"Women against feminism" WTF?!!

Part of my belief that women should be autonomous individuals and free to choose their own beliefs and path in life, allows in my mind that woman can choose not to associate with the feminist cause, if they wish, without judgement from me.

Its fundamental imo that we as feminists do not use coercion of, nor judgement or derision of other womens paths.In doing so, we risk becoming the oppressor.

I've never heard of misandrermaid and I'd be pretty surprised if a random on twitter was responsible for turning women away from feminism. Feminism is challenging, especially for younger women. My instinct is to say that these women are handmaidens and man-pleasers but I know women can be at different places during different times of their lives and I want to avoid drawing battle lines that can't be changed as women move through different experiences.

This makes me want to cry. How can people be so stupid? It's not a complex idea - that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. I'm as shocked by people not supporting feminism as I am by someone admitting they're racist or homophobic. It's simply not acceptable.

I remember the often quoted feminist line "women need men as much as fish need bikes" that is the kind of line (from the 70s was it so man hating isn't new) and the all men are rapists hate stuff that needs to be countered by sensible arguments.

Capt it's moreso on sites like Tumblr, Reddit, things like that. I've seen loads over the past couple of years. It's scary actually. It's scary that for a lot of young women that's the first view of 'feminist' speak they'll ever get, but it's wrong it's dark and it's no wonder people are rebelling against it.

games you were right in saying young women in their twenties won't typically view stuff like that so they rely on what they see online and what they're seeing is just hate speech IMO. I'm in my twenties and haven't watched those but I'm lucky enough to have been brought up by strong women educating me on feminism and having the know how to access relevant literature and debate.

I find this really hard to understand. Forty years of legislation that makes gender prejudice illegal, and we're still miles off equality in the workplace. But apparently the fight is about whether people feel comfortable with an identity that is 'feminist'? I for one am proud to identify with fairness and equality of opportunity. Bigger picture, surely ....

The only time I see traditional and REAL feminism is when the feminists come out to defend it on topics like that and sometimes on here.

Really? IMHO Newsnight has a distinctive mainstream feminist (somewhere between liberal and radical feminism) viewpoint these days, lots of discussion of the 4th wave and lots of female experts on the programme. Radio Four also regularly cover issues from a mainstream feminist viewpoint (e.g. there was a big discussion on Feedback recently about the replacement of female presenters on 5 Live with male presenters and if that was acceptable or not). I guess BBC2 and Radio 4 aren't prime viewing for a lot of people (especially young women in their 20s) but, although things aren't perfect, I think the BBC are doing a lot more than they use to do to have women on TV (would The Honourable Woman have been made 10 years ago - I don't think so) and discuss feminist issues.

Ah, ok. I've not read misandry mermaid, and I've not seen any man hating, prejudiced vendettas, disgusting things about men or transexuals on here or elsewhere, so I must have been sheltered from it.

Feminism, to me, is about women's liberation from patriarchy. There is nothing hateful about that though.

To be fair on Misandry Mermaid, she has toned it down quite a lot, but I still hate all her 'male tears' crap.

I didn't say feminism needs to change and I didn't say women need to change, what needs to change is young women only seeing that strain of feminism that makes them want to turn away from it.

Feminism has been hijacked by certain women using the term feminism to excuse their man hating, prejudiced vendettas. So if anyone dares to disagree with them, they get labelled sexist and against women. They say some absolutely disgusting things against men and transexuals under the protective umbrella of 'feminist speech'

This is what young women are seeing from feminism, and it needs to stop

I'm feminist but don't identify with their hate speech, but I know that isn't what feminism fundamentally is.

The only time I see traditional and REAL feminism is when the feminists come out to defend it on topics like that and sometimes on here.

This needs to change, so feminism is something women can feel they can identify with and can feel it is something they want to support and believe in.

What needs to change? How do you think feminism needs to change so that women who don't feel they need or want to support it will do? What is a REAL feminist?

I'm really not trying to be a GF here, I am genuinely interested in how you think women need to change.

There was the topic on BuzzFeed with the photos of women saying why they don't need feminism

It was immediately replied to by feminists objecting, and rightly so.

But the problem is is that the only 'feminism' these young women see is from people like MisandryMermaid and her ilk, who are rife on popular websites like Tumblr. They're bound to get a bad impression of it and not want to identify with it. The only time I see traditional and REAL feminism is when the feminists come out to defend it on topics like that and sometimes on here.

This needs to change, so feminism is something women can feel they can identify with and can feel it is something they want to support and believe in.

I agree for once, I point blank refuse to call or associate myself as a feminist in any way shape or form because of her and people like her. She does give feminists a bad name and generally makes women feel shit about the choices they make in life such as taking their husbands name, choosing to not have a career and stay home and god forbid we should ever wear pink etc.

There are some things that 'ancient' feminism gave me (such as the right to own my own gun and to be able to ride my horse astride instead of side saddle) that were probably beneficial to me but when the victim stuff portrayed by so many is lorded over us and the vile vile things about men is banded about also makes women like me want to distance themselves far from it. I love my husband and I love my sons and all I feel a lot of feminists do is attack them purely because they have a penis and a y chromosome.

It's all over the shop now.

Moreso because of idiots like MisandryMermaid on Tumblr giving feminism a bad name.

So people - usually young adult women - see her posts and think 'oh, I don't like that that doesn't speak for me' and decide to declare themselves anti-feminist.