Feminism, humanism and second-wave woes

[NiNoKuni]

This blog was posted by the British Humanist Association on Facebook today. Essentially, it says that feminism is a subdivision of humanism, focussing on the gender equality part of equality, so humanists don't have to choose whether to be either a feminist or humanist - they're already both.

I'm not sure I entirely agree with this. Whilst I personally would describe myself as a humanist, I feel it's almost completely separate from my feminism. Humanism feels to me more of a non-religious standpoint, advocating for humans, right here right now, as there is no afterlife. Feminism is, to me, advocating for the liberation of women from male oppression. They could in theory overlap, but it just doesn't gel for me.

How many of you would call yourselves humanists and do you feel it intersects with feminism?

On another note, I made the grave mistake of reading the comments. I should've brought my anti-feminism bingo card. Some women complain that feminists look down on or attack them for their choices, some men seem to see it as man-hating and pandering to social justice warriors. One woman was berating second wavers and saying she wouldn't call herself a feminist until the third wave had 'usurped' them entirely.

I don't know about you, but I've found second-wave-type feminists to be welcoming, full of humour, concerned for me and my well-being in confrontational situations and generally willing to think and talk about the world. Third-wave-type feminists (NATWTFALT) are the ones I mainly see judging people for thinking the wrong things and occasionally outright berating them.

Why is this still the prevailing narrative then?

In both of these issues, it seems to me that second-wave feminism is being sidelined and described as man-hating (or SJWs) and women's-choice-hating. Third-wave choice 'n equality feminism is clearly way more sexy. Is this the future? Is there still a place for more radical feminism?

[Sorry if this is a bit rambly, I've had root canal work today and four shots of anaesthetic plus codeine!]

Humanism is a spiritual thing isn't it? So like religion for people who don't like God and stuff, but have these kind spiritual feelings that they want to put behind something and this is a thing they can choose?

I haven't got a spiritual bone in my body so I wouldn't describe myself as a humanist in any way whatsoever even slightly.

I am most definitely a feminist!

I'm not really sure about the the waves and stuff but from what I've read and what others describe themselves as I guess I fall mainly in the radfem second wavey kind of thing? I may be wrong as like I say I'm not that good on the history and stuff. The only other feminists I know are ones I've met through MN and they've all been luvverly

British Humanist Association:

"We work on behalf of non-religious people who seek to live ethical lives on the basis of reason and humanity. We promote Humanism, a secular state, and equal treatment of everyone regardless of religion or belief. Our celebrants provide non-religious funeral, wedding, and naming ceremonies."

Next to the piece in the article:

"If you truly believe in equal rights for everyone, why not be a humanist, who fights for the equality of all people instead?”

Erm. I'm not a humanist? Have they decided I must be one by default or something?

OK I'm a bit confused. I'm going to do the quiz. The last quiz I did, didn't turn out right for a different group of people who had decided unilaterally what I was...

"You are a humanist, or very close to humanist thinking. Many people are, often without even knowing it. "

hahahahahaha!

Brilliant quiz!

The questions basically go:

A. Are you religious?
B. Are you an athiest?
C. Are you a nice person?
D. Are you a total bastard?

I like

Sorry OP I'm not answering your questions here but I've got a bit of a problem with their premise in the first place!

Ok I read it all. The conclusion "Claiming to be a humanist and not a feminist is dismissing gender inequality as a secondary concern. That type of humanism is limited, narrow-minded, and not worth defending." seems reasonable to me, as did much of the article.

I'm still not a humanist though

I couldn't see any comments.

I'll go away now and let some other people post!

I see myself as either Liberal Feminist or egalitarian, I struggle with certain concepts within radical feminism about choice of the individual. In terms of what I want to achieve for the changes in society I find humanism white first world centric and tends to ignore the need of WoC especially outside of the first world countries. But what do I know?

The humanist pages I've been looking at certainly are liberally bedecked with pictures of white men, for sure, sausage.

This is a thing isn't it. Right / left, conservative / liberal, religious / athiest, capitalist leaders / trade union leaders, time and again it turns out that they all look the same. And a different group of people, each time, find out with disappointment that the organisation they had got behind to do whatever it was "for everyone", actually meant "oh yeah but not people like you obviously".

I'm definitely not saying all feminists should be or are humanists!

I might not have coalesced my thoughts properly here. I'm sort of thinking along the lines of is feminism being co-opted into some kind of equalism/egalitarian philosophy, rather than a liberation from oppression one?

I broadly support humanism, I am an atheist, I am in favour of things like (properly adjudicated) assisted dying, the separation of church and state and so on. We did consider getting a humanist celebrant to perform a naming ceremony for our son but didn't cos we're tight and lazy and we had a secular wedding. In this sort of sense, I'm a humanist. I just don't feel it has anything to do with (my) feminism.

I think this particular piece is indeed quite reasonable in what it says and I see it as being aimed at that specific breed of rationalist straight white men who like to cheer Dawkins on. And yes, getting men on board with feminism is a good thing (with certain caveats in certain circumstances IMO). But if we have to shoe-horn feminism into some kind of egalitarian philosophy to do so, is that actually a good thing? There is a difference between equal rights and liberation, I think. And that's where I'm coming from on the second and third wave point.

Is there still a place for radical feminism and where might that be with the rise of third wave liberal feminism? Will we be seeing more of this sort of thing in the coming years? Second-wavers seem to be roundly dismissed by the new kids on the block, so am I obsolete already?

I'll come back to this tomorrow once I've slept and see if I can make more sense!

Oh, the comments were on Facebook by the way.

Humanism...

It basically provides marriage and funeral services for non religious people. They make shitloads of money from it.

Nothing to do with feminism

Nino haven't we already reached 4th wave feminism?
No wave has reconciled itself with religious dogma as far i am aware.

It basically provides marriage and funeral services for non religious people. They make shitloads of money from it

Do you have any idea how difficult it was until very recently to be able to have a non religious funeral?

Who exactly is making "shit loads of money" What an ignorant comment.

To me that blog seems to be arguing that humanists should also see themselves as feminists.
Not that feminists should also be humanists (you could be religious and a feminist so humanism probably isn't for you).

squdzin you do know religious celebrants charge for their services?

Erm when my mum died 10 years ago we had a humanist service because we are not a religious family. It cost us shitloads of money.

My brother had a humanist wedding in California a few weeks ago which cost him tens of thousands of pounds. So someone is making shitloads of money. Humanism as far as I am coserned provides "religious themed" services for people who are not particularly religious.
What an ignorant comment you know nothing about me.

Personally, I feel that I am both a feminist and a humanist. Humanist because I do not believe in God, and feminist because I believe in equality between the sexes. I think that there is some overlap.

Though not all feminists will be humanists, I think at lot of humanists would be feminists, simply because of the focus on equality (and I struggle to imagine how anyone who believes in equality would not be a feminist, though that is perhaps quite naive.)

I don't think feminism should be swallowed up by humanism though, because I see them as two distinct things. As NiNoKuni says, feminism is primarily to do with freedom from oppression, whereas humanism is more a belief system for the non-religious. They be trying to achieve similar end-goals, but they are different.

I dislike humanism for philosophical reasons: I do not believe in the model of individual agency that humanisms tend to promote. And I am a feminist! I think most post-structuralist feminists would agree with that statement, too.

I think that blog post is well-meaning in its intention to bring an answer to one age-old response to feminism: 'I care about ALL PEOPLE'S rights, not just womens'' (said with an air of deeply patronising moral superiority at the expansiveness of their beautiful and generally male soul). In my experience, however, this rarely amounts to anything more than signing a few anemic petitions in favour of women's rights, and certainly not to anything that might challenge the status quo or the economic basis of capitalism.

I looked into having a humanist celebrant for my dds naming ceremony. It was £300, so quite a bit of money but I seriously doubt the celebrant looks at it as a money spinner.

Not sure how much a funeral would cost.

(To be clear, that comment about not wanting to change anything is intended to apply to the self-defined 'humanist' men who sideline feminism as 'just one of many' equality movements, and not to all humanists - many of whom I personally admire even though I disagree profoundly with some of their ideas!)

shove just being nosey but what is you don't like about humanist ideas?

whenshewasbad my best friend has had 2 baby naming ceremonies with a humanist celebrant. They were really good. Very personal and rather beautiful.
They are definitely fulfilling a market.

I can see why they would want to link it all with feminism, but unless you're a feminist anyway, I don't think becoming a humanist will suddenly make you see the world differently.

I'm not sure how one could square calling oneself a feminist and being a Catholic. My mother called herself a feminist and just ignored the parts that didn't suit her.

It's of course up to individual consciences as to whether one would personally have an abortion or use contraception but I'm struggling to see how it is possible to be a feminist and at the same time sign up to an organisation which does not permit women to have autonomy on contraception and abortion.

whenshewasbad - I disagree fundamentally with the idea of the autonomous individual freely-choosing agent. I believe that:

i. we are born into a world that is full of knowledge-power relationships that structure selfhood and all understanding in a manner that is fundamentally socio-cultural - in other words, structural and social relations have primacy over consciousness/selfhood
ii. following from ii, there is no such thing as universal 'human nature' and that, as an idea it is oppressive and disciplinary
iii. that humanist ideas of progress, enlightenment and improvement through history are bunk (one word: Auschwitz).

Ooops, pressed 'post' too early - meant to add that absolutely none of this is strikingly original to me, but all three are well-established positions since the 60s. (And, like all positions, contestable!!)

I think humanist beliefs are close to feminist beliefs - equal treatment for all, etc etc. The focus of humanist action however is not feminist - it's about liberating people from the oppression of religion, rather than liberating women from the oppression of men.

Now, many (most? all?) religions are not exactly feminist - see ALass comment about Catholicism which I wholeheartedly agree with. So uncoupling religion from the way society works is a tick for this feminist. But that in no way means the work of the humanist society is feminist. It just means our paths are jogging along the same way. IMO.