"She considers herself a feminist"

[Juells]

I don't know if I'm just being picky and over-sensitive, but this jumped out at me when I read the Wikipedia page on Stacey Dooley.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stacey_Dooley

I had a knee-jerk of "Would anyone say that about a man?". "He considers himself to be a free-speech advocate" "He considers himself to be an environmentalist". A glance at the documentaries she's done shows where her interests lie, so many are about the exploitation of women and children, and the violence against them.

It's not up to you to decide how anybody else describes themselves. I wouldn't use the word feminist to describe myself but I'm sure many would look at my career and actions and say that I was but those people are not the gatekeepers of my feminism. Or lack thereof. And neither are you.

Yes it's a strange phraseology. It may be trying to be 'polite' as per knittedjest's post - rather than stating 'she is a feminist' when she might never have said that.

Not sure why I am posting on this thread as I haven't actually yet found out who McDooley is ....

knittedjest
It's not up to you to decide how anybody else describes themselves.

Why do you think she wrote it herself?

Annandale - link to her Wiki page in the first post. I'm interested because I've seen some of her documentaries on youtube, and watched her on Strictly. I find her pretty impressive.

knittedjest You've misunderstood; 'considers themselves to be' can be a minimising statement when applied to others and faux humble when used about yourself.

I don't know any feminists who would say 'I consider myself to be a feminist'. They say 'I am a feminist'.

I don't know any feminists who would say 'I consider myself to be a feminist'. They say 'I am a feminist'.

^^ this

Maybe it's because calling someone a feminist is controversial and probably an insult? Ie "She considers her to be a femininist" means "It wasn't me that called her a hatchet faced man hating joyless dyke/ hysterical shrieking man blaming nutter, she puts herself in that group".

Feminazi!

Pull up your fly, powershowerforanhour, your misogyny is showing. 🍆

😁 I would only I'm currently wearing maternity jeans. I'm definitely a feminist. Though sometimes not a very good one.

I had a knee-jerk of "Would anyone say that about a man?".

On wikipedia, yes I think they would. I've seen that phrasing quite a lot about things like political persuasions and sexual identities. I think it's to do with they way wikipedia accepts citations- saying someone describes themselves as something with a direct quote is indisputable, whereas saying someone is feminist/socialist/bisexual etc leads to a debate about definitions.

It’s wikipedia so if someone just wrote ‘is a feminist’ someone else would post ‘citation needed’. ‘Considers herself’ is citing the person themselves.

After spending some time looking into the edits of the 4th wave feminism page, Wikipedia considers itself to be the truth, but probably isn't.

I'm must say I personally find the phrase potentially a tad derogatory and agree it would rarely be used to describe a man's political or ideological leanings.

Why don't you email Natacha Kennedy to ask OP?

saying someone describes themselves as something with a direct quote is indisputable, whereas saying someone is feminist/socialist/bisexual etc leads to a debate about definitions.

That makes sense.

NewWomensMovement
Why don't you email Natacha Kennedy to ask OP?

I don't understand what that post means, genuinely. Isn't Natacha Kennedy the person who advocated tinkering with wikipedia pages listing feminists, and removing any of those formerly known as women?