Is feminism all about man hating?

It seems to me that what Whatme implies is that in order to be listened to you have to reassure men that you are one of the nice ones, you are rational, and you won't bite. This bespeaks a poor opinion of men -- can they not handle the truth?

The truth is that, for all humans, being nasty, irrational and biting them does not win friends, nor does it influence people. The opposite in fact.

I don't think it's hard to understand that you can have different privileges. Class, sex, race...one doesn't cancel out the other.

( waits to get accussed of hijacking discussion to tall about the menz )

;)

No meow, that's not what privilege means. It doesn't mean you are privileged, it means you have privileges.

Maybe you should go and read about it before trying to contribute to the debate.

Can you walk down the street knowing you won't be whistled at, told to "cheer up" or have random adjectives thrown at you?

Can you go to a bar on your own and not be hassled every 5 minutes by people wanting to chat you up when you just want a quiet drink on your own?

When you get dressed up to go out, do you ever worry that people will judge you negatively because of what you're wearing, or give you too much attention? Or can you just wear your favourite clothes and not worry too much about what people think of you?

If you can do those things, then yes, you have privilege. And really, those are just the minor details of being a woman.

Today I played a game with my class on the smartboard. Each team had a little avatar to represent their team. One team had a policeman (male) one had a builder (male) and one had a woman. No job indicated, just a woman. Each time, the boys from the team with the female avatar moaned that they had a female avatar. The girls didn't complain about having a male avatar. They just accepted it as normal.

Did it depress me? Yes, it did. And it reminded me that as a woman, I am "other".

i get the privilege thing, i'm not as stupid as my spelling would have you belive, but imagine this...

a well dressed, educated, well spoken black man go's to the illiterate unshaven white trash guy with 8 dirty kids on the council estate and tells him he must understand and accept that he is privileged compared to him.

the black guy is right, with being white there are privileges, but it;s hard to swallow for that white guy.

It's not really odd that men don't see their own privilege, because we (of course I mean me!) imagine 'privilege' means some sort of Amex Gold card for all that life has to offer. It's an interpretation thing.

I mean, who sits in the traffic of a morning, in the rush hour, feeling privileged to be white? Not many of us, I imagine. Nor do we in the shops, or the myriad of other dull stuff we do. It's there, but so many of us are wrapped up in our own world with all the problems that our white privilege doesn't appear to help with. Laws are in place (in Europe) to deal with racism, so we can easily assume that its a receding problem. But laws don't change attitudes, and prejudices can burn for a long time. The same with sexism - laws are there, and so if we aren't subject to the remaining attitudes and prejudices, we assume everything is hunky-dory. If we spent 6 months in a summer's field, counting daisies and writing poetry, doubtless more men would get round to thinking about these things. However, most men would feel they have too much shit to wade through every day just to keep their head above the surface.

I hope this doesn't sound like a self-pitying whinge, because it isn't. I think it's why men baulk at the idea of ' privilege' though. Maybe it's the word. Sorry if it's a bit waffly.

Have to admit In my life I don't see any privalage by virtue of being male. ( happy to be put right and enlightened ) I understand we live in a patriarchy and that women are treated badly in the same way that I understand we have a privalage of being a first world country at the expense of other peoples...

Just because some people have different priveleges doesn't mean your privilege doesn't exist any more.

I am white, I am educated, I live in a developed country. Those are my privileges. But I am also working class, have mental health problems and am a woman.

So there are other ways in which I am not priviliged. It's really not that difficult to grasp.

Dowager yes you're right. It does make me think about the privilege I have. So maybe it's ok for me to feel uncomfortable and just admit that.

i have problems accepting the fact of privilege.

my own personal situation doesnt feel even slightly privileged, apart from growing up in the good end of town. both my sisters are graduates and successful. i'm deslecxic and a builder , i spend most of my working day dirty if not knee-deep in mud.

i know privilege isnt personal to me but to men as a class, but when a bunch of middle class white feminists tell me i must accept my privilege i find that hard to swallow.

Whatmeworry are you saying that you think women organising feminist meetings that are open to biological women only, is extreme?

The F-word summed it up nicely:

"Excluding trans women from an event that aims to build an "anti-oppressive movement for the liberation of all women from patriarchal oppression" is bitterly ironic".

Whatever happened to sex not being the same as gender....not to mention gaily contravening every piece of UK anti discrimination legislation going.

IMO only people with a very thin grip on reality would think they could pull that off in 2012.

Hmm, I find that very hard to stomach Eccles because surely men know that the "women are wonderful" effect is just a thinly veiled ruse to keep women in low paying jobs or in unpaid domestic service. Nothing to do with feminism and everything to do with a patriarchal pat on the head.

It's very odd that men don't see that. It means they actually see themselves as the under privileged group whilst continuing to benefit from more privilege than not.

"men come here knowing they have male privilege"

I don't think they do. Men can feel as if they are not viewed as positively as women, rational or not. It's hard to see your own privilege.

messy - you may not personally know any white women like that but there are plenty of threads on here in which a white woman is bleating about the fact that she/her DC are not racist and it was really mean of the black person to imply that she was. And loads of posts saying 'of course you're not racist, blah blah blah'. From other white women.

If an oppressed group makes you feel uncomfortable, it's a good thing. Because it makes you think. So rather than dismissing the reaction out of hand because you're not like that, think about what it's like to be on the receiving end of it.

The world is so skewed in men's favour that they don't realise a lot it a lot of the time. And it's uncomfortable stuff.

Not BU at all! I have reacted the same way.

It's just unreasonable when unlike you accept you have white privilege, men come here knowing they have male privilege and get defensive. What's the point? I don't go to forums for racism support to learn, and get defensive because I have white privilege.

I don't know what's wrong with me but I have started to feel a wee bit sorry for the menz apropos the whole feminism = man hating thing. I hope it's not catching.

I was browsing through above linked blog and read this article white women's tears and I was like because it just seemed to be spewing hateful stereotypes and I didn't even recognise the stereotype as any white woman I know. And I proper hate racists and I wanted to shout "But that's not me!!!"

And then I realised that I was reacting in the same way we accuse men of reacting to feminism. So that is when the sympathy started and I'm . So AIBU to feel a teensy tiny bit sorry for men that are put on the defensive by feminism?

But you can stroke their furrowed brows while carefully snipping off their testicles

Nah apparently you have to reassure men that there ARE nasty mean feminists out there with a rusty shears, but you are NOT one of them. Why on earth that would do the feminist cause any good at all, I have no idea. Surely people will just take away the message that yeah, feminists on the whole are evil but there are one or two who are alright and "only" want equality.

It seems to me that what Whatme implies is that in order to be listened to you have to reassure men that you are one of the nice ones, you are rational, and you won't bite.

This bespeaks a poor opinion of men -- can they not handle the truth?

And of course, lets remember that whilst feminists are having stupid, pointless and offensive negotiations like this, they aren't having useful feminist discussions/engaging in action.

They are in the groundhog day of defending the strawfeminist.

I hate this, women you must agree or admit to something about something else somewhere, especially about some wrong some woman may have done, in order for feminism to be taken seriously, it's bullshit.

And yes to this.

It is actually really offensive. Would you do it to any other marginalised group? Would you ask people of colour to admit that some of their group hate whiteys really, before you deigned to listen to them?

Would you insist that homosexuals say that some gay people hate straight people, before you would discuss gay rights with them?

Personally I don't want to discuss feminism seriously with anyone who seems to think they have the right to make me attack women before I have the right to speak and be listened to. Fuck that for a game of soldiers.

And if those people are then Put Off Feminism, might I suggest that their commitment and interest were never very genuine in the first place. (Or they were labouring under the illusion that it is possible to advance women's rights whilst never actually challenging the status quo or saying anything political)

^"I agree that there are probably people at the extreme end of feminism who hate men, although I have never met any. What now

IMO that is a much better approach - better tone, if you like - than your original, which was:

Well, yes there may well be feminists who hate men. I've never met one, but I suppose there must be a couple somewhere"^

Whatme, you're kidding right? There's barely any difference between the two. You've been putting us through the wringer for a teeny tiny tweaking of language. Really... tsk tsk..

Whatmeworry are you saying that you think women organising feminist meetings that are open to biological women only, is extreme?

If there are people who laugh at the idea that biological women and MTF transpeople have different biology, political identities and concerns, I suggest you ignore them.

There is little point in defending feminism to people who do not think that biological women exist as a distinct group. I suspect it may be a waste of time.

Funnily enough I discussed that whole issue with people in RL, people who do not identity as feminists - they all totally got that it is ridiculous for anyone to suggest that a MTF transperson is exactly the same as a biological women. They all got that biological women have different political and health issues to MTF trans. They all got why women want, need and have the right to women only spaces.

(I got deleted too upthread - because I referenced a post that got deleted for breaking the guidelines, not because I broke them myself. Actually I wish MNHQ would differentiate between the different sorts of deletions.)