What is feminism?

[Happylittlechicken]

After spending a few days on the feminist boards I’m now more confused than ever about what feminism is. I always thought feminism was the fight for women to achieve parity with men, to break free of the shackles of gender stereotypes and become the very best they could be. Supporting all females in their choices of how they wish to live their lives and smashing the patriarchy.

Apparently not. When feminism includes and centres males, how can it be feminism? I don’t mean feminists should denigrate or abuse men, or put men down, but it is not women’s job to centre men in their lives. Why should women be expected to support and nurture men. How many times on international womens day have we seen “but what about the men”? I’ve seen women turn on other women for “not doing feminism properly because they don’t include males”. I’ve seen “feminists” argue that sex is irrelevant in womens fight for rights, and we should focus on gender. Instead of smashing gender norms, these feminists want women to embrace them, and declare anyone who subscribes to those stereotypes Is a woman, and if you don’t…. Are you really a woman?

There are several different word for equality. I find I tend to use parity a lot, because awkward people love to think equal means the same. They probably never moved in their intellectual development from "three plus five equals eight".

Anyway, feminism's about women having equal value - social, financial, relational, governmental, in every way - to men. Women's bodies are very different to men's, obviously, and there may be some sex-related differences in behaviour too (endlessly debatable). The main factor is reproduction. Women are the sex that gestates, births and feeds human young. This doesn't mean it's all we're good for, only that the female sex's reproductive capacities make us very different from males.

A societal value system that is built around male bodies, male qualities and male normality cannot value women equally because female reproduction is not part of that system. It's alien; often seen as inferior. Therefore the WHOLE THING needs to change before both women and men are valued equally, considered equally valid and treated with full respect.

So ... that's what feminism is for. This terrifies a lot of men and, because women are afraid of men to some degree, a lot of women mirror that terror. Hence recurrent versions of 'feminism' attempting to frame women through the male perspective - as fragrant housewives, willing sex objects, adoring servants, etc - and merely demanding respect for that role. The same type of woman can be heard insisting TWAW for the same reasons: she's scared of upsetting men and hopes to gain preferential treatment by parroting their opinions.

All of these variations on feminism are logically inconsistent. The only way to achieve true parity between the sexes is the hard, slow way, knowing a lot of men are going to get pissed off.

Just reflects how little society thinks of females, poor poor kid. Hopefully this is reviewed and Scotland re-thinks this utter bollocks. Also if they want to change the point at which someone is actually responsible for themselves they should probably raise the voting age to 25 too. I could have understood this for theft but it takes something to do what he did, he’s dangerous and that poor girl will have to live with this for the rest of her life.

I'm not an academic so can't say categorically but-

Feminism is about women, about the cultural and social implications of being female, and redressing any inequity that arises from that.

Until there is no penalty for being female, until the medicine, the environment and technology are designed with us in mind, until men and women share care of their children and home...
We haven't got there.

I'm sure there are similar inequities that impact men, but it's not the business of feminism.

The problem of asking men and also 'equality' is that invariably men's needs are met and then we try to make women have vaguely the same.

Which means men's healthcare, for example is default and women get that standard in 'equality'. That's bad with heart disease but it's fatal with abortion.

What feminism should do be is the fight for the end of oppression of women and the end of the patriarchy. How you do that may be a debate. I struggle with the idea that it's a debate that oppression of women and the patriarchy should end.

For me it's about women being equal and powerful. Unfortunately from many of the MN posts it seems it's about hating men and trans people

😂 A very small proportion of feminists - remember it's a worldwide movement with millions of members - do hate men or 'trans' people. I think it's understandable, actually. But nearly all of us have male friends, relations, lovers and children. We don't hate men. Few of us give a shit about other people's ideas of their 'gender' unless they're trampling all over women's rights, trying to redefine us, silencing us or exploiting children.

Both men and 'trans' people - particularly those who are male - can be so full of their own sense of entitlement that all criticism feels like hatred to them. Many such are deeply misogynistic, so that criticism by women feels intolerable and almost criminal.

Still, feminism's hard enough. If you've figured out a way to get it done without provoking the anger of these over-entitled people, do share!

Slow hand clap for risible goadiness.

Who’s being goady @WaityWTF ?

What about it?
Women who ’hate’ men, usually are just smart and brave enough to see what men are like.
And choose to stay away from them.
That doesn’t hurt anyone, nothing is lost

Men on the other hand:
they hurt, rape, kill women, even murder entire family and just say that they ’loved’ them.

Men’s love hurt people and ends lives.
Women’s hatred just leaves men alone.
It’s not comparable.

You’re comment is silly at best, tone deaf, ignorant and antagonising at worst.
You should be embarrassed.

Thankyou all for the interesting answers. It’s helping me solidify my thoughts on what feminism is and isn’t. I don’t think many feminists hate men or”trans people”, @Startwithamimosa , which given the horrendous behaviour from men towards women says s lot about how forgiving women are. I think you can’t fight for women and girls until you can define what a woman and girl is. If woman is just a bunch of stereotypes or feelings, how can we decide who we are fighting for? Men and women who embrace those stereotypes or women who do not embrace those stereotypes but are female?

So when men are killing women two a week, police forces are found to be dangerously misogynistic and a danger to women in some cases, and every single time a woman voices her opinion and dislike of the fact that in Scotland the word woman is a dirty word and biological females and single sex spaces are essentially not single sex anymore , when this happens woman are told they hate men and trans people and are nasty and must be more kind and obviously all the heavy duty abuse too. With this being the norm, how are you going to start helping women be equal and powerful?

Equal opportunities does not mean that woman should get exactly the same medicines like man. It means that when a sick woman goes into the hospital she has the same chance of getting out healthy as a man does.

Unfortunately this is often not yet the case as a lot of medicines where made by men, for men and tested on men.
But it really is changing! When I had my thyroid removed i only had female doctors and they really were amazing, i’ve never met such a powerfull woman in my life as the surgeon who operated on me. A real rolemodel.

@GarlicGrace

👏👏👏

I think your definition is right.

I think there are 3 types of feminist:

• A: those who see transwomen in female spaces / wording things such as 'birthing people' as a thin end of a wedge and a fundamental problem to women's rights, and therefore top priority right now as otherwise all of women's rights will come tumbling down
• B: those who see other issues such as rape, discrimination, poorer medical treatment as ongoing issues that still need addressing as more important / urgent and that the TW/gender issues aren't really impacting right now, so might actually never impact, so lets put it to one side
• C: those who genuinely think that TW really are W in their definition, so anyone complaining about it is bigoted. They may even accept that in some situations TW should be discounted, but these exceptions don't mean the overarching rule that TWAW is broken.

The A group may feel that B is being shortsighted. The B group may think that A are obsessed. The C group think A are just wrong.

To me the B group need to continue doing all the good work they have been doing for decades. But the A group are important because of how organisational policies have been infiltrated by the back door and silently changed.

Ultimately for me, there is no point having a policy like 'board representation on FTSE 100 companies should be 40% women minimum' if that can be met by 6 men and 4 TW.

Thank you, @FlirtsWithRhinos

Feminism to me means that women have human worth just like men have always haved.

And I mean just as a human, not because ’SHOULD HAVE’ husband or kids.
Single/singlfree/celibate women matter.

One thing that annoys me even in feminist places, is the insistence of all women having spouses/kids like it’s inevitable. And many feminist push the bullshit narrative that women only matter because they have kids.
They don’t seem to see the misogyny of that statement.

My problem with some peoples type of feminism is I will categorically never accept a person of the male sex as a woman.

Therefore as women and girls are at the heart of my feminism = I will never include transwomen in it. It's nothing personal and I wish TW well I just don't believe they are as oppressed as they claim.

I've accepted to many that makes me bad, bigoted etc but I've made peace with that as there's too much other important stuff happening.

It's funny as the trans issue is often thrown in as a gotcha, all the awful ways women are oppressed and you lot obsess over trans people, that kind of thing.

When actually, if we deny biology and allow someone to identify as a woman based on feelings then how can we talk about issues if we're including men? Language is important and we should push back.

And of course there are the TW who are impacting on women and girls now, like Lia Thomas, Isla Bryson and Rachel McKinnon.

So it's absolutely got everything to do with feminism

There is just so much generalization in your post. If we both call ourselves feminists we are totally on the extreme sides of the spectrum.

For me the “outcome” of feminism, when it is “completed”… woman and men live equally together and cooperate together in a society we build together. My goal is not to destroy manhood or something.
I don’t think the outcome will be “world peace” or a world where no woman will ever face acts of violence.
Women are capable of violence too… lots of women in the army, on the policeforce. When i was a teen i was so bullied by other girls it made me want to commit suicide… womens violence is maybe less lethal but als quite damaging.

I just don't tar everyone with the same brush that's all and if I'm going to hate someone it's for their actions and not because of their sex, race, sexuality etc. That kind of attitude is what people used to think about black people, gay people not even very long ago. I don't think all men are bad, and in fact there are also men who fight for women too. I've never read such hate on these boards which to me has been really disappointing as I thought if anything the feminism boards would actually have some intellectual discussion and debate, but it's actually worse than AIBU!

I agree. I don’t think hatred of men or transpeople is part of feminism. Yes, there are feminists who do hate men or transpeople, just like there are feminists who are racist or homophobes- but these views are separate from feminism. I agree that the definition of a woman or female matters and should be based on objective reality not subjective feelings.

Agree. I thought I was a feminist until I started seeing some of the threads on these boards, and thought actually I am nothing like that. I have actually been trying to figure out a way to hide it after some of the threads I saw last week

MN is one of the few places GC women can talk about these issues and you will of cousin get all sorts of voices and opinions. And if posters over step we can report.

But there is lots happening right now that is making people angry. And that will often come over on the time or wording of posts and I still believe that the overwhelming majority of posters may at times be angry but they are polite and respectful. Not allowing male bodied people into feminism isn't hate.

And actually I'm quite sure that many men have a lot to lose at the idea of the world not needing feminism anymore. There are already 2 women killed a week in the uk by a male partner.

Who has said anything about hating men? In fact a few people on this thread have Saud the do not hate men individually but do hate what men as a class do and have done to women.

You just press hide topic. Hth