AIBU to wonder why any woman would identify herself as....

[seeker]

.....not a feminist?

I was all socially engineered by the richist houses and the corporate oligarchy.

I meant: It was all socially engineered by the richest houses and the corporate oligarchy.

Absolutely Tina - it's widely acknowledged that men 'gave' women feminism as they needed them working after the WW1 - it's all too coincidental.

Fantastic post HRH -

I agree. There are some good posters out there, but the whole movement is poisoned by the few loudest and most unreasonable voices out there. Look at people like Code Pink, who actually get in bed with the same people who want to spread Sharia law to destroy capitalism, and call all soldiers murderers and rapists.

You get 'fanatics/hypocrites' in all movements - feminism is no exception.

Your idea about the feminist boards being for the already converted is interesting, and I agree up to a point, but I don't think they spend a lot of time patting each other on the back.
What I see is a board with a lot of intelligent, vigorous discussion by people who know a huge amount about different theories, authors and with very wide life experiences of how feminism impacts on their own lives.
The debates come from that, and there have been quite intense oppositions between regular posters. There is often disagreement about specifics, but all under the canopy of feminism.
I have been told numerous times that the feminist boards are not into educating or explaining to others what their perspectives are about, and that it is tedious for them to have to explain basics over and over again.
Which is fine, and also a very good reason for feminist debates and questions about whether something is or isn't a feminist viewpoint to be happening all over MN, not just in the furnace that is the feminist board here.
Asking questions like 'wondering why any woman would identify herself as not a feminist' on a general board allows for a huge divergence of opinions to be heard and mused over and challenged and defended.
It's a great question seeker, and in the right place IMO.

I agree. This is why I choose to simply be egalitarian instead of a feminist. If I think a law is wrong because it is weighted in favor of one sex or the other, then I say something about it. I don't go around ignoring the rights of half the population of the planet because of what I have between my legs.

But with day care and preschool and the glorifying of single teen moms the movement has succeeded in creating a new breed of weak drones which was the goal all along for the elites.

Absolutely - egalitarian here too - I'll fight for you whatever/whoever you are - if I think you're being wronged.
Too many feminists think - female = right - Male = wrong. even today, come on, it's 2011.

And even those that don't still run on the presumption of guilty till proven innocent. It's become nothing more than a victims' club, while letting the state prop up their agendas

HRH - I am very well aware that you have used a quote of mine (on the 'Why are women still given away?' thread) as an example of all that is wrong with feminism, and more specifically, the feminism board on MN.

I have posted in the MN feminism section a handful of times. My opinions are my own in their entirety and are representative of no-one, least of all an entire movement as disparate as feminism.

I actually feel pretty upset (inasmuch as an opinion from a random on an Internet discussion forum is able to upset me ) that you would use a throwaway comment of mine - a complete non-regular in that section - as a stick to beat all feminists on MN.

It honestly seems nonsensical to me, and like you're either looking for an excuse not to be a feminist (which is obviously crazy; why would you need an excuse?) or that you're being contrary for the sake of it. Again, highly unlikely.

I just don't get it. I disagree with the opinions of many feminists. I'm even a SAHM at the moment and will be for the foreseeable future, so in the eyes of someone further up the thread, can't even be a feminist, apparently.

To all those people, i'm happy to say: bollocks. I'm a feminist and I believe what I believe. Why would I throw the baby out with the bath-water and reject feminism just because others who use the label might think differently from me?

And as an aside to all those 'equalists' out there - why is it always women who describes themselves as 'equalists'? You don't see men clamouring to use the term. Maybe if more men did call themselves 'equalists' there wouldn't be so much call for feminism.

I can't count the number of times my mother called men rapists for looking at her. She despises the fact I got married.

I give to Amnesty international - most of the people I know through Amnesty are men, they fight for both sexes equally - they just don't shout about it every 5 minutes.

Yep..my husband rarely talks about it, but he works closely with some groups out there that try to strike a balance in the laws.

I feel as exoticfruits does. The feminism board is intimidating and seems to be full of posters who will shout down, gang up and jump down the throats of anybody who asks questions or has a different viewpoint. What irritates me is that AIBU seems to be thought of - and referred to - by some posters there as 'full of thick, middle-class' women. Never mind 'men hating', it's the women-hating that I notice.

Some of the posters on this thread have been posting about it there, bemoaning the fact that they 'have tried'. Well from my perspective, don't bother, please. Who the hell do you think you are? Has the feminist board full of posters been awarded some kind of 'prefect status' that we weren't told about?

I'd prefer to think of myself as egalitarian too.

Just seen HRH's post... really pertinent.

See. We can actually walk hand in hand with or brothers and sisters. If we recognize each others pain and trials there wouldn't be all this divisiveness.
I agree egalitarian is the way to go. I have no need to side with a group that seeks equality at the exclusion of the interests of half the world's population. All that does is breed hate, tear families apart, and allow those with power to keep solid families from forming....making it easier to control us individually in the end.

'Dismissiveness of ogre posters'

excellent typo.

I hid the feminist section ages ago - totally impossible to have a balanced debate on there.

Not to mention, I had a friend of mine get banned because he expressed opinions not dissimilar to my own. Why has he been banned, and not me? Is it because I am a woman? Why is a man automatically considered a troll for asking pointed questions or making the kind of statements women have been making all over this thread? It's this kind of double standard that makes me run from feminism as a label, and as an ideology.