I've got quite a simple question that I just can't answer - why would a woman not be a feminist?

Married Women's Property Act
The vote
Women admitted to universities and then to be able to study alongside men; to be able to be awarded degrees for the study they did

while we're waiting shall we make a list of positive things?

Yes, what bad things?

what bad things omg?

I think it more about the bad things that feminists have done and associated themselves with there are some feminists that do hate men and preach hate against men and do bad things to further their own agenda. This obviously has a negative impact on the cause as a whole. Also not all women like politics.
I guess it is the same as being a christian some people are hesitant because there are a lot of bad elements to christianity and negagtive things normally get associated with groups quicker than positive things. Some may not know about the feminist movement and are just not informed. I guess the answer is there is no one reason there are many.

Dittany and Alice have it, I think.

The part of feminism I feel uncomfortable with is the part where I know what I'm going to say/think/do/post on FB is going to irritate an awful lot of people. It's going to irritate a lot of men because it challenges their priveleged position. And it's going to irritate a lot of women because they don't want to affiliate themselves with someone who is outspoken and sticks their head above the parapet and who says/does/posts things that makes men not like her.

Thankfully, I don't feel so uncomfortable that it stops me doing/saying/posting those things, and I usually feel a big sense of pride and power when I do!

Women don't want to be called feminists because men don't like feminists. Men don't like feminists because feminists challenge the idea that men are more important than women. This makes some men uncomfortable. I don't care. So ha.

Ormirian - then we are agreed. I'm all for helping to enable men who would like to be 'more like women' to be so, as this fights the patriarchal stereotype about women's things being of lesser value than men's things, and as such, unmanly. I say half the battle not to get women to be more like men, but to get men to be more like women.

Some feminists would have all women in the business sector, as managers in power suits, making policy and shattering the glass ceiling. Which is all very well and good for those who wish to be in big business. I say as much can be achieved by making it normal and acceptable for men to be SAHDs.

annie- it was me with the the 'what about the menz' thing

I think men generally would benefit from the sort of changes to society that feminism demands. Which is lovely but not the main purpose of feminism.

The sort of 'what about the menz' plea that pisses me is the one that suggests men are emasculated by being with successful, higher-earning, capable women. Or that we shouldn't demand a better deal in case it puts male noses out of joint.

Before I got more interested in feminism, I was happy enough to support equality for women, but I thought feminism was about progressing women at the expense of men, and I can see lots of cases where some men (such as those who would like to SAH) get a raw deal in the current patriarchal society. Like Someone said (sorry, can't look back to see who it was), I plead the 'what about the menz' case more often than some feminists might like, because I think the war would be won more quickly if we worked from both ends, and showed men how equality benefits everyone.

So, I defined myself more as a 'rights for everyone' person rather than a feminist. Especially as I've seen rights for women improve vastly, and thought that we were pretty much 'there'. But this forum has opened my eyes somewhat as to how you can be a feminist and still want right for others. And how much more still needs to be done for women's rights.

To defend WriterofDreams, I've encountered some nasty attitudes on the feminist board too. Just this week I expressed an opinion which was along the lines of something someone else had already said on the thread, and I got a very snippy post that my question (I didn't ask a question) had already been answered loads of time on the thread if I could be bothered to read it and I got a . So since my view wasn't unique, my post was sigh-worthy and tedious. Really unneccessary nastiness.

And you get man-haters on here too. There's a poster who brings men wanting to stick their dicks into things into every conversation whether it's relevant or not! Does make me laugh.

So I can see why the Feminism topic puts people off if they're dipping a toe in. I realise that the topic, like any other, is full of wildly different people. So opinions are bound to vary.

VG point Dittany - i guess I just love a lost cause

In all seriousness, although I move in a generally educated, middle-claaarse, reasonably feminism-friendly world (and so I'm hardly being incredibly ground-breaking), saying 'I'm a feminist' makes me feel so POWERFUL.

SGM - I've just ordered that and Reclaiming the F-Word. Am looking forward to getting stuck in.

(Also looking forward to xh's face when he comes round to pick up ds. He asked me last year if I'd 'become a lesbian' because I'd had my hair cropped, become a midwife and had a copy of Ariel Levy's Female Chauvinist Pigs on the shelf!)

On what vezzie said, I think I just grew up thinking that being a feminist was just something that all sensible people were (and my upbringing was hardly progressive - we got the Sun and the Mail so I am not sure where I got those ideas from). I never really gave any thought to my feminism until was in a group situation where we were all asked 'If you are a feminist put your hand up.' I put up my hand and didn't even think about it, then realised nobody else had. It didn't make me into a laughing stock but I had to defend my position and realised how little I knew. Also, after that, people seemed to make it a bit of a point to challenge me. Ever since then, I have tried to understand more about feminism and the more I look into it the more 'feminist' I become.

On the OP, it reminds me of this sentence I read somewhere that said, something like, 'Feminism's greatest failure has been its failure to attract a mass following.'

I haven't really been able to get it of my head - or answer the question, 'why?' I can only think that it is because feminism has been wrongly portrayed and understood. And, that for various reasons, women do not feel that feminism representst their intrests.

Watching with intrest.

I'm sorry I made you cry WriterofDreams.

am going to send you a PM - it will be nice, not mean (I promise)

I think threads like this are important because it is a mistake to think that feminism is just what all sane people believe. The mainstream is anti-feminist, and quite naturally and obviously, statistically, the mainstream includes many women as well as men.

There are some people who believe (some) feminist things but don't want to use the word about themselves; don't forget though that there are many, many people who just don't think that women deserve equal treatment with men.

Writerofdreams, what was the bit that made you cry?
why is it / is it different for you to be disagreed with / not engaged with here than on, say, AIBU?

(I feel very happy here by the way - just for the record - so you can all stop worrying )

phrontistery.info/isms.html

Surely you can't object to all of these, peedoff?

Perhaps we should give up and called ourselves humanists so the anti-feminists and the 'what about the men' types can stop bloody whingeing