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

[seeker]

.....not a feminist?

I find it puzzling that I am a politically active person, and I move in circles where things like feminism and lots of other isms are talked about a lot, but I never come across any of these aggressive rad-fems. But other people seem to be meeting them all the time. How do you know you've met one?

I've only met 2 in real life that I can think of, but that's kind f my point. The message has been distorted because people take the fringe radicals to somehow become the representative of the group as a whole because they make better press,get better coverage and make for better (well more fun rather than quality) debate.
It's the same with most things. White people being fine with muslim neighbours is a non-story. But white people protesting about immigrants/muslims crying for beheading those who oppose islam/radical fundamental christians/black people who think all white people are racists make for better press and somehow become the accepted barometers of the public discourse.

Very well said, Exoticfruits.
The other problem with "feminism" is that it's just so... worthy. Bluntly speaking, you guys make my head hurt. My life is too short to have to think that hard on all this stuff. Give me science or maths or birdwatching (or?) instead.

The main divide in feminism since the 1960s until now is about whether the social structures that oppress women should be completely removed (radical feminism) or kept but changed (liberal feminism).

Radical feminists have been rare for the past 35 years. Radical feminists were important in the second wave of feminism in the 1960s and 1970s. For the past 15 years, feminism has been dominated by third wave choice feminism which is along the lines of "a female should be able make any choice she wants and it is a good choice because she made that choice".

Radical feminism does not equal aggressive man-hating. There are some aggressive man-hating radical feminists but there are also some aggressive man-hating liberal feminists. There are even some aggressive man-hating anti-feminists. The common denominator is not radicalism, it is that some people are aggressive man-haters.

It's ironic that people who don't like radical feminists seem to encounter them so frequently, yet radical feminists, who want to congregate with kindred spirits, hear of fellow radicals so rarely that they have to go to considerable lengths to find each other.

Surely some women are aggressive man-haters. And they tend to veer toward Feminism as cover, just as misogynists tend to veer towards Mens Rights Activism, and some racists tend to veer towards the BNP?

Fuck the BNP but both other groups need to clear house if they want mainstream acceptance or allegiance.

Love the labels. Of course a pile of shit by any other name stinks just as much.
Keep in mind however, that we can convince those that have felt pressured to call themselves feminists to drop that title. We know that altering the word feminism in public perception is part of what we need to do. The focus should be on defining feminism through the lens of a non-feminist perspective, one that allows us to disseminate to the general public the idea that being a non-feminist is a good idea. This will attract a lot more people who have never really felt comfortable with everything they have been taught about feminism but have been afraid to speak up about it, having already been "part of the group".

I want you to think about in a different way. How hard is it to break away from an inner city gang? The worst of the gangs will kill members who try to get out. The rest will vilify and ostracize the former member until they feel under constant threat. They are often branded as a traitor, shunned by the only peers they have ever known. We have seen this in feminist circles as well. We need to provide a way for these people to get out, and feel like they can make a difference. We need to separate the "true blue" feminists from those who only carry the label because it was cool to do at the time, or because they felt pressured or threatened by their social group or peers to accept the party line.

The understanding should be that non-feminist is not anti-feminist or anti-equality. The feminist movement has been hijacked by misandry and group-think. Non-feminists only define themselves by egalitarian measures to fight both misandry and misogyny. It should be about equality under the law as well. We need to separate the "true blue" feminists from those who only carry the label because it was cool to do at the time, or because they felt pressured or threatened by their social group to accept the party line.

This is what it comes down to as far as the semantics are concerned.
The labels are meaningless.
How many people are in gangs, but really want out? Those are the ones we need to reach, and I suspect that many people here have hit the nail on the head. Just because they identify as feminists does not make it so.......especially if we do exactly as I said and redefine feminism through the lens of a non-feminist.

I wouldn't call myself a feminist, because every single person I have met irl who has called themselves one has been bloody hard work, argumentative, and objectionable about just about everything.
I would happily call myself an equalist because I firmly believe that no one should be desciminated against for their sex, race, colour or beliefs, and would argue and stand up for that viewpoint, but some of the man hating and nonsense I hear on chat forums, I don't think helps the cause one little bit. Women and men, old and young, black and White, rich or poor, discriminating either way is wrong, and makes us just as bad as those who have oppressed women, non whites, older folk etc over the centuries.

Very well said, Exoticfruits.
The other problem with "feminism" is that it's just so... worthy. Bluntly speaking, you guys make my head hurt

It is all so 'worthy'-you get a simple little problem and instead of some humour, common sense and short answer you get a public lecture telling you what you should think.

I am all for equalilty and would always fight for it but I can't stand all the talk about 'the patriarchy'- as if any man is in a nationwide conspiracy to keep women down. As the mother of DSs they seem damned whatever they do-purely because of their sex. I think that it is the fact that they are not taken on their individual characteristics but stereotyped. When someone is telling their DD never to live with a man because she wouldn't be safe (quoting lots of statistics on men killing live in partners) I think it gets to paranoia.
To say that a woman is safer out alone on city streets at 2am, than at home with a man that she chose to live with is ridiculous!

For some reason I had completely missed feminist threads on here until only a few weeks ago and they have been a revelation-and not a good one.

I enjoy dipping in and out of the various feminist debates that are around, and I think of myself as a feminist/equalist person. I have done for more than three decades.
I do find some people angry, polemic and very inflexible, unwilling to listen to any discussion or questions without a full-on rant back from a very closed mindset. But that's everywhere, not just in feminist debate.
I just back off with a smile and take my opinions somewhere else. It doesn't distress me or touch me. I have encountered many who feel that repetitive shouting is the way to convert and I don't engage.
I have two children, one of whom is male and an Aspie. I find the patriarchy and blanket decrees about men the debates that I walk away from first.

I think that I will follow your lead Goblinchild. I like to challenge such inflexible, narrow minded views, but it is like banging your head against a brick wall!

I have a similar view, Goblinchild. Sometimes I stay on the feminist board as much despite the views of the posters there as because of them. I will read everything, I will digest it and not dismiss anything out of hand. Sometimes they change my mind on an issus. Sometimes I dismiss what is being said as a lot of old toot!

I do self-identify as a feminist and I even occasionally post on the feminism fora however I'm quite careful to not let slip the fact that I'm a liberal, sex-positive feminist as I'm scared of being torn to shreds by the resident radfems.

I get really upset by the transphobia openly expressed by a lot of radfems and it sometimes makes me wonder whether I'm a feminist at all.

There are some arguments in life I will not step away from, and am very inflexible about. However they tend to involve abuse of children or disability rights, rather than specifically feminist ones.

I must be very thick.

I still don;t know what feminists say that people object to. The examples posted on here have I think largely been explained as urban myth, tabloid hysteria or occasionaly, a individual bonkers person (who would have been bonkers whether self identified as a feminist or not!).

The pubic hair thing is an issue - but hardly a deal breaker I would assume.

So, given that it has been conclusively shown that, contrary to popular mythology, you don't have to hate men, hate sex or be deliberately ugly to be a feminist, what are the extremist view that people object to?

As I said, the threads about the patriarchy are the ones I tend to leave alone.
Have you never been flamed on the feminist boards seeker?
You haven't lived until you've been sliced, diced and gently roasted over an open flame by a group of intelligent articulate and focused women who know how to frame an argument and have stamina.

Someone said this very early on: "Can a woman not be free to simply be a woman in her own definition of what that means? Especially in this day and age."

A very good argument for the continued need for a Feminist movement, imo. Because, no, not all women are free in this way...

I used to be one, now I'm older, less of one.
I still stand up for myself though, some would say I am stroppy and opionated out of all my sils and sisters.

seeker - some of the radfems on MN will tell you that women should never live with men if they value their safety, that transgender women are a huge threat to feminism, that eroding the differences between the genders so that sexism has no platform isn't good enough... I'm sure there are other extreme views that I've missed. But it seems to me sometimes that their determination to view women as vastly and irreconcilably different to men is counter-productive to the feminist cause.

"As I said, the threads about the patriarchy are the ones I tend to leave alone."

Why? Do you think that there isn't one?

I have read the whole thread and I think the people I most identify with are exoticfruits and Goblinchild. I know precisely what exoticfruits means and it is very off-putting to be told that you don't understand and to be told that if you don't accept you are being constantly discriminated against then you are deluded and/or stupid. Apparently, because I have never believed that being female has stopped me doing things that I want to do, I don't know what I am talking about because I only want to do what I want to do because subconsciously, my expectations have been limited by patriarchy. Utter nonsense. I don't want to be made out to be a victim when I don't feel like a victim - how does that help the cause? I think feminism or rather feminists end up shooting themselves in the foot and having the opposite effect to what they want to achieve - you can end up feeling disempowered because if you think you are fine and others tell you you are not, you can begin to doubt your own mind.

I also get the idea that there are group of women in the feminist section , probably a minority but vocal, who don't actually want equality for women, they want women to swap places with men and be the ones doing the discriminating rather than being discriminated against. As a mother of boys, like Peachy, I am not going to condone misandry either. How are men going to respect women if they don't get respect back again? I don't want my boys to grow up that they have to be in a battle with women for dominance. Neither sex should have control over the other - I want them to think that women are just people who are no different from them.

There was one thread I particularly disliked quite a while ago about educational standards. There were certain individuals who I won't name who basically said they didn't care about the standard of boys' education as they had things their way far to long and that girl's education should come first, even though it is currently the boys being left behind in a lot of subjects. I'm afraid this kind of thing leaves me cold.

I don't like labels, I think they are too restrictive and give people the right to make assumptions about your beliefs that you may not hold and for that reason I don't call myself a feminist. Doesn't mean I don't want equality and I suppose I live as a feminist but I don't want the label.

wow, people do talk a load of old shit about the feminist section, don't they?

did you know we also make our sons wear dresses and won't let them play with toy cars?
(and that's just the liberals - the radicals abandon them on hillsides to be eaten by wolves.)

I don't think they are daft enough to say it out loud. It is the implication of what they are saying. Do you think the person who said that boys educational standards don't matter because they have had it their own way too long wants equality. Doesn't sound like it to me - sounds like they want women to dominate. That wasn't Xenia and as the mother of 3 boys I can't imagine her thinking it either.

I had forgotten about Xenia but I don't think of her as a feminist - she doesn't want women to have choices, she wants them to do what she does. I don't think she is on the side of women at all. I actually think she holds a great deal of contempt for most of us.