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.

What discrimination from feminists? None of those highlight discrimination from feminism. They are just thoughts from randoms on the internet. They are not backed up by any structural power or any influence.

Women are judged on their clothing in a way that men aren't. That is the point. One man. ONE MAN was judged on his offensive clothing (and yes it was objectifying women) and that suddenly negates the many thousands of ways women are controlled by judging the way they are looked. Fighting against this man wearing clothes that objectify women and fighting against women being objectified is the same thing. Not hypocritical at all.

I find it interesting that you've found a comment about how gay men are oppressing women because they don't want a vagina yet ignore the many more comments about how lesbians should embrace transwomen and ignore their penises. Feminism is about the oppression of women. So feminists (if indeed they are a feminist) making comments about women's oppression shouldn't be unexpected .

PETA is an anti-woman organisation. Comparing it to feminism is insulting. It is only you saying that these examples have the loudest voices. Personally I haven't seen or heard of these feminists.

I think you are expecting feminism and feminists to behave to a higher standard than other people. We can't control what all feminists say. We aren't a homogenous group. Why are we responsible for what other people say that we might disagree with (I can't believe I defending queer feminism for example - I'm not btw I'm just defending their right to explore it and have opinions on it)?

I'm not one for saying who is or is not a feminist. Anyone can define themselves as a feminist. But feminism means something and as such I do believe that feminists should be at least inclined to see and acknowledge power structures where they exist.

Of course, I just sometimes feel that perhaps I - and others - should be sort of claiming back feminism from those who use it to hurt, preach hate, or misrepresent what feminism is aiming for.

But that's just how I feel and I understand people haven't experienced the extremes I have so have no reason to question

x posts

Really you don't think we've read a lot about feminism and from feminists we may not agree with? Wow that's pretty patronising.

I do agree with everything scallops says there

It is a shame though if those are considered to be mainstream views of feminism, and I'm just not sure that they are. Perhaps I'm pver-optimistic

Yes and I agree with your comment before mine Petula - which was much more succinct than mine .

No structural power, but these people have a lot of 'followers', young people who cling onto their very words. You haven't see discrimination from feminists, fair enough. I have. Particularly for LGBT and men.

I'm not ignoring anything. You're missing my point. I was simply trying to show the sorts of things that people are seeing, things that may be the reasons why people are rejecting the feminist label.

Personally I'm glad you haven't seen or heard anything of the nature. Good for you, but not good for us who have - because people don't like believing that we have. There's always excuses; we're either lying, misunderstanding or it's a 'troll'. Like I've said a hundred times, I was losing faith in feminism until I came back here and saw sense from people. Saw feminism for what I had always believed it was. Not some movement hijacked by those wanting to spew their misinformed, discriminatory, misandrist opinions.

Anyway I'm so sorry this positive thread has turned not so - it's brilliant that Moomin feels her eyes have been opened and perhaps a bit enlightened? Bit like me when I joined

Really you don't think we've read a lot about feminism and from feminists we may not agree with

I'm not just talking about reading. I'm talking about being abused and receiving threats from feminist groups, from being assaulted by them, receiving death threats from them. All for daring to support male abuse survivors. That's what I meant by extremes :)

I never said I haven't seen or heard anything of this nature. I said I hadn't heard of these particular people.

But those examples aren't discrimination. To label it as such ignores the power imbalance at play.

I have never heard of male abuse survivors receiving threats off feminists nor any threats to groups organising to help male abuse victims. And I get involved in a lot of work around DV.

So what are you trying to say, because you haven't heard of it it didn't happen? If so you're proving my point I posted above.

No I am saying I haven't seen those views. They are not views made by people fighting abuse. They aren't feminist views.

I don't think they're feminist views either. I think they're the ideas of people using feminism as a banner to, as I said, spew their hatred. However these people identified as feminists, used the patriarchy argument to try and condone their actions, so I can hardly say that they weren't a feminist group?

They did also have a really silly group name, I can't remember it right now but when I remember I'll post it. I do remember thinking I bet they think it's witty.

A lot of my earlier lack of knowledge and assumptions about feminism were drawn from Tumblr, Twitter, reddit etc - and I still see it a lot in my friends who are the same age as me (20). They want equality, but it's almost like they're afraid to admit it and fight for it. They insist they've never been treated unfairly because of their sex... until you point out that a man isn't likely to be catcalled in the street, or referred to as 'slut' rather than by their name, and when a man gets married, people aren't instantly asking him when he'll have children, or criticising him for returning to work after having children.

We're being raised with such low expectations of how we should be treated that we don't even see being referred to by name and seen as more than a uterus on legs as a basic right.

I have also come across those types of views under a feminist banner. However, and gray I am absolutely not putting you in this category so please don't tjink that for a moment, the people who have usually brought them to my attentipn have often been MRAs out to troll and provoke, or men who claim to support feminism but are also very keen to impart their views of how it is doing things wrong (and how I should be a better feminist). So they've been used to try and catch me out, or to divert discussion away from men having to take on board some uncomfortable truths

I have much more rarely come across this situation where someone is put off being a feminist by those sorts of examples you have shown. Frequently people like the OP says she originally felt, that feminism had done enough and that women who continued to bang on about this stuff were overthinking etc etc. Or those who have misunderstood or misquoted dworkin and others

Please don't think I'm saying that you're lying - clearly it must be the case if you have spoken to young women and girls who have said this. But I wouldn't have thought it was so prevalent. But as I say, i may be more optimistic or blinkered than I thought!

X-post (slowly typing while I dry my hair!)

That's interesting moomin that that's been your experience too (and sorry for assumptions in my last post!)

Grays: quite apart from feminists not been a homogenous lump defined by group think, anyone can say they're a feminist - doesn't mean they are. Anyone can append any label they like to themselves.

I rather think you have answered you own concerns when you say they have a silly group name - bit of a giveaway really.

Spending our time try to explain/oppose whatever nonsense some group who happen to call themselves feminists expound is a diversion from the important issues we debate or campaign for. If people are daft enough to be easily taken in by these faux feminists I doubt they have the mindset to be sympathetic to feminism in the first place. Life is to short to challenge every straw man comment on the internet. These faux feminists are probably only acting as confirmation bias to pre-conceived and erroneous notions anyway.

grimble

The problem lies not within them being feminists, it lies within them thinking that they had to act the way they did because they were feminist. They absolutely believed that they were right in what they were doing. It's all well and good you saying they're 'faux feminists' but they don't believe that, and if an outsider were to see that behaviour in the name of feminism then that is going to leave a lasting mark - like it did with me.
If this was an isolated incident it would probably be different It wasn't.

I'm not here to argue whats right and wrong, I'm here to speak about why people may have adopted the 'anti-feminist' stance, and why I think it's a problem that needs to be tackled. I'm not even sure how, but I think it's really really sad (and a bit anger inducing) that feminism is tarred with this now for some groups, including my circles and by the sounds of it Moomins.

petula
I understand completely, I would not for one minute point speak about this to catch you out or troll you or anything. My reasons are above and I hope I haven't offended or angered anyone.

Anyway, I wanted to ask about Everyday Sexism that someone mentioned upthread I think. I haven't actually read it but I have it on my iPad. Is it worth a read then?

Way too many 'I's in that post. I'm not self obsessed honest

Greys, in response to your three images.

1. Doesn't sound like any feminism at all to me. Feminists don't argue that men have "rape urges", in fact they argue the opposite.

I appreciate that the person has tagged it with "feminism", but that doesn't magically make it feminism. I agree that people do mistakenly identify views like this as feminism and that puts them off feminism, but I don't know what you're proposing ("real" feminists) should do about it? You can't keep changing the name of a movement just because some idiot comes along and misrepresents/misunderstands it. TBH I can't stand reddit, and this kind of thing is partly why. I know it's popular but there are lots of other platforms which are accessible, I don't particularly feel like steeling myself to go and delve into somewhere like Reddit (which is 90% young, entitled, white men, and it shows) - I'll keep being as reasonable, balanced (by which I mean sensible, not showing equal arguments from both sides - I don't believe both "sides" here are equal) and articulate as I can when I discuss feminism, in the hope reason and logic win out, because most of these kinds of misunderstood feminism just sound bizarre, TBH, especially when compared to reasonable and well thought out arguments.

1. This sounds like either a joke/attempt at trolling, or a reference to the trans "cotton ceiling" thing. It just doesn't come across as believable like the first one (sadly) does. I'd have my money on it being a reference to cotton ceiling, especially with the "what if I don't identify as a woman" at the end.

1. This is an anti-feminist graphic created to show the "double standards" that the image creator believes feminists hold. But they're not comparing like with like. The argument for women being allowed to be topless is about saying it's not okay to rape somebody whatever they are wearing, and that it's not okay to shame women on the basis of their sexual activity or availability, whereas shirtgate was nothing to do with rape or sexual availability, it was pointed out, quietly, not live on air, that that shirt was an example of a general environment which is hostile to women. Like nude calendars in police stations - you would never see that these days. It's not part of the argument whether nude women on shirts, or calendars, are acceptable (though some feminists may argue that they are not) - the argument was that it was inappropriate in that situation. The equivalent would be someone wearing a shirt with a joke which could be considered racist or homophobic, perhaps a term which is used as endearment between friends but isn't appropriate to wear on international coverage of something related to a field which in which ethnic minorities or gay people are hugely under-represented.

Sorry this took me ages to type as was looking for a letter in between (which DH put in a box yesterday but claimed not to notice!) so probably xposted/conversation has moved on now, but wanted to finish it anyway!

Awww man, 20+ posts behind :(

OK now to catch up

Yeah I do agree Buffy Multi faceted, but some are just complete shitlords who have gleefully sided with antifeminism to air their misogynistic views.

I haven't read Everyday Sexism yet but I can gather what kinds of things it will say :( I found The Equality Illusion quite drastically eye opening too.

I think it's very hard to see sexism when you are young, and especially (but not only) before you have children. It's only when you start realising that the series of coincidental things which happened to you individually are part of a bigger picture that you think "Oh, SHIT!" and it all starts to come together and make sense.

I'm 26 and have been intrigued by feminism for some time but mumsnet has been an absolute catalyst in the six years I've been here.

Oh god I know the 'oh shit!' feeling!

There was a time on here years ago, before I really was interested in feminism as a whole, when I was talking about some things that happened to me and then it suddenly hit me. It was like fuck. I remember crying then feeling this horrible anger. I was blissfully unaware before then that there were actually reasons behind what were happening or had happened, that it was all part of a bigger picture. I still remember that feeling now it gives me shivers.