Anti Feminist Bingo!!

[TheFeministParent]

Elephants had this idea!!

So I'll start

"we're not a homogeneous mass..."
"I don't like to be too narrow..."

Why is it ok to label racist sentiments racist but only ok to resort to the use of anti-feminist in the wake of 'pathological hatred'? Double standard, much?

I don't think anti-feminist is overused/hackneyed/used indiscriminately - rather I think anti-feminist views and norms are encountered by feminists at just about every turn.

These views and norms are so long standing and engrained in our psyche that it seems churlish (to some people) to point them out. But that is exactly what feminism is - a challenge of the status quo.

Normalisation, internalisation, and all that.

TSH your comments have been consistently anti-feminist. You keep telling us that it's a co-incidence that women are disproportionately affected by the social problems which also affect all human beings, or that women aren't disproportionately affected by them when the figures clearly show they are. That is an anti-feminist position, whether you acknowledge it or not. Just as denying that racism is a real and significant issue, is an anti-anti-racist position, IYSWIM.

I don't really care whether you're pathologically opposed to feminism or just have a mild dislike or disagreement. All I know is that the tenor of your posts are consistently, regularly and reliably anti-feminist. Not all of them of course, but on the whole. And if someone makes racist remarks even just 50% of the time when you encounter them, it's reasonable to assume they're a racist, because anti-racists don't make racist comments even 20% of the the time if they can help it.

So like I say, if it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck...

And why do you care? You aren't a feminist, you don't agree with most of the feminists on this board on most feminist issues, what does it matter to you what we think of your views? If I go on to a MRA site and argue with them because I think their whole worldview is wrong, I don't give a shit why they think I disagree with them. (Not that I'd bother btw.) Why are you even bovvered? Why are you here telling us that we're being unfair to recognise most of your arguments as anti-feminist, when that's what they are? Have the courage of your convictions, and own your own arguments, you have the right to disagree and we have the right to use the appropriate language to describe your position and to argue among ourselves if that language is useful, correct, accurate, etc., or not.

I have actually never seen an anti-man comment on the feminist board, whereas I have seen masses of anti-feminist comments.

What I have seen, is "men" used as a term for a political class. Everyone semi-politically literate knows that if you use the term "men", "women, "black people" "muslims" "the middle classes", "the poor" etc. - choose any group you like, then you are talking about those people as a group, or as a political class. It should not be necessary to point out that you don't need the word "some" in front of that group, because with a few genuine exceptions, everyone knows that. Anti-feminists pretend not to, so that they can say: "ooh, you said men, that means you mean every man everywhere in the world, you hate men".

It's pathetic and desperate and boring as it tries to ensure that the level of debate stays stuck at "you hate men" - "no I don't" - "yes you do" forever.

That is the only context in which I can see that a "man-hating" comment might be miscontstrued by politically illiterate people.

And I've seen more man-hating comments by women who don't identify as feminists, both in RL and in Mumsnet, than in any feminist space I've ever been in. That "all men are bastards" "they don't see dirt" "they need to have a fuck regularly or they get bad-tempered" bollocks is viciously anti-men IMO, it's incredibly insulting to decent men and I've never heard a feminist express sentiments like those - only non or anti-feminists say man-hating things like this IME.

Because, HB, then feminism never needs to get past first base, as dittany says. If feminists have to spend their (limited) time and energy justifying the existence of the movement, then you can be sure that equality and liberation will never be reached.
Trip feminsts up at the first hurdle is a tidy tactic.
Pretend sexism/racism doesn't exit when you're talking to a female/racial minority; tell those groups that poverty is the root of the problem and they'll have to keep justifying their ver existence.

TSH, poverty is not the root of inequality. Poverty is the consequence of racism/sexism. Hatred is the root: hatred of females (misogyny), hatred of the other, other races, whatever. You are on rocky ground because you are subtly implying that racis/sexism are merely reactions to the randomness of these two groups being economically disenfranchised. When the truth is that it's systematic ( you only need to look at the way the COndems have targeted women for cuts in order to support the rich men at the top of the chain, to know it's systematic. ) It's not random.

But TSH it is only human nature to bow to the status quo. There is nothing patronising about pointing that out - it is an observation of human nature, not a judgement on any individual. I do it myself all the time with regards to gender issues, and I'm a radical feminist with strong views.

It is only human nature to absorb, normalise and internalise a culture that one is exposed to 24/7 from the moment one is born. A short read of most history books makes that pretty clear.

For me, a more interesting question is why do some women buck the trend and become feminists?

I'm a feminist because I object to things like sexual assault, lack of parliamentary representation for women, the commercialisation of female sexuality (be it for selling suits, lapdances or blow jobs), how maternity adversely affects women's control over their lives and finances, etc.

These are all things which happen all the time in the west and they happen for gender related reasons.

I'm also a feminist because outside of the west the situation for women is even worse.

I do admit to being curious as to why a woman would not support a movement concerned with equal rights for women. Claiming that we don't need any such movement is an individual opinion, that would need some pretty strong examples and arguments to back it up - arguments I have never come across.

'Men/blacks/people with disabilities/gays/the poverty stricken suffer too' - is not a robust argument. Indeed such an argument just suggests to me that the patriarchal system is unjust and inhumane and needs to change for the good of the majority.

What on earth is 'antimanism'? And what has it got to do with feminism ?

do these other posters your talking about object to being labelled anti-feminist because they are, in fact, femininsts (or believe themselves to be) or because they know that an anti-feminist is not a nice thing to be?

Hah, got you now! You mean what HB, dittany and Sakura are saying about labelling feminists as anti-men in a sneaky (and rather obvious) political trick in order to misrepresent them, manipulate the public perception of the feminist movement and hinder progress in women's politics.

Hasn't this been discussed about a million times?

I thought we had already come to the conclusion that such tactics are anti-feminist.

Alright, I'll play ball and move the debate on - such tactics are anti-women, pro-status quo and pro-patriarchy (and by consequence quite possibly racist and pro-poverty trap).

"Its indiscriminately used against many people within this forum"

Sorry but this is nonsense. Posters on this forum will point out when they find a view or an argument to be anti-feminist.

Suggesting that we call anyone an anti-feminist willy nilly is just silly, and either will-full misinterpretation, of a lack of political nous and knowledge that I find it hard to believe you have TSH.

Who was it who said that she found anti-feminist tactics to be either cunning or stupid - 'twas on the 'men on MN' thread IIRC?

Personally I wouldn't describe myself as anti-men because, well, I'm not.

I'm a feminist.

Discussions with you are always so circular and tedious, TSH, due to you being stuck around about 1971 with the notion that pro-women = anti-men.

You may wish to remain on first base, but plenty of us don't - which is why we like to discuss feminist issues in this little space in MN.

Think that was me Beachcomber.

TSH, I wouldn't care if someone labelled me an anti-manist becuase I would know that they are talking nonsense. Howver, if I thought they were talking nonsense in good faith and was in a patient mood, I would ask them to justify the label, citing examples, so that I could put them right as to why their anti-feminist label of me is wrong.

As far as I'm aware, nobody who has ever called a feminist on MN a manhater, has explained why they are using that lable. They just use it, over and over again, because they know that it's an effective silencing trick. They never put forward genuine, real, rational reasons as to why that label is justified - because they can't, because it isn't. Whereas if I call someone an anti-feminist, I can explain exactly why that term is appropriate.