Anonymous asked: "What does feminism mean to you?" It used to mean equality, but now it means women's advocacy. It advocates for women only, even where there is a clear bias against men. I'm still for equality but I will never call myself a feminist ever again.
This is something that makes me sad to hear, because it couldn’t be any further from the truth! What happened to make you change your mind about being a feminist? If you don’t consider yourself a feminist anymore but believe in equal rights, how would you label yourself? How do you think feminism has failed men? Can you give me some examples? What biases against men are you referring to? Even if feminism did only focus on women’s issues, what would be so wrong with that? It is NOT sexist to discuss women’s issues without talking about men. Would you consider that maybe you are being bias? After all, we don’t tell black advocacy groups that they are ‘anti-equality’ because they don’t discuss the ‘woes of being white’. Advocating for women is NOT equivalent to man-hating or being anti-equal rights. It just isn’t.
If you don’t believe feminism is about equality between the sexes, what do you make of male feminists? Some well-known male feminists/feminist allies are: John Lennon, Alan Alda, Phil Donahue, Henry Morgentaler, Havelock Ellis, Jack white, Jackson Katz, Eddie Vedder, Kurt Cobain, Bill Clinton, The Dalai Lama, POTUS Barack Obama, and Patrick Stewart. Would you consider them traitors of their sex/gender?
Here are a few things that maybe you should consider before jumping off the bandwagon and criticizing feminism for being anti-equal rights:
-WITHOUT FEMINISM, in westernized countries women and children would still be non-persons and the property of men under the law.
-Men would be legally allowed to beat and rape their wives and children.
-There would be an epidemic of female deaths from complications of self-induced or back alley abortions.
-You wouldn’t be allowed to vote, go to school, or have an occupation or any source of your own income.
-There probably wouldn’t be such thing as birth control.
-Rape as a property crime would still be tolerated.
*Let’s also not forget that it was feminist scholars who first identified the “biases” against men that you speak of. Feminists are the ones who have identified the problems that patriarchy creates for men and feminists are the ones who fight for men’s right to be decent, respectful, human beings who can own their actions and be good fathers and lovers without being criticized and called emasculate. *
It is EXTREMELY unfair that feminists like myself and feminist allies have to justify feminism by explaining why it is also good for men. It’s absolute ludicrous. I highly recommend that you read the following article. It explains in explicit detail why it is inaccurate to call feminists sexist, which, is what you were essentially stating in your comment.
http://www.thefword.org.uk/features/2003/09/feminists_are_sexist
Here is an excerpt:
“My point is that feminists are not biological determinists. Feminists are the least likely people to say ‘all men are bastards’. Some of them might say ‘many men behave like bastards’. But they don’t imply that such behaviour is acceptable because its genetic or ‘natural’ for men to behave that way, like those arguments defending rapists which imply that men are really all just stupid cavemen who can’t be blamed when they rape because, hey, men just can’t help it when they see someone in a mini skirt. Feminists don’t write books about how men are genetically incapable of picking up an iron. Feminists don’t write books about how men are from another planet, one where men have to be left ‘in their cave’ because they just don’t have proper emotions like women do. That’s because actually, feminists think men should be treated as fully functional human beings with brains and morals who should be held responsible for the choices they make. If I was a man, I’d rather have that than the shallow and insulting implication that ‘men can’t help it because they’re naturally stupid.’ If I was a man, I know which I’d find most offended by. If I was a man, I know who’d I’d accuse of ‘man-hating’. And yes, yes, for the hundredth time YES, feminists disapprove of advertisements that stereotype men as ignorant buffoons. These ads are nothing more than macho caricatures which, as Holly Combe said to me recently, ‘make fools of men, whilst simultaneously making excuses for them.’”
I really hope this was educational and thought provoking for you and that it will encourage you to reconsider your position on feminism. Please don’t hesitate to send a reply should you wish to pursue this issue further.
