How to be a Feminist?

[soupforbrains]

Hi everyone,

This is my first post over here in Feminism. I'm essentially posting because i want to learn more.

I have considered myself to be a feminist since I was about 14. However at around the age of 19 I realised I had actually not been a feminist at all and had just enjoyed saying I was a feminist. I then learned a little more but flipped from going to wrong way about feminism (the sort of militant women should do/wear/say this/that/the other because otherwise it's 'un-feminist') I later then briefly decided I didn't want to be a feminist if 'you have to follow stupid rules'.

In the years in between I have become more aware of what feminism really means. I think. I believe I am a feminist, and I certainly WANT to be a feminist but I worry that perhaps I don't know enough/ am not aware enough of things to be a 'good' feminist.

Can anyone suggest any articles or feminist works I could read which might help me find my feet?

Additionally any stories about what incident/article/moment made you feel the way you currently do?

Your local women's aid or rape crisis will link relevant local news and causes on their fb.

On twitter, womens place UK

Also just lots of different viewpoints. Mona eltahawy for eg

1, Feminism is the political movement for the liberation of women.
2, Like all political movements there are factions that, while agreeing on the goal, do not agree on methods and practices.
3, Anti-Feminists will attempt to use these factions against one another, just as opponents of any political movement do.
The current effort to drive women out of the public sphere is the culmination of 100 years of backlash.

It would however be anti-feminist to call out a woman either for shaving or not shaving her legs.

I think there’s a difference between calling out an individual woman for following a practice that is normalised and analysing the roots of that practice and linking it to patriarchy.

Hi, soupforbrains!

I have a couple of blog recommendations to add to your enormous reading list

Glosswitch

and Sarah Ditum

Fabulous, knowledgeable and witty.

I am still in love with this atm
victimfocus.wordpress.com/2018/01/03/stop-asking-me-what-about-men/amp/

What a brilliant reading list you've got soup! I'm quite excited for you. I remember when I first read The Female Eunuch and Backlash and they were both such massive punching the air YES! books for me. I feel quite envious of you to be going there for the first time.

Don't feel like you need to plough through everything in its entirety though - get four or five out of the library, have a skim, read a couple of chapters and see if they speak to you. Read the ones that resonate. You've got plenty of time to go back to the other ones :)

I am older than most people on here, but I think the first influential book I read was The Woman’s Room, by Marilyn French. It’s very dated, but still worth a read. I can’t remember not being a feminist

Ah Bertrand, me too.

Vida by Marge Piercy is outstanding, along with Woman on the Edge of Time and it's sequel, Body of Glass
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
The Temple of My Familiar by Alice Walker

more contemporary....
The Maddadam trilogy by Margaret Atwood

Happy reading

I think there’s a difference between calling out an individual woman for following a practice that is normalised and analysing the roots of that practice and linking it to patriarchy.

Couldn't agree more (as a leg shaver). I think that's what people often miss in AIBU.

Enjoying finding new reading suggestions on this thread

How about thinking about what feminism means for us as individuals? For me it's about thinking about how thoughts, words, actions impact on other women. Is this good for women or not? Putting women front and centre is key. That's the difference between feminism and equalism.

That's a good point Bert

I think this is one of the areas where I am unsure and get worried I get shouted at.

For me, feminism is like you said, putting women and issues/activities/incidents which affect them first and foremost, however I see feminism as a thing with an end. The purpose of feminism is to put women first and push women's rights and issues continually until there comes a time when equality is reached (however many moons away that time may be).

At that point the need for feminism in this form should cease, and then it would be all about equalism. I don't want the patriarchal society we have to get fixed and then falter again because it's become a matriarchal society (however far-fetched that concept might be).

But I believe that the only way to bring about the change necessary to make society equal for the sexes is Feminism, not equalism.

@QuentinSummers

Can you give me the twitter handles for those people? some of them there are a lot with the name and none 'verified' so I don't know which to follow.

LOL @ Bertrand. I quite fancy a matriarchy too!

Hey, soup, I hope you're encouraged by this thread you started. Lots of contributions. All sorts of different opinions, respectfully expressed in an atmosphere of trying to learn from each other.

Not at all how FWR gets talked about elsewhere, amirite?

Do stick around.

@soupforbrains

@jessicae13eaton
@bindelj
@claireshrugged
@glosswitch
@K_IngalaSmith

bert what would your matriarchy be like? I keep trying to imagine one and I can't...

I suspect it would be very socialist.
I think of the primate tribe where the dominant males ate the poison and how dramatically and peacefully the culture changed. And how simple it was to maintain the matriarchy compared to how violent the patriarchy had been.

just watch this.

Not at all how FWR gets talked about elsewhere, amirite?

Yes, I really do not recognise the version of FWR that gets spoke about elsewhere on the site. I have never ever seen the stuff that people reckon happens/gets said here actually happen or get said. And often when they quote stuff thats been said its out of context to make people look bad, or it was just a singular poster saying something daft that everyone ignored. I have never seen FWR posters be like a nest of vipers or whatever the fuck they say about us. Nor any ganging up or shouting down. Asking questions and having opposing opinions, yes. Being nasty and bullying, no.

A certain poster starts conversations on topics then stores up responses to bring up days/weeks/months/years later as "proof how mean we are. Never mentioning the context.
It does my nut.