sorry/thank you

[MoominKoalaAndMiniMoom]

A few months ago I posted, asking about feminism and making some generalisations, assumptions and the tired old 'we don't need feminism anymore ' got rolled out.

You all gave me a kick up the backside and told me to read about feminism. I did so, and it's revolutionised the way I think. I can't believe I insisted that we are treated fairly and equally. I'm reading Everyday Sexism at the moment and I've cried at bits, the inequality and pain that women have had to endure and the doors slammed in our faces on the basis of our sex.

Thank you for opening my eyes to the truth.

OP I totally agree with you that this section of Mumsnet has opened my eyes more to feminism and specifically feminist theory.

I had and still have my own brand of feminism but I never really defined myself as a feminist because I too had encountered an admittedly small number of vocal feminists with whom I could not identify. However once I read a lot of links on here and many buries head Wikipedia articles on feminism, various feminists and feminist theory I felt very comfortable that I could happily actually attach the label of feminist to my lapel.

I have also really noticed every day sexism more and more and I am now more inclined to call people out on their comments. It is like letting a genie out of the bottle, things that did not bother you in the past start to bother you more. I must admit though I do pop the genie back into the bottle a lot because I read an article a good while back that said the people who can deal best with the fact that the world is just not a fair place appear to have the happiest lives so I try and often fail to keep that in mind.

I have come to the conclusion that the actually world is set up for a very tiny group of rich, certainly powerful, more often than not misogynistic, conservative, often racist and homophobic men and every one else in the world sits somewhere below them on a fairly bleak continuum with women generally sitting on the lower rungs of this privilege ladder. It makes me realise we are not alone in the struggles that this world offers.

zinafaw you must have very little to do to pass the time if you have to spend your time trawling the websites of the world trying to convert women away from feminism. You might be better perhaps find the people on the rung above you on the world's privilege ladder and challenge them instead.

Zina is a man who just lurves MN so much he can't keep away and just wants to hug and kiss us really. Why else would he keep coming back?

Shhh listen. We are being explained what feminism is and what our opinions are.

Two things I don't really get (actually there are masses but my fingers will get tired typing them)

Do people think that by some weird fluke of nature that feminists only give birth to girls? I have one girl and two boys all of whom I will defend to the death, my husband happens to be fabulous, my dad is fab as well. My brother is a bit of a Pratt (might be a sibling thing) but I luffs him. I don't hate men

And also why is it that if a feminist says something you feel is out of order then all feminists are bad, if a woman says something I don't agree with I don't think that all women think the same thing. If a man says something I don't agree with I don't think all men think the same. Or a doctor, or accountant or anyone really

sigh

Z isn't reading the responses, due to fear of ingrained beliefs being challenged.

Sorry your thread got derailed by an MRA, OP, this happens all too often. Depressing.

Rufus I do think it can be fair to judge a sub category of people based on a select few. The nazis, boko haram, Islamic state spring to mind. No I am not in any way comparing feminists to any of these groupings, I am just making the point.

Radical 'anything' struggles to gain widespread popularity and acceptance. I would argue that is the whole point of radicalism, to point towards the extreme view and bring people someway, or best case scenario, the whole way along the journey to meet that view.

I was guilty of identifying radical and extreme feminism as the only brand of feminism instead of looking to the everyday brand of feminism I was living. I have also been told that you cannot be a feminist unless you hold x view which of course is utter horse shit when you read up on feminism.

another

But you could argue that there is no "moderate" version of those groups

Feminists range from someone who believes that there should be equality for women to the radical extreme

I don't think you can have a KKK lite, and how many people self identify as natzi on the school run

I don't expect anyone to say when I identify as a feminist to say "you are a man hating harpy" but if I said I was a natzi I wouldn't be surprised if you called me "anti Semitic"

But I suppose in effect we are just playing with words and it's our experiences that have framed how we view those words

Having said that I am quite a, erm I don't know how to phrase this, basic thinker?? The dictionary definition of feminist is how I realised I was a feminist a very long time ago and I don't think my understanding of it has changed much over the years

A feminist to me is someone who want equal rights for women and that's what I am

I also think that if I came on to MN and said that all Muslims were terrorists following what happened yesterday I would not only be completely wrong, but told that...loudly and at length

And I obviously can't spell NAZI!!!!!

Bloody hell!!!

Or could I have blamed autocorrect??

Too late for that

I don't think you're quite representing radical feminism correctly there

I know it's not quite what you're saying, but to be clear, radical feminist =/= man-hating harpy any more than someone calling themselves a liberal feminist

What's the male equivalent of this?

I can't think of a paralell to 'man-hating harpy' that would be used to describe a group of men fighting for rights and equality. :(

Can we stop calling radical feminism "extreme", please. That isn't what it is or what it means.

It also immediately plays into the hands of MRAs like zina.

YY scallops

I suppose what I am saying is that if the brand of feminism that people come across is the radical brand then they can easily not identify with it iyswim same as KKK, nazis or whatever. It is the case in most campaigns that those with the strongest views take up and charge the cause forward. This means that many off the views that get put forward are at the extreme end of the spectrum which can be a hard sell.

I think PETA are a more appropriate analogy than KKK and nazis, everyone knows they have a very good premise for their beliefs but the campaigners who take up this cause talk and act on the extreme side of the fence. Many vegetarians and women feel uncomfortable with PETA's activities and don't associate with them.

I would consider myself fairly out there in terms of supporting breastfeeding rights and campaigning for improvements in maternity services for women. I have often experienced organisations in these spheres unintentionally alienate people who want something different from those experiences too.

i love that analogy, Buffy.

Sorry

I have heard the phrase "man hating harpy" was used as an insult to any feminist

There was no intention on my part to link it to any level of feminism be it liberal or radical

There's a distinct difference between radicals and what I can only call the 'extremists' of feminism. The extremists tend to navigate towards websites like Tumblr and places on Reddit

I'm going to post a couple of things which light the fire under some people and thus spawned anti-feminism. These are not in the minority, I see them all the time. Which is what makes this forum so bloody refreshing. I can cleanse my mind.

Really not understanding your point GraysAnalogy .

Not quite sure how any of them spawned "anti-feminism", especially the picture of the guy in the shirt that objectifies women and the picture of the woman complaining about the objectification of women?

I don't think stating that homosexuals men oppress women is an "extremist" statement. And the paragraph highlighted sounds like 'queer' feminism to me. Again not considered "extremist" by most. In fact it is taught quite a lot in Gender Studies at universities I believe.

And perhaps you'd like to see some of the responses to lil-purrfect-femme's blog here before deciding who is extremist. I'd say the view she expressed in that photo was more mainstream than feminist anyway. It's where rape myths come from - that men can't control their 'urges'. Not a particularly feminist thought.

anothernumberone - please don't compare my feminism to PETA. No where in feminism does it demand the liberty of group by oppressing another which is what PETA does. It is the antithesis of feminism.

YY Buffy - 'root' is the key word I think. Recognising male supremacy and tackling that and the tools it uses i.e. violence against women and gender as a hierarchy, head on.

• people began identifying as anti-feminists because they see discrimination coming from 'feminists' and things that are questionable. In a lot of cases this is the only experience they've had with feminism so it is understandable that they will resist it, and in some cases try to combat it

• Yes she did have horrible replies, I've read them thank you smile I don;t think they're mainstream at all, for one she tagged it under feminism and patriarchy so even she thinks it's a feminist argument. It's pretty disgusting the suggest that men play video games to control their rape urges. This is an example of the 'man hating' idea people get from feminism.

• the photo of the two people is why people are saying feminism is hypocritical. You can't question what a woman wears, even if it's nothing, but that man was absolutely bombarded with abuse and brought to tears for his shirt. And I'm still not 100% how a shirt with artwork of the female form objectifies women. 'don't tell us how to dress' in one breath then crucifying a man for what he choses.

• and the homosexual one, I'm not even getting into that because it's quite evident what's wrong with it. Not everything is about oppressing women. It's absolutely ridiculous to suggest men being attracted to other men is oppressive.

And from my point of view, the PETA analogy is a good one. Your feminism may be good, but there are parts or groups or whatever that aren't. There's always rot in the woodwork somewhere - and in feminists case at the moment they seem to have the loudest voices ESPECIALLY to young people.

I'm trying to play devil's advocate thats all. I'm not saying I agree with anything either way. But failing to see why people are going against the feminism they have seen is naive. The majority of the people prefer to refer to themselves and equalitarian. They're not anti-women. They're just people who have had bad experiences with feminism and/or feminists groups - and want to do something about it

When I first came back here I got involved in a debate and had a good discussion about this. I've already said this is the only place in which I feel happy to perhaps actually identify as a feminist. In the US, I was subjected to a lot of abuse from feminists when doing work trying to raise awareness for male abuse survivors. There was picketing, threats, all the 'male tears' bullshit. Now imagine that was a teenagers first glimpse of 'feminism'. Would you expect them to welcome it with open arms?

I'm sorry that's been your experience, but based on my own conversations with young women (teenagers mostly) you overestimate how many come into contact with this as their first experience of what they understand to be feminism

Of course this is only a handful of people that I'm coming into contact with.

I'm in my 20's, and I too speak to a lot of young women and teenagers. Most who scorn feminism. Which is sad. Really sad. But I suppose when they're frequenting sites like tumblr, reddit, buzzfeed and the like and the 'bad feminsm' are confronting them it's bound to happen.

And scallops if you don't think lil-purfect-femme is extremist, I would hope her comments like these would change your mind
For once, men need to see how it feels to be living in rape culture every day. Since it’s very difficult for women to actually hurt men, they should be allowed to rape men who promote rape culture. This way- if men continue to promote rape culture after being raped, they’ll have to think about not just all women, but themselves. Taste of their own medicine.I’m not afraid to stand up for my rights

Anyway I'm not trying to make excuses for anyone or back one side up or the other, I just wanted to try and show that these anti-fems aren't necessarily 'man pleasers' or 'handmaidens', that there are things going wrong, that there are factors we need to look and and try to combat.

I'm in my 20s too

Tbh my main focus is on speaking out against the patriarchy and against the widespread, active and critical forces that are damaging to women. thwre are always going to be feminists I disagree with, or viewpointa from people who declare themselves to be feminists that I believe are contrary to feminism's aims.

However, my main priority is not tracking those people down and tellng them how wrong they are. If they appear on my radar I will express my disaagrewment and explain why. But my main focus and concern is the very real harm being done to women by the patriarchy