This is a comment by Tom B on the post “It could have said ‘teach people not to rape’ … But they chose ‘men’.”
Sounds to me that feminists may be confused these days and maybe they’re even fractured. Why people want to continue to be called “feminist” is confusing to me. It appears the many in this forum who continue to label themselves as feminist aren’t getting the so called feminist support they wish they had.
I have no doubt in my mind that the self-proclaimed feminists on here are truly in support of men and men’s rights. At the same time though, the main stream feminist doesn’t appear to have the same forward thinking. So, I guess my question is why are forward thinking feminists still interested in having the feminist label attached to them?
Has feminism run its course? Personally, I don’t think it has. Nonetheless, I have to wonder why forward thinking women want to hold on to that label.
Photo credit: Flickr / Lucy Reynell
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Interesting point. I avoid the label personally and I think it might be better to ditch it and start with something more specific.
Same goes for MRA. The word is hopelessly tainted.
Changing the label won’t change the perception of feminist ideas. The moment I start saying (or typing) anything that’s from a feminist perspective, people go nuts.
Changing the label would only be a delay unless the ideas/thoughts/etc…. themselves change. Otherwise that new label would eventually become tainted as Peter says.
And people that say they don’t identify as (whatever the new label is) would simply face a flow of (new label) folks saying that the reason they don’t ID as such is because they aren’t giving them a chance and only depend on anti-(new label) media hype and right wing political smack talk to get info on them.
Feminists don’t agree with each others about what “feminism” means. Many feminists call other feminists Fauxminists. And many other feminists believe that in order to be a feminist, you need be from the Far-Left.
Feminists don’t agree with each others about what “feminism” means.
Yet they are still able to afree enough on it to make statements like:
“If you were interested in equality you would embrace feminism.”
“If you’re not a feminist you’re a bigot.”
“If you would only give feminism a chance you would understand it.”
“You only disagree because you aren’t giving feminism a chance.”
So they have disagreements over what feminism is but they agree on it enough to declare that outsiders that don’t want to join them under that banner are wrong?
Well – there’s no authority to decide what feminism means exactly, and far less an authority able to put forward a list of views that all feminist should have. And why would there be? Feminism is a concept, and overarching idea – not a single movement, political party, or company. What exactly being a feminist implies is different to different feminists, and that just fine. Doesn’t mean feminism is in a crisis, or has run it’s course, or anything like that. It just means feminists are a diverse bunch.
I’m sure a North American and a Scandinavian feminist could find central themes to agree on, and I’m equally sure they will have very different views on some topics and have a very different set of priorities for feminist activism.
Same goes for lots of other concepts and overall ideas. Lots of different ideas about what, exactly, it means to be a socialist, a liberal, a Christian, etc.