To get annoyed when other women say "I'm not a feminist"

[Nickabilla]

As if it's a dirty word and a shameful thing to be? I hear it every now and then and always question it. Someone said it today and I'm annoyed again.

Do some women not realise that women didn't used to be allowed to go to university, get divorced, own property or vote?

Rant over.

I agree with starfish

building women up by bringing down men is just as bad as bringing women down to build up men.

which is what feminism seems to be doing nowadays.
no thank you.

How are men being brought down?

The reality is star most feminists have sons, husbands/lovers, brothers, fathers.

We love them dearly.

We don't want to take priority over them.

But some shit just has to stop.

Why do people over complicate things?

Being a feminist just means that you think men and women are equal and should be treated equally.

How any woman has an issue with that, I simply don't undertstand.

You tell me why feminists have to over complicate things lol.

It always makes me chuckle when people say, "but it simply means you believe in equality". It's like one of those con jobs where people take the bait then end up thinking WTF have I gotten myself into!

Start talking about patriarchal structures and all that jazz and people start to switch off. Is this perhaps why the 'Feminist Theory' section in FWR is so bare

PromQueen has it spot on when she says, 'not so much '

I thought I was a feminist until I started reading MN. I am put off feminist threads because only one view is accepted and I have even been told not to post! To me feminism is about choice, but I am told it is not- you have to make the 'right' choice. The thing that annoys me above all else is that if I take an opposing view it is because I don't know any differently or because I haven't been 'educated'- it is never accepted that I have had the same information and made a different interpretation or choice. It is all very patronising.

It depends on your POV PromQueen

I can go about my business treating everyone with the utmost respect and not imposing on anybody. It's really not that difficult to treat different races, abilities or sexes as equals. It just requires a little bit of thoughtfulness and consideration. You need not philosophise about social constructs and structures and I can imagine that this is not what the majority of the public want to do either. It is very thought provoking but not everyone wants to take the time grappling with philosophical ideologies just to treat someone as an equal.

There are many notable feminist academics who are supremely intelligent. Sadly not all of us are gifted with the same level of intellect so reading even two lines of a feminist abstract would tie many of us in knots (same goes for any abstract come to think of it). Thus some of it is a bit 'intellectualist' if that's a word lol. Make it comprehensible for the base person and you might have something

Equalist probably sums me up.

Men are 'brought down' in a whole host of ways. Family courts, destruction of industries, feminisation of the school systems, masculinity being treated as a disease that needs to be cured, lack of DV resources (about 3 safe houses for men, about 4000 places for women), less funding in health care, more dangerous jobs, society's general attitude towards men...that they don't need help and can cope, despite the high suicide rates amongst men, higher homelessness, when a boy is seduced by an older woman the comments are usually 'lucky him, bet he loved it' etc etc etc....

Far more likely to be violently attacked or killed on the street.

But Sigmunde none of these things - all of which concern me as a wife and parent of a boy - NONE of these very real issues are down to feminism. I would say most of them are down to capitalism but as I'm just starting to learn a little bit about feminism in the context of capitalism, I won't go further than that ATM.

Recent feminist quotes:

'My own personal vision is that women will cure the sickness that ails men and that men will stay around, hunkered in their man-caves playing the ukelele, leaving us in peace at last. As to what that cure may be, my best bet is that what?s wrong with men is that their androgens need genetic modification.
I?m serious about this. If we can do it with corn, men ought to be easy.'

?Sexism? is a word that I?ve never used. I use male supremacy, female-hating, and maleness. Male rule.

'Male supremacy isn?t a feeling, it?s a fact: the slaughter of Female Being in all her manifestations. The destruction of the Daughter. Male parasitism. Females have powerful words that we can use. Not that the usage of words will get us anywhere until males are reduced to 20% of the ?human? population. Then we can simply enjoy the usage of words at our leisure.'

'Females don?t have to kill baby boys. Just not nurture them. Females are forced to birth baby boys, but beyond that a female?s physical actions are her own.

Males will die without the constant infusion of female energy that they get from our wombs and from our lives. They are perfectly welcome to take the male infants from the hands of the midwife, and what they do with it from that point is their decision.

Females need to not be emotionally and intellectually invested in a male future.'

I think feminists need to accept that whilst some are completely about equality, people like me are reading stuff like this. And I know that some feminists on here think that the women who wrote this stuff are OK, and have valid points.

This ^^ is the stuff that's horrifying, but it's just totally glossed over like the people who wrote this are irrelevant, but they're not. They're lawyer's and author's and childcare workers!

if I provoked a woman and got punched in the face she'd be charged for assault.
same between to men.
but if a man punched a woman it would become a feminist issue on top of the assult.

why?
if men and women are to be equal then punching each other should be too.
but it isn't, is it?

You'll never see a man and a woman opposite each other in a boxing ring either.

I will teach my sons to never hit a woman.
or a man. ( unless it's to defend themselves or others, I guess)

also women abuse men, children and each other too
verbally, emotionally, mentally.
just as wrong as a man doing it, but will they be called sexist pigs? I don't think so.

so yes, most of the things I have come across are about "let's make men weaker" as opposed to "let's make women stronger".

not good enough

and I agree with Sigmund very good posts

Feminism can be defined as a social movement, or an ideology. The fact that most women share some/most of its ideals does not turn every woman into a feminist. In order to be part of an ideology or movement, involvement, allegiance and personal time is expected to be spent at that ideology or movement.

I personally share lots of the feminist ideals. I also share lots of the animal rights ideals (but not all). I even share some of the Christian ideals, even though I am not a Christian (in fact, I am an atheist).

But sharing those ideals does not turn me into a feminist, an animal rights activist or a Christian. I simply do not belong to those movements.

So no, I am not a feminist. And if this statement makes anyone annoyed, that is their problem. In fact, I find it hilarious that a self-identified feminist would get annoyed at other woman identifying herself as she wishes to.

'NONE of these very real issues are down to feminism'

The family court system is absolutely down to feminism, ditto the DV situation, ditto the feminisation of the school system, ditto societies views towards men. Feminists have pushed their narrative into the public consciousness for a long time now. It's not a good time to be male, that's for sure. Unless you have lots of money, in which case nothing ever really applies to you, regardless of sex.

I think that the people that call themselves "feminists" are at odds with the women who dont want the label.
"feminists" cant decided about make up
other women can.

"feminists" - or a large number of them, think most women are as physically strong as most men
I dont think other women do.

"feminists" are not afraid to be militant.
Other women dont want to be associated with that.

and the list goes on.

aurynne your last sentence made me

I also love the speeches about "me not being tolerant" by people who preach tolerance, yet unable to be tolerant towards me.

'To be honest I understand why people turn away from it because once you see and know things you can't unsee them or not know them'

Very admirable, flipinada.
Do you also understand why some of us become impatient or bored with the apparent pettiness of some of the squabbles that take place between first world feminists when there are indeed such appalling daily events happening all over the world?

re dangerous or underpaid jobs - I have never seen or heard of a woman being or wanting to be a miner or a bin-man.

I will reconsider being a feminist the day there's equal jobshare in these occupations.