I hope life isn’t a big joke, because I don’t get it,” Jack Handy
Hmm… I’ve never heard fembot before. Well, not ouside of Austin Powers anyways.
I’m guessing that the “-bot” designation isn’t suggesting that feminists are brainwashed and controlled. To me it suggests that they are asexual and that they have a hardwired knee-jerk anti-male response program.
I don’t believe that feminism instills that in its supporters, but I can see people considering Dworkin a fembot.
Alphagene
Mary Daly used “fembot” back in the early '80s to refer to sheeplike acquiescent females who put all their energy into becoming “feminine” as defined by others. Copyright infringement?
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The problem is one we tend to see generally in society, i.e., allowing the debate to be defined by extremists. Whether or not women and men are considered to be equals in modern American society seems to have become a debate (in absentia) between Andrea Dworkin and Rush Limbaugh.
Why is this? Because the electronic and print media feel that it’s more entertaining if all issues in society are dealt with in a point-counterpoint style, with all of its attendant screaming and ad hominem attacks, rather than having a reasonable discussion between people of more moderate viewpoints who (God forbid!) respect one another.
I remember hearing an interview with Susan Estrich, who is a law professor at USC and was Michael Dukakis’ campaign manager in '88, in which she said that she had been asked to participate in a televised panel discussion on (I forget the particular topic, so I’m going to say it was) welfare reform.
“Are you for it or against it?” the producer asked, to which she spent a few minutes discussing the parts of the plan she supported, the aspects she felt should be added, what other considerations needed to be taken account of, etc… This was followed by a few moments of silence, and then: “So are you for it or against it?”
Last week I listened to a “moderate” radio talk-show host argue that, if a man and a woman are both drunk, and she passes out, it’s [BOLD]not[/BOLD] rape if he then decides to have sex with her. He equated it with going out to dinner and leaving your front door unlocked – it’s your own fault if you’re robbed.
I’ve participated in a number of hiring committees, and I continually hear prople who should know better argue that affirmative action programs discriminate against white males. Yet I look around at our faculty and see better than 90% white, better than 65% male.
Women (and to a lesser extent, minorities) have made great strides in the workplace, certainly. And the trends indicate that they will continue to do so. But if, as a society, we forget the efforts that went into these gains, we tend to lose our focus on the goal of equality. The only ones pushing against the barriers then are the extremists, and it is their relative strengths that decide where we end up.
Well, the first place I saw Fembot, was as the enemy of the Bionic Woman in that old seventies action TV series. Ahh, reruns, were would my education be without you.
I think maybe one reason people don’t like to be called feminists, is because people are less political then they used to be. I believe that many people nowadays, would rather sit back and see what happens, rather than get involved in the middle of a battle. I don’t think this means that people do not have opinions, just that they don’t want to get involved, as they did in the 60s or 70s.
pat
Sorry, if I repeat something already said, but I only have the energy to read about half this thread.
I think M-W was being a bit PC and lost the accurate meaning of the word. Doing a bit of etymolgy (sp?) one would see that the roots should be dissected to describe a person who supports females, commonly reffered to in a political sense. Commonly used to describe one who promotes equality of women. This is just my crude makeshift definition, but you see that as the political climate has changed the meaning has shifted away from descibing equality (which really isn’t inherent in the meaning of the word) and to the establishment of a matriarichal society, i.e. inequality.
In and effort to support my description I went to M-W online and found this definition:
Main Entry: fem·i·nism
Pronunciation: 'fe-m&-"ni-z&m
Function: noun
Date: 1895
1 : the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes
2 : organized activity on behalf of women’s rights and interests
I think matt was a bit capricious in clipping up the definition. The second definition seems to support my theory, and that the idea of supporting womens rights can be carried beyond equality. So heres your answer as to why there is a reluctance to tag that word on yourself.
The facts expressed here belong to everybody, the opinions to me. The distinction is
yours to draw…
Omniscient; BAG
Threads pertaining to feminism and/or feminist theory should not be pruned.
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