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Original poster

What made you a feminist?

86 replies

MipMipMip · 28/04/2018 15:28

I've copied my post over from another thread, hence the trans elements (Although it was trans that led me down the rabbit hole.)

I would be really interested to know what people's lightbulb moment was? I think knowing that may help attract other people. Thanks.

I was not into feminism. I was into equality, fairness for all. Not pushing men aside and demanding more and more. All this business about men have a better deal is nonsense, we're in GB in the 21st Century. Equality is here, sure women won't get promoted as fast if they're missing time to have maternity leave but when they are there they will.

I read a few threads about the trans issue. Of course trans people should be able to change where they want! They've had ops to get rid of genitalia, they must really feel they are women and are in a bad situation so yes, I'll pretend.

Then I started to hear a few fact. That for many it was a turn on to dress as women and toinvolve unwilling participants in their fantasies. The numbers who don't seek any medical help, let alone transition. The ones who are wearing their teenage daughters clothing and getting aroused (ifanythingabout your teenage daughter or their belongings gets you aroused there is something very wrong). The crime rates staying the same post transition.

Then there was what was being demanded. Access to women's prisons. Ignore safeguarding. Rape centres and refuges no longer being sacrosanct.

I started hearing instances. A woman going for a smear, requesting a female nurse and being told the man identifies as a woman. A man going into a refuge claiming to be a woman and raping people. Another going in a refuge and when women objected the women being kicked out for being transphobic. A woman questioning being punched. A woman being made to lie in court about gender. A man leading a hate campaign against a women's officer then taking her place. #NoDebate. Meetings to dicuss this being shut down. Police involved for stating facts. Employers called for people disagreeing. Endless endless abuse on Twitter.

So trans did not mean what I thought it meant and these are not people I want in my space.

I started seeing how privileged I am. I have not been raped. I have not been assaulted. I have not had a violent relationship. I have not been obviously used or missed out on things because of my gender.

I had to think of my #metoo moment. I remember it because it was funny (would it have been had I been alone?). How many have I forgotten?

I started to realise that men did have advantages. That a men's pill was developed and scrapped because it had the same side effects women put up with. That when a child is ill it is the woman expected to miss work to deal. That male privilege is real, that the effect is there even if it's not obvious. That men think women dominate a conversation if they speak for 30/. That things really are not equal and even here, in GB in the 21st century, things are not fair and there is a fight to be had.

There are a lot of things happening right now. Knowledge of FGM. Rapes in India. #MeToo. Rotherham. But it was these boards, with the mix of voices, full of facts and arguments, personal experiences and shared stories, that brought be to this very angry point. I don't like having my eyes opened. But they needed to be and sadly I learn more to horrify me everyday.

I am a feminist.

Thank you ladies.

OP posts:
NeedAGoodBook · 28/04/2018 22:28

Like ifNot

Also realising that parenthood costs mothers more than it costs fathers.

In health risks, In loss of earnings, loss of savings, jeopardy to employers' faith in you, loss of time, loss of freedom, hit to pension, increased labour at home in terms of childcare and housework

It just costs women more. 99 times out of 100 it costs women more. Financially, practically, emotionally, logistically. It infuriates me that the sacrifices of parenthood aren't more equal.

mercurymaze · 28/04/2018 22:27

i have always been a feminist it's a innate feeling that i have always had, fine it odd to think others don't feel the same.

Cascade220 · 28/04/2018 22:26

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

SeriousChutzpah · 28/04/2018 22:26

I’ve never not been one. I was a proto-feminist small child before I had so much as heard the word, and despite a total lack of role models. It’s incomprehensible to me to be a woman and not identify as feminist.

Ofspartacus · 28/04/2018 22:26

I saw the logic of it and need for it from a young age, did some reading, adopted a lib fem position.

I then got a bit disenfranchised from the whole thing, mainly because the blogs I used to follow all got taken up with infighting and calling everyone out all the time for everything so nothing was actually getting said. So I dropped out of online conversations but kept principals.

My journey to being rad fem was longer

A friend got fired for being pregnant
Another friend was in a violent relationship
I started reading the relationship boards here.

But I can date the moment that I turned rAd fem to about 2 years ago and a post of Datun's on I think one of the Spartacus threads or another early trans thread. All she said was something like women are oppressed because of their ability to bear children and it all fell into place.

I know it should be really fucking obvious but so much 3rd wave stuff is about denying biology and deriding "biological essentialism" that it had just never really clicked for me before.

biscuitmillionaire · 28/04/2018 22:25

It was when I was quite young, my dad saying "I'm the head of the household". And I thought, why?

IfNot · 28/04/2018 22:24

And as for "equal"..at about 19 it occurred to me-men have had precedence for thousands of years. They didn't want to be "equal" to women, they wanted to own us. So why, when we want our piece of the pie, are we slammed for potentially overtaking them?
What if girls do better and women earn more? These possibilities are presented as if they are the end of days, when actually the other sex had all of that for centuries.
I want to be at least equal and I'm not sorry.

LangCleg · 28/04/2018 22:22

Welcome to the coven from me too!

I don't think I ever made a conscious decision to be a feminist. It never occurred to me that I wouldn't be one. I thank my mum, my nan, my aunties and all their lovely feminist friends for that.

IfNot · 28/04/2018 22:16

Having several brothers and a mysoginistic dad. It sharpened my feminist instincts.
(I do love my brothers and Dad, but I'm an eyes wide open kinda gal and have been since childhood).

slug · 28/04/2018 22:13

What made me a feminist? Men's behaviour

FermatsTheorem · 28/04/2018 22:09

Hmm, it would be way back in primary school in the 1970s, being told I couldn't play cricket but had to play netball, couldn't do woodwork but had to do needlework... because I was a girl.

But welcome to the coven! Your dungarees, garden bra-burning brazier (pun intended) and "regaine for armpits" (TM) are in the post Wink People on this board in my experience are very nice (despite its fearsome reputation on some other bits of Mumsnet).

I guess was never an equalist because I could see that women were being given the shitty end of the stick over and over again, that the people who weren't equal were in fact women (I do want equal rights, but equalism makes it sound like the inequalities in society are randomly distributed through society rather than being distributed according to a recognisable pattern to do with sex, race and class). "Equalism" always strikes me as a bit like those people whose knee-jerk reaction to "Black lives matter" is "All lives matter" - well, yes they do, of course they do, but on the whole it's not white people in the US being pulled over by the police and shot dead in front of their partners while they have both hands on the steering wheel.

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