I'm bored so i just (mostly skim) read the thread. Blimey.
This one stood out
I don't call myself a feminist. I do care about women and children's rights. But feminism fucked me over big time. The idea that women can 'have it all' - no we can't. The idea that having casual sex is empowering - no it isn't. The idea that men hate us - no they don't (most of them don't). I was brought up with feminism and it twisted me away from my own wants and needs and created a very unrealistic, damaging and paranoid world view.
The idea that women can have everything wasn't supposed to mean that they can have everything all at once, and people who took it to mean that - how can i put this kindly - need(ed) to work on their critical thinking skills.
The point of feminism is equality between the sexes. We have made great strides in some respects (the vote, allowed to open a bank account all by ourselves etc) and nominally even equal pay for equal work. (there are billions of caveats to that, some structural some personal choice - but even if only nominally, it is actually enshrined in law in many countries)
So Feminism on its own didn't fuck anyone over. People had misunderstood, people made different choices and so on, but the idea that people should not have less or fewer rights because of their sex is feminism.
I am, like Bruce Banner, angry all the time. I can be angry about lots of things all at the same time, or a particular issue at a particular moment or something might make me more or less angry depending on my mood, where i am, etc etc.
Let's take "lots of casual sex". Well, yes, it's not for everyone. But the idea that boys/men get to sow their oats while woman remain pristine virgins until marriage is such clear sexist bollocks it is no wonder that a lot of people jumped into lots of casual sex without really understanding what it might mean to them. I daresay better and more good quality sex education would have helped an awful lot. I used to have loads of casual sex, some in hindsight a bit dodgy (now i understand how consent, coercion and drunk people might intersect, but hey, hindsight is a wonderful thing and I'm fine so no harm done. Other people have different experiences).
The idea that FemaleBref would be criticised so much more than MaleBref for exactly the same actions is anti-feminist. (notwithstanding the consequences of sex can be very different for men and women). Relaxing abortion laws is a natural consequence of all the extra sex women were/are having. That is a feminist issue. Safe, legal, rare, as early as possible and as late as necessary. No judgement from anyone at all is required, and nobody should be compelled to have an abortion/baby against their informed will.
The pay gap. Oh god the pay gap. There are different ways of measuring it. If we go for lifetime earnings, we see that maternity leave in particular, but also part time working and having less well-paid lower-status jobs often falls to mothers / women with caring responsibilities. Women who don't take career breaks for caring responsibilities also face the discrimination as if they might disappear at any time to do this. That is also anti-feminist. What we should be doing is making the decisions easier to make. For eg: encouraging companies to have good maternity/parental policies that make it easier for men to take time out too. Society (in the form of laws and other encouragements) needs to reform itself so that it doesn't regard children as a woman's responsibility (dads "babysitting" etc).
When women say "i was a feminist but when i became a SAHM the feminists turned on me" - firstly, the choice to be a SAHM is up to the individual and their family and it is un-feminist to criticise that. But often what happens is (as we see on these boards time and time again) it descends into an us and them. Whereas what we need to do is uplift other women and respect their choices (even while we might point out that being a SAHM brings uncertainties and they might want to think about an allowance, pension funding, division of housework etc) We might point out that working outside the home might cause us anguish about missing our children, not being a good mother etc. We should be helping by sharing strategies and tips and not just "yeah, why did you have them then?". Not to mention women who choose not to have children, choose to have many children, have children with different fathers - they may be making "choices" (not always voluntary) that we wouldn't, but it is un-feminist to criticise them out of hand. etc etc etc
Black women, Asian women, women who aren't white (middle-class) experience their lives differently. (I'm not an expert, I'm trying to learn so apols in advance if this is either patronising or insulting. It's not my intention). So when black women say "fuck off White Feminist" we should be listening and learning and not talking over them. Same for disabled women, all women whose lives and experiences are different to and from ours.
Holding men to account for gender violence is not hating men. Holding people to account for unsafe sex practices is not kink shaming. Also, the sexual revolution isn't about only having lots of casual sex. It can be about exploring your own kinks etc. Kink shaming has no place in this.
Since every post must mention transwomen (and maybe also transmen) it isn't transwomen that worry me. It is men who see an opportunity to commit acts against women (upskirting, filming, and more) who might simply be allowed to say "you can't ask me if I'm a man" who worry me. They are not trans. They are abusers who may take advantage of a system of identification that has what appears to be no checks or balances. And i am worried that women who may not be around natal men who are not relatives may have their lives curtailed bothers me a lot. But i don't know the answer here outside of 3rd spaces (which i think transwomen don't want and while i understand why it is very difficult to accept for this reason)
Sorry, too long. TL;dr - people need to think more about what feminism actually is.