Is feminism all about man hating?

[PedanticPanda]

When feminism is brought up around my DP and my other friends they all say the same thing,

I agree with feminists who want equal rights for men and women, but not feminists who hate men and want women to be treated better than men.

Do these feminists actually exist? I assumed that feminism was all about equal rights etc, I thought all the man hating was a stereotype but wasn't actually true, but, most people I know seem to think this is the idea of the majority and it's the minority of feminists who want equal rights.

That's v funny NCG :o

... and of course true

Whatmeworry do you realise that a transwoman is more likely than not, a person with a penis and testes?

Oh the shock! A willy in a radical feminist conference. Eliminate! Eliminate!

That line says all one needs to know :o

Fwiw I buy into the idea that sex and gender are not the same thing. As de Beauvoir said, "one is not born, but becomes a woman". But then I'm a nasty old Liberal Feminist.....

I think it is really odd that there are so many people who are willing to argue that a transwoman and a biological woman are exactly the same. The mental gymnastics must be exhausting

No, its simple - society has moved on, most people in 2012 just aren't interested in the internal hair-splitting logic of Radical Feminism that makes them want to exclude transgender people, they just see anti-transgender hypocrites.

Ah but you see it isn't about excluding trans people. At all.

It is about having women only spaces in which to exchange on issues which affect women and which some women prefer to discuss in women only spaces.

Women only spaces, by definition, exclude people who are not biological women.

I'm not too sure what your position is, but it seems that you think it is 'hair splitting' to say that biological women and MTF trans are not exactly the same.

Either that or you don't think women should be allowed to have women only spaces in which to discuss women's issues.

Mr Gin - sorry if I gave the impression my entire post was designed as a reply to you hence your need to thank me!? Polite as you are, I did take care to address you specifically in the paragraphs where I was responding to you specifically but think that you interpreted that as the entire post being directed at you despite strangely coy assertions that you're really not trying to make it all about you? I wasn't assuming you personally didn't do the crossing the road thing (although would have been a great example to give about recognising and acting appropriately in circs where you realise your privilege is in action to give upthread - perhaps you have other examples?)

Really interesting how you reacted to my post though. I think some men get defensive about feminism because they take it very personally - but then that comes back to ego and male pride and privilege - ironic when the female sex are most derided for being irrational, illogical, incapable of being objective.

Am now most puzzled as to what the purpose of your comment here was then:

"And if I could just comment on a post up thread... I know suggesting you cut some blokes testicles off is quite jokey, but if you read on some MRA site a jokey post about cutting some feminists tits off I think it'd probably be quoted in disgust."

"As for Hully's testicle post... Well you know I like Hully's posts so I know her style. It's just in the context of thread that touches on 'man haters' I think it's worth the effort to at least mention how these kind of things might be misread when taken out of context from both sides of the division. Whether you're a feminist reading a comment on an MRA site, or an MRA reading a comment on a feminist site ( I know MN isn't a feminist site but I hope you see what I mean )"

You seem to presume I know a lot about you (hence I guess the taking everything so painfully personally). I really don't. I don't know you like Hully's posts or know his/her style so your original reference was pretty disingenuous since you personally knew it to be a joke in the style of a poster you like. You assumed that everyone else on the post didn't know Hully's posts or his/her style and tried to imply that unless the rest of the posters on the thread leapt on his/her post and condemned it for sexism then....what? Maybe other posters took it in the same context you did, maybe they wanted to get on with the discussion. I'd be very interested to know if you can find a forum and website dedicated to hating men in the same way this one is dedicated to hating women (women aren't allowed to post there btw)? But even if you can it will be a drop in the ocean compared to the many and varied physical (stats on rape, DV etc) and virtual (online) examples of how many women-hating men are out there. Sadly it's a 'competition' that men will win every time. So yes, we can talk about and acknowledge there must be women out there who hate men BUT in the context of the evidence before our eyes, day in and day out, of how many men exist who hate women and how much power those men wield, I think those men-hating women are effectively sidelined and not give the opportunity to terrorise men to the degree that pay scales start to tip in the opposite direction, men start to curtail their freedom due to being fearful of being raped or assaulted by these women, men are being killed by their partners in the same numbers with the same frequency and so on and so forth. I think there are plenty enough women-hating men who will keep the men-hating women from getting anywhere to be honest. Which is why it always becomes such an academic discussion.

I know a lot of tranactivists like to make out that it is about excluding transpeople because they are trans.

But it isn't.

It is about radical feminist analysis which concludes that a biological woman (an adult female) and a MTF transperson are not exactly the same thing.

A position which strikes me as perfectly valid and logical.

Transactivists don't like this because they think that all women should accept that a MTFtransperson and an adult human female are exactly the same.

Good links Beachcomber and namechangeguy!

Beachcomber: So your effectively saying it is about exclusivity and privilege.

I am not sure if such a thing exists but would a conservative feminist or a green feminist be excluded, they could be very disruptive, certainly not sign up to any consensus.

No LeithLurker.

I'm saying it is about valuing and respecting women only spaces.

Radical feminist conferences don't exclude feminists - lots of women go who don't really identify as any 'type' of feminist and who want to learn what radical feminism is about. It is generally considered to be rude to go with the intention to disrupt though. I imagine that is true for most conferences, non?

If this moves into transgender territory, can we have a sweepstake on the number of pages by teatime? I will go for 36

To see how the various factions of feminism go at this subject hammer and tongs is illuminating.

Wheezo. Well I did initially question if the entire post was a response to me or more generic.

There are some reasons why I concluded the post was a response to me, more analytical than emotional or irrational. but I'm not into point scoring here so lets just leave it at that.

As far as I'm concerned it is about women only spaces. That is the real feminist issue.

So I am guessing if the MTFtransgender community wanted to organise their own conference they would need to invite all born women as well? Which presumably is what they did having succeeded in getting the other conference cancelled? When is this all-inclusive MTFtransgender conference happening?

I wonder what the reaction would be if as a born woman I rocked up to a MTF conference and insisted in sitting in on discussions about the trauma of deciding whether to go through drastic body-altering surgery and sympathised along with comments about how I find it really difficult to decide whether to wear trousers or a dress somedays or insisted the agenda be changed to include discussion about giving birth or menstrual cycles. Or if I turned up at a the Black Lawyers annual conference and bemoaned the fact that my addiction to fake tan may be limiting my career prospects and this was something they needed to address.

Transgender people have a very real need to be protected against discrimination, as do women. Doesn't mean that either groups have to include the other in a discussion/conference on their rights and experiences - it does mean that they both have a right to have their own conferences though.

It is about radical feminist analysis which concludes that a biological woman (an adult female) and a MTF transperson are not exactly the same thing. A position which strikes me as perfectly valid and logical

Let me rephrase that:

It is about Patriarchical analysis which concludes that a biological woman (an adult female) and a man are not exactly the same thing. A position which strikes me as perfectly valid and logical

Most people can see the hypocrisy a mile off and really don't give a shit about arcane Rad Fem analysis, as the answer is clearly wrong by 2012 mores. You can't complain about oppression while oppressing.

And when they throw this crap in my face, because "you are a Feminist, so you must also believe in it", it really isn't helpful.

So I am guessing if the MTFtransgender community wanted to organise their own conference they would need to invite all born women as well?

All they need do is not ban them.....

It just requires you not to discriminate, which we all believe in - don't we?

OK Mr Gin - glad to see the shitstirring will subside from hereon in then. Did you take a look at the link? What did you think of the site? Ever seen a site dedicated to hating men as much as that one is dedicated to hating women?

glad to see the shitstirring will subside from hereon in .

Well again, that wasn't my intention, I'm just giving my opinion, but honestly if it's seen as shit stirring no doubt better if I disengage.

Same link as above

However, the exclusion of men by women and the exclusion of women by men are certainly not the same thing in the first place. In an excellent analogy that I owe to Marilyn Frye, it is nothing extraordinary for a master to bar his slaves from the manor, but it is a revolutionary act for slaves to bar their master from their hut. The attempt to classify women?s separatism under the same rubric of "sexism" or "discrimination" neglects the reality of power differences between the sexes as classes. In short, it ignores the reality of male privilege.

Beyond the politics, there is also simply a practical element: speak-outs and consciousness-raising simply do not work in the presence of men. No matter how committed the men may be to feminism, no matter how much the women may accept them as feminists, decades of pervasive psychological conditioning will still cause women to react defensively to the presence of men. It is well-known that women will not speak about their experiences of sexual and physical violation with anywhere near the honesty that they do in women?s-only groups, as in groups with both women and men (the same is true of men speaking about how they interact with women, in men?s-only and mixed groups).

What all this means is that there are times for feminist activism in which it is absolutely crucial to maintain women?s-only spaces. Committed male feminists must learn to overcome the personal feeling of rejection or "discrimination" that may come along with women?s-only spaces, and they must learn to respect women?s decisions to create those spaces where necessary. It also means calling out other men who do not respect these spaces (a perpetual problem with women?s-only meetings is that whenever they are advertised, men invariably try to sneak in or find a way to gain access), and making a committed public stand in favor of women?s right to create women?s-only spaces. They are profoundly not sexist; they are a radical strategy in the fight for justice.

whatme So yes they would have to invite them? Because by not inviting them they would be excluding them wouldn't they? So in that case no minority group with rights not to be discriminated against can any longer hold a conference focused on an agenda discussing issues unique to their experiences as being a member of that minority group without being aware that their conference will be stopped if they refuse entry to someone from another discriminated against group?

So the police would have no power to stop a group of BNP members who insist on attending the Black Lawyers' Conference? Because refusal to allow them attend would be racist? Really?

Mr Gin the shitstirring was referring to the OOH women look at that nasty post about men you didn't say anything you hypocrites

Unless we've all finished with this thread topic, I think a discussion on the trans people in single sex spaces issue is really for another thread, personally. It is a massive, emotive, difficult topic and we know how it tends to go.

Eldritch, I have money on this!

I'm happy to drop it but I think the reason the subject came up at all was because Whatmeworry's post of Wed 11-Jul-12 13:28:37 suggested that it was relevant to the notion that feminists hate men.

That the idea of women only spaces is extreme and makes feminism a laughing stock. It seemed to be a follow on from the argument that some feminist hate men.

Certainly there are people who think that women only spaces are evidence that radical feminists hate men.

On the subject of women-only spaces, I think they are a grand idea if somebody wants one. However, do they not dredge up the old, old argument of equivalent male-only spaces? I am thinking specifically of places like the members room at Augusta (a golf club for the non-golfing heathens amongst us). There was a massive furore earlier this year when women CEO's of companies sponsoring a golf competition were not allowed in this particular space, purely because they were women. Is there a parallel here? It is a private club with it's own rules.