To think that all moral human beings are feminists

[Guyonhere1]

AIBU to think that every normal human being - male or female - is a feminist, since the majority of people are for gender equality.

PS - this is a genuine question and I’m not trying to cause an argument

I honestly think there is no need for feminism in the developed world

I can never understand the mindset that just because an individual believes they've never been opressed as a woman they think feminism is done now.

If there's one thing that reading this forum has taught me, it's that feminists don't agree with each other.
Even about what feminim is or isn't, or whether men can be feminists at all or not.
Someome upthread said that "feminism is political movement not a philosophy or moral code".
Yet women who come on here and say they aren't sure if they are feminists are told "if you believe that women should have equal rights to men" then you are a feminist. (But that men can never be feminists, of course).

In my experience, a lot of people who declare they’re feminists, aren’t actually feminists because they stand against girls and women’s rights, safety and dignity. Most ‘real’ feminists don’t go round saying or have in their bio they’re feminists but are feminists because they stand for equality and against erasure of sex-based rights. Some “feminists” are MRAs in disguise. Or at least that’s the case for most people I know/follow. One person has on their Instagram they’re a feminist and proud mother of a trans girl and does believes they’re as much a girl as female girls, they’re 6, autistic and I can’t recall condition or specifics but there’s an issue with their brain, scan has indicated there’s something missing or formed incorrectly or something along those lines. I wouldn’t class that as feminism even though they’ve said they’re a feminist, saying they’re a feminist doesn’t make it true

Well, I'm a late blooming feminist, started out not even considering it, eventually became an anti-feminist, with a blog and everything, and finally my commitment to free speech and the realities of my experiences as a woman led me to a place where I engaged with feminist perspectives, and found myself convinced by the arguments. And so far, not come across anything to persuade me otherwise.

But I don't claim the label 'feminist' like a tribal thing, and I don't expect lockstep conformity from others either.

I'm largely second wave in my understanding, and my view of gender is informed by that, and I accept the Radical feminist position of women's oppression being rooted in our biology, and exploited by a society stacked to advantage those with a different biology, men, partly via the system of gender and partly by the simple physical threat of men.

Now, I came to this position through argument and experience. While I may well view people who dismiss or uphold the oppression of women, as individuals or as a class, with a bucket load of contempt on a personal level, I don't think that making a definitive moral judgement will have much of an effect beyond me expressing that contempt.

I don't believe feminism is an identity, I simply work for the liberation of women, from the perspective of being one in the period and culture I find myself in, and I will always prioritize women's voices over men's because the very essence of feminist thought to me is that it is for all women, even when I disagree with them, and that men have been in the ascendancy in every sphere throughout history, and they can butt out of this one.

Most of the true feminists I know in real life are older (post-45) lesbians and Marxists.

I disagree. My feminism is about female liberation, not 'equality' which others above have explained is a nonsense.

This!

Saying something is about liberation isn't much of an answer though - what constitues liberation is the immediate question.

Most people might say the same rights and freedoms as others - that is, political and social equality. That's about the only area you see some substantial agreement across the board.

Beyond that, it is a huge can of worms, the answer is not at all obvious what it means to be free in any deeper sense and there is huge disagreements both today, among feminists, in the larger culture, and across different times and cultures you see ideas about freedom that are completely opposed to each other. When people imagine that liberation isa straightforward idea and everyone should agree with it, it's usually because they are naive about all the possibilities that "liberation" might, or might not, include.

The disagreement about sex positivity is a good example. Is it free to have choice, to be liberated from moral ideas about sex and how it should be used, to be liberated from concerns about personal psychological health, public health, family concerns, whatever? Or does that liberation actually lead to a different kind of imprisonment - imprisonment to the desires of the more powerful in society, or to social expectation, or to one's own physical urges or psychological issues? But doesn't that mean there will be externalised limits ie lack of freedom?

There are no easy answers to that kind of question, so to say feminism is about women's liberation just isn't saying much.

Who should decide if a woman needs an abortion or not, her or a male politician?
Why are women at more risk of dying from domestic violence at the hand of male partners than vice versa?
Why is it that women are more likely to need a DV shelter than men?
Why do we even need The Equality Act in the first place? Why do womens sports and changing rooms need protecting at all?

Because we are socialized to think in terms of a hierarchy where men outrank women.

That's why we need 'female liberation', not 'equality'. If you can't see it and don't think there's a need for it because we all have the same rights on paper, then you probably live in different social circles to many women who are less well off than you.

Who ever said that equality was fundamentally about legislation, any more than "liberation" is, whatever you understand by that?

A new rule has to be coded into legislation first, before it can be gradually accepted by society, because people need rules to show them where the boundaries are. We cant rely on common sense or good will.
As an example, we made drink driving illegal, and then socially unacceptable.

I consider myself to have good morals, I believe strongly in equality, l don't believe it is necessary to push women's rights above men's.

I think this is what it comes down to when people say they're not feminists: different definitions of feminism. I'm also very much in the equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcome camp.

Very broadly, I would define a feminist as anyone who supports the fair and just advancement of women's rights, freedoms and happiness. The devil is in the detail of what constitutes 'fair and just' and what that individual believes will produce this advancement most effectively (as well as, more recently, disagreements over what 'women' encompasses).

Forgive me, as a relative newbie, but for me feminism is not so much about the fighting for gains for women as much as trying to redress the balance of human respect and dignity... in so far as a woman should not suffer in society from measurable things such as an inferior education, inferior safety inside/outside the home, inferior body autonomy, inferior health care, inferior opportunities at work, nor the more abstract ideas about gender roles, being an object for men, whether being seen as a breeder, sexual object, menial dogsbody or property. I would think most people would agree with the outward measures of equality but the psychological bias we all have is much more subtle and ingrained. We may not all be Germaine Greer but we need these voices flagging up the problems and particularly speaking for those without a voice (including children).

Similarly most of us would not consider ourselves to be racist or ableist as moral people in a civilised society, but we do still need those people who call out our unconscious bias or highlight issues we never saw because it’s not our first hand struggle.

That’s my view fwiw anyway.

I just wanted to add, brilliantly put, Goosefoot.

The liberation referenced is liberation from the oppression of the patriarchy, to use the jargon. I'm not always happy to use that terminology, because it has become weighted with misunderstandings over time, but it will do for the purpose of discussion here.

As to what that liberation looks like? Don't know as yet, because we are quite a way off from it being a reality, and also because Feminism is, as has been said, a political movement, not a religion with a clearly delineated paradise goal. It is meant to be a movement for women to be able to explore ideas and campaign collectively for changes to system which, for a number of reasons, puts men in the ascendancy. The fact that not every woman thinks in uniform ways is utterly irrelevant to the pursuit of liberation. Is it necessary for every man to agree for them to be able to enjoy the full freedom of a liberal democracy? You know it's not. But for some reason (Let's call it the patriarchy goggles) when women have a broad based movement with lots of different ideas about what liberation looks like, it's suddenly far too vague to be a useful concept.

I call cobblers on that. I think the range of views within feminism a strength, not a weakness, and I believe very much that feminism hasn't even really got started, never mind achieved everything women need it to.

Parity not equality.

The purpose of the backlash was to turn Feminism into a marketing device and a lifestyle choice in order to neutralize its influence on the succeeding generations. It has been reasonably effective.

A new rule has to be coded into legislation first, before it can be gradually accepted by society, because people need rules to show them where the boundaries are. We cant rely on common sense or good will.
As an example, we made drink driving illegal, and then socially unacceptable.

I think that works in some kinds of instances, but not usually the more significant ones. Drunk driving or public smoking - well, most people realise these things aren't necessary in every setting anyway, and even many people who do them see the logic of not doing them. In a way the law helped change behaviour as much as anything.

But trying to change the social consensus on something like gender self id, or anything where man people really fundamentally disagree is a different story. It may not work and it can backfire significantly.

But in any case, I don't think when people say equality they mean specifically legal equality, though that's usually included. I think what most mean is equality of dignity. They may or may not believe that requires liberation from some sort of social hierarchy, or have different ideas of the origin of the hierarchy.

The purpose of the backlash was to turn Feminism into a marketing device and a lifestyle choice in order to neutralize its influence on the succeeding generations. It has been reasonably effective.

I don't know. I'm not sure people who are in a position to influence such things really care about women being empowered, so much as they care about women becoming part of the capitalist machine so their labour can be exploited. Some ideas in feminism were really useful for accomplishing that and so there was a lot of pressure to explore thse ideas and maybe neglect alternate views and directions.

But I also think there were some ideas in feminist theory that many people simply found unlikely or unbelievable, and there were some things that some people simply like to do and so they didn't want to stop doing them.

I saw no reason to disbelieve them at the time, nor subsequently, Goosefoot.

I don't like using the word equality in regards to feminism because I think some people believe that equal means 'the same' rather than 'of equivalent value' - 3 + 4 is equal to 2 + 5 but they're not the same thing.

So far, women are now allowed to participate in the world as if they were men. The original system hasn't changed, but women are allowed to play too now. The world is still set up by men, for men.

That, to me, is not true equality.

Proven by the fact that it's ok for a girl to be a tomboy, but society finds it much less acceptable the other way round. If females were seen as truly equal, that wouldn't be an issue. But while we still hear phrases such as 'run/throw/cry like a girl' I believe we have a way to go.

Parity not equality...

Could you explain what you mean by this?

I saw no reason to disbelieve them at the time, nor subsequently,

I'm not sure what you're referring to, here.

So far, women are now allowed to participate in the world as if they were men

So much this. If you act like a man would then you can play.

Except if you assert yourself like a man would.

Or continue to apply yourself to your career after having children, like a man would.

YY PertElla