Do I agree that women should have equal rights with men? Certainly. Do I agree with modern-day, third-wave feminism? Not entirely. A lot of people unknowningly and sometimes incorrectly define themselves as a feminist without really understanding what they might actually be instead. If you're a bit rusty on feminism or its related terms, I'll be breaking them down for you, right here in this article.
What is Feminism?
Feminism - Noun (Source)
- The belief that men and women should have equal right and opportunities
- Organized activity in support of women's rights and interests
If you're already familiar with feminism and the gist of related current events, you can probably skip this paragraph. Feminism is a hugely popular term, and there's a ton of websites focused solely around feminist-related news. You almost can't go a day without at least hearing the term, and there's good reason for it. This article highlights a lot of the controversial feminist topics if you're not up to date, including but not limited to: violence against women, family-leave policies, women in office, birth control debates, and closing the pay gap. Everyone is pretty familiar with the subjects feminism applies to, and may or may not agree on certain points, but today this article is not about the controversies. Those get enough attention elsewhere.
What's Wrong with Feminism?
The biggest problem I have with feminism is that a lot of feminists can't seem to advocate for their own rights without trying to bring down or insult men unnecessarily. I understand the radical hate towards the men that abuse women and try to oppress them, that's completely justifiable and rightly deserved. However, wide-spread misandry in the feminist community is what I really dislike, and it's not doing them any favors. I don't just dislike it because I'm a man myself, I hate it because it implies you can't advocate for your own rights without assaulting the opposition. This article from the Huffington Post talks about how 94% of the 300+ people surveyed knew what misogyny was, but less than 2% could define misandry and even less knew how to spell it right.
Misogyny - Noun (Source)
- A hatred of women
Misandry - Noun (Source)
- A hatred of men
Think back to you were a kid in school - Did you ever make a friend or start talking to someone simply because they disliked someone you didn't like, or maybe you both hated the same teacher?
Now take that a few steps and several years forward and apply it to an event that just had an anniversary a week or so ago, 9/11. Most Americans didn't know or didn't really care about the Middle East and Muslims and Islam until the World Trade Centers were attacked, and even though it was only the fault of a few radicals, suddenly most of our nation stands united against their entire existence? Why? Hatred.
Hate and disgust towards a person, object, or idea is one of the most efficient ways of bringing otherwise completely different people together.
Not all feminists are also misandrists, but the ones that are tend to use that hatred of men to try and convert women into feminists, or other feminists into misandrists. More hatred doesn't equal more equality, in fact it only reinforces the spread between men and women that feminists are so desperately trying to close. Not only that, but focusing on blaming men for everything that's wrong in the world detracts the focus on issues where men are actually at fault.
As much as instigating hatred can create allies, it can also alienate people. A lot of people, myself included, refuse to identify themselves as a feminist because there's too many negative connotations associated with it; like misandry. One such example is an actress from India:
"I don't want to be called a feminist, but I don't disown feminism." - Tabu (Source)
Feminism is a massively controversial topic in India as well, and Tabu most likely wanted to avoid the label to distance herself from the connotations I mentioned previously, but also because India is a highly patriarchal society, and some people don't want to admit publicly that they oppose it, in fear of damaging their reputation.
The important aspect to remember is that misandry is not feminism. Some articles practically encourage feminists to hate men, with the justification that the hatred has no real effect towards men. If you identify as a misandrist, you cannot also be a feminist by definition. Advocating for different sexes to have equal rights is feminism, but as soon as that becomes the desire to take away rights from men, you've stepped into the realm of misandry.
Could You Actually Be an Egalitarian?
Egalitarianism - Noun (Source)
- A belief in human equality especially with respect to social, political, and economic affairs
- A social philosophy advocating the removal of inequalities among people
In terms of the protection of rights and interests, egalitarianism encompasses feminism, but includes things you might not consider. Egalitarians consider not just men and women equal, but also people of color, people with different religions and backgrounds, which is why this philosphy may serve as a much better way to identify for some people.
If I had to identify as something defined in this article, it would be this, because at least there's not huge negative associations tied to it. I definitely support women's rights movements in cases where they're needed, but not so much so that I want to insult my own gender and remove rights from my fellow man. Being in support of people of different races and backgrounds is just icing on the cake for me; I want us all to be equal.
What I hate about feminism is the misandrist approach to it, where instead of trying to define men and women as equals, it's become more about demonizing men and making them lesser than women.
This is a brave post. I'm very pro feminist but I am against prejudice and hatred. Misandry is just another form of it. Hatred is always bad and dehumanises both parties. Someone who is a misandrist is not a true feminist at all because they do not want equality.
I agree with you completely. As much as hatred can bring one side together, all it does is separate both sides even further. Thanks for the support and comment! :)
The requisite to be a feminist is to believe that women and other groups suffer more, but not only that, you have to believe they suffer more because men benefit from it. Basically, they want to paint a picture where men created this world completely alone, and women are not responsible for anything, not even by inaction, and just respond to their unfortunate circumstances.
Feminists will tell you that their ideology doesn't cause this men hating trend but that's not true. I know because I am transgender. I have dealt with them while being perceived as a woman, man and trans.
Men don't have it better. I thought this was true but I found out differently when I started walking those shoes. Since I have been trying to warn feminist of the error in their logic, but they don't want to hear it.
I don't think that feminism is completely wrong. I just strongly dislike the misandry that tends to be tied into it. There are TONS of controversial feminism topics, especially things like female careers and the wage gap, and some statistics and articles are in favor of the women, others in favor of men. Some are just meant to be numbers to reveal the truth. There are a lot of misinformed feminists that just believe everything they want to believe, and don't really look for the facts behind their rhetoric.
That said, there are a lot of people that accurately define themselves as feminists and practice the philosophy in a wholesome and non-aggressive way. Just because there's some crazy man-hating nuts out there doesn't mean I can discredit the ones doing valid work.
However, I do agree with you that people that believe that every single man goes out of his way to oppress women and benefit from it are naive. That notion is incredibly misinformed and often supported with skewed numbers and statistics.
Again, the requisite to be a feminists is to think men make things harder for women because that would in turn make things easier for themselves. Financial disparities or anything else that relates to female institutionalized regulations can be discussed outside feminism, those are not feminists' topics even if feminists bring them up often. The feminist bit relies on that thought, that men do whatever they say men do on purpose, to hurt them and help themselves, even unconsciously. This way of thought causes that resentment you dislike, but it is this way of thought that is the foundation of feminism.
This just depends on who's organising the activities. You could be organising activities to support the rights of men in the name of feminism.
Read here to learn => Feminism for Men.
That was just the definition of feminism that I pulled from the source, not my opinion. Of course there could be variances in who's doing the organizing, as well as its purpose.
Feminism is a Supremacy Movement
If feminists weren't also supremacists, they'd be best friends with men's rights activists.
I'll agree with this in terms of SOME of the feminists out there, but not all of them are misandrist supremacists. Just like not every Muslim is a terrorist. There are always crazy radicals. I just like the idea of egalitarianism much more. Thanks for commenting!
lol #notall
no true Scotsman fallacy.
Egalitarianism is what feminists would be if they weren't a Supremacy Movement.
Are we going to play the not all game with the Nazis? Cause not all of them were bad right? -smh-
great post, keep it up. 8D
If you ask them why they don't call themselves egalitarian they will tell you that the reason they need to call themselves feminists is because women are in a more precarious situation than men are. If you are patient, you can actually get them to admit they think men don't really suffer because of their gender and women do.
If you keep going at it then they will turn it into an issue of you not wanting to identify as anything that could be feminine rather than them not wanting to recognize males suffer because of their gender.
Great vid!
8D
It is madness. lol
"Do I agree that women should have equal rights with men? "
It doesn't matter what I think. There IS no should. Rights are inherent. You have them at birth as a result of being human. They are not and can not be 'given'. They can only be infringed upon.
Hmm... I agree with what you said about rights being inherent, but if they are being infringed upon, doesn't that mean that someone can agree they SHOULD be equal?
I dunno, maybe your phrasing is just confusing me. But thanks for commenting. :)
I think that everyone should have equal opportunity.
It's not possible to make the poor rich by making the rich poor....in anything.
what in the fuck - this doesnt even have to do with my post, shitty spam bot.
he is just some shit bag going around flagging everyone. he has been doing it to me too. better to just ignore it and move on. lol
I did haha, also flagged it. Hopefully it gets disabled or something.
it is a person with a bunch of accounts. check out his posts he talks about it. he is saying he is flagging everyone to point out the problem with steemit and because someone has been flagging him. so he wants steemit to fix it. lol
his posts talk about it. i think at this point he is on a kamakizi run to try to go out with a blaze of glory. xD
he went from 25 to negative in less then a day. im sure tomorrow he makes a new account and does it again.