What does someone actually mean when they say "I'm not a feminist"?

Hope do you remember the John Warboys case? Something like 13 women had reported being raped / sexually assaulted to the police in the Sapphire specialist rape unit. Many of them later reported being turned away / laughed at / told that it was not possible for a black cab driver to do that. As a result, he went on to attack scores of women who would otherwise have been unharmed.

The reason the women were turned away was because even the police working in the Sapphire specialist rape unit believed "rape myths" ie there was institutional sexism at work.

In no other crime I can think of (apart from DV maybe) would victims be literally turned away from the police station.

The way the police and CPS handle rape has been criticised in many reports, and yet there is still little appetite to change things, recommendations are never put in place.

When Stephen Lawrence was murdered and the police were found to be institutionally racist, change was effected.

Yet here we have all of these women being raped and nothing changes.

See also the case about a man called Reid - again huge mistakes were made which allowed him to continue his attacks. He could have been stopped but wasn't - the police just weren't interested.

I want to see that changed. And personally I do think that rape is a pretty serious crime - if I find out that police are not investigating things like car thefts or grafitti properly it does not affect me as much as when rape is not investigated properly. And if other crimes are not being investigated properly it is not usually down to entrenched anti-victim attitudes in the officers it's reported to.

Isn't it bad, what happened with Warboys? Do you see that as a bad thing? If not, why not?

HopeForTheBest wrote - "It seems to be though that feminism goes beyond the prinicple that men and women are equal though"

For example?

HopeForTheBest wrote - "I do not care about rape conviction statistics any more than I care about any other crime conviction statistics"

Does that mean you will not rest until conviction rates are 100% for all crimes?

Or does it mean rape is as bad as credit card fraud?

Thanks SGM - I keep meaning to join the book club but don't have a whole lot of time at the moment. I've been wanting to read this book for a while however, so shall try to get my ass in gear.

Agree neepsntatties - it is a painful process.

Once the patriarchy blinkers fall from your eyes you just can't help but see the sexism that is so insidious and ubiquitous.

So insidious and ubiquitous that without a bit of feminist analysis it is invisible.

Exactly - you can't just rock up to feminism and then get pissed off with it because it disagrees with your notion of what it is.

Being a feminist does take a bit of effort - primarily having a bit of a think about things and steeping out of patriarchal thinking.

I never called myself a feminist until very recently and that was after reading a lot of threads on here. I wonder if for some people it is because it can be quite a painful process to see how bad sexism is. I know I found it difficult.

I started reading threads here, then I read Living Dolls and then all of a sudden sexism was just everywhere for me and I found it a bit overwhelming. If I am honest there was a bit of me that wanted to back away from it because it just all seemed so awful.

I am also still finding my way through it all, there is lots I do not understand or don't know what to think about yet. I do often feel intimidated by other feminists but I am trying to find my own way with it all. I can't ignore it though, I don't know how I didn't see how bad it was before but I am guessing because it was just easier to not see it.

Also, I do think that many women hold the view that they are feminists by virtue of being women and making their own choices. "Of course I'm a feminist - I believe in equal pay for equal work"

There is more to it than that. And being a feminist is not easy - it means challenging a lot of things that for many women make for an easy life.

I think for me, by not saying "I am a feminist" I am still able to do what I can for equality, but without having to constantly defend my views to others. (Feminists or not)

Possibly that still makes me a feminist at heart, just by vocalising it I often find that people's preconceptions or own viewpoints on feminism then mean that conversations tend to turn to whether or not I am a real feminist.

What it comes down to is I don't need to say I am a feminist in order to care about equality.

Goblinchild wrote - "Or perhaps there's a similar destination in mind for a large number of us, but we are taking different paths to get there."

Many non-feminists say they work for equality of the sexes in other ways outside feminism. I'm struggling with this concept of non-feminists apparently working tirelessly for sex equality by other (labelled or unlabelled) softly softly methods. I don't notice this. Is this another of my possible blind spots? What are these non-feminist egalitarians actually doing in terms of intellectual stimulus, activism, campaigning, lobbying etc? Any examples?

If non-feminist activism for equality is happening then great. Feminism and feminists need all the help we can get.

I know a few feminist posters on this thread have said they are also socialists, but they are still feminists. I recognise the aims of both movements do overlap.

I'm interested in feminism and identify myself as a feminist because it has the stated goal of equality of males and females. Feminism is the only ideology/philosophy/doctrine I know of that works towards equality of the sexes, admittedly imperfectly so far, buy hey feminists are human.

Could the underlying problem for non-feminists be their relationship with the patriarchy? Could it be not wanting to be disliked by the patriarchy even more for being female and a feminist, than they are disliked already for simply being female?

Nancy I don't think it is about "judging as to who makes the grade", although I can sometimes understand why people might perceive it that way.

I think what happens a lot is that a woman who considers herself a feminist, because she believes in female/male equality, can be challenged on a certain view that, when analysed or challenged, is not actually compatible with the tenets of feminism.

For example, I'm a feminist (and quite a radical one). However I changed my name when I got married. I have reasons why I did this and I could try to argue that they are feminist reasons because I am feminist and a woman. When analysed, it is likely, that my arguments would be shown not to be compatible with feminist tenets. Feminists pointing this out to me are not being judgemental - they are protecting feminism from being watered down from a political moment with beliefs, analysis and aims, to a wishy washy, anything goes, nonpolitical hotch potch.

I see woman after woman take the hump because they have expressed a view that is a bit short on feminists analysis and have been challenged on that. Feminism is pretty black and white really - of course there are different viewpoints within the movement, but the fundamentals are pretty clear.

The 'trap' with feminism is that, by definition, it challenges actions and views that are commonly thought to be right, normal, fair and natural. It is difficult to get your head around feminism sometimes and break away from patriarchal thinking.

I don't recognize that either, Nancy. Or only as the caricatures that have been used to used to discredit feminism since before the Suffragettes. It really does not reflect my experience.

That last post doesn't make much sense as I edited it for length and left out most of my key thought processes - sorry.

By good and bad what I mean very generally and very briefly is that I agree with (most of) the aims of feminism but often dislike the way in which they are achieved. Random idea off top of head is positive discrimination.

On another note entirely I also think rape convictions are pitiful but I think the reasons are so much more basic than society the system is corrupt/misogynistic.