[Transcript on YouTube.]
This video made my day.
Seriously, this is my feminism.
I believe in a feminism that realizes that patriarchy hurts and limits everyone. I believe in giving people the freedom to do what they want to and what makes them happy regardless of their gender. I believe in intersectionality– noticing the ways patriarchy specifically hurts queer people (or people of color, or poor people, or disabled people, or…) and not limiting the conversation simply to privileged people. I believe in embracing trans people, which depressingly is something that many so-called feminists still don’t agree with. (Obligatory pause to flick off Bug Brennan.) I believe in “girl” not being an insult; I believe in both femininity and masculinity being positive qualities when freely and joyfully chosen; I believe in women being strong enough to do things only men can do, and men being strong enough to do things that only women can do.
Feminism is a movement that fails. It kind of fails a lot. Over the past fifty years it’s moved from excluding everyone who isn’t exactly like Betty Friedan to tokenizing everyone who isn’t exactly like Betty Friedan. Its record on men’s issues is somewhat pathetic (although still better than anything else on offer). Many feminists, even ones I agree with, are douchebags. There have been branches of feminism that are exclusionary, anti-science, kyriarchal, hateful, gender essentialist, and generally all the worst impulses of humanity. I’m not going to stop yelling at feminism when it goes wrong.
But I kind of want to take the moment to say… yeah. This is my movement. My stupid, faily, horrible excuse for a movement filled with stupid, faily, horrible people that has made life better for literally billions of people. It fucking changed the world in ways we’re still dealing with the fallout of. Once, men and women weren’t equal; now they mostly are, and getting more and more so every day. I love feminism, and even when I get pissed off at it it’s out of love for what it could be and, sometimes, is.
I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt here. I am a biracial heterosexual man, with a neurological disorder and a STEM degree. I have been the but of really really cruel jokes from sworn feminists, about how I only spend my spare time in masturbating in my mother’s basement and how the only naked women I have ever seen where on movies. What exactly does feminism offer a person like me?
Well, the fucking auto-refresh ate my initial reply. So a summary: The feminists you met with were assholes and possibly even justified their abuse with some feminist ideology, but feminism has a lot of variety: There’s the man-hating, transsexual-hating, telling-women-how-to-live variety, but also lots of others. I face-palm every time some feminist on a blog rants about “them nerds” (which I guess is what you were labeled as) and how they all “are” ugly, stinky, fat misogynists with no fashion-sense who live in their parent’s basement and jack off to porn: How can someone talk so much about discrimination and… Read more »
So would it be more accurate to say that “Feminism sometimes sucks and sometimes doesn’t”?
You would think so but usually it ends up being something to the effect of “feminism never sucks, but some of the people who practice it do”. Yeah you can speak in absolutes about feminism only when its positive.
“And if you think that men and women should be equal, you already are a feminist”
Please don’t call people a feminist if they don’t identify as such, I myself find it insulting even though I believe everyone should be equal. The most neutral term is egalitarian, feminism is way too loaded with too many meanings to be the default term for equality for all.
The only thing I would add to this is the logical conclusion to both this fellow’s points (Men are percieved as ‘better’ and there is resistance to breaking gender roles). Women who break gender roles and are more stereotypically masculine are more accepted than men who are more stereotypically feminine. It’s basically the logical result of the points he makes; women are ‘apiring’ to ‘something better’ (becoming more man like) while men are ‘degenerating’ into ‘something less’.
“The only thing I would add to this is the logical conclusion to both this fellow’s points (Men are percieved as ‘better’ and there is resistance to breaking gender roles). Women who break gender roles and are more stereotypically masculine are more accepted than men who are more stereotypically feminine. It’s basically the logical result of the points he makes; women are ‘apiring’ to ‘something better’ (becoming more man like) while men are ‘degenerating’ into ‘something less’.” Women are perceived as being born with a certain status, the way a princess is (she does nothing to gain it, it just… Read more »
That’s very well put Schala.
It’s very transparent that it’s about the uterus when both the extreme left radfems and the extreme right religious types (the kind who would always homeschool their kids to prevent them being exposed to the Gay Agenda and the likes) use arguments that are extremely essentialist about trans women not “really” being women. Anti-trans radfems (who aren’t all radfems…but sure give the others a bad name) use the uterus outright, then if push comes to shove, “having a girlhood”, which is described as being ogled by pervert neighbors once you turn 12 (if you got breasts at 24, it doesn’t… Read more »
Trans-men are somewhat invisible in general, for better or for worse. I suspect that if they were more prominent then there would be a similar reaction.
I suspect there would not be. Because manhood is not considered something special, something privileged to have. It just “happens”.
Hearing radfems talk, womanhood is simultaneously the best ever and worst ever thing to have ever happened to them. So if you want womanhood, but don’t feel as oppressed as them, you want a free meal.
Sounds familiar alright.
Word…!
Let me expand on what I just wrote: In my opinion feminism is more like Anonymous. There’s a basic underlying principle (equality of men and women and “the lulz”, respectively). Sometimes people join up for a specific cause (the right to choose; Project Chanology), and sometimes even more permanent movements form (don’t know a feminist example off the bat; Lulzsec). But those are only part of feminism, not the whole of it.
The problem for me is that feminism is more like Christianity than anything – point out its problems, and they can be swept away with “but that’s not the feminism I believe in” instead of actually dealt with.
I’m probably a bit sensitive to this, given that I just got out Christianity, which is also a “broad church”.
I’m actually unconvinced that decentralised movements of this kind can actually really work – or at least not when they’re this fragmented – it’s like the Occupy movement meets gender issues.
> Feminism is a movement that fails Why does it have to be *a* movement? There are a lot of interpretations of what feminism is, and thus there are a lot of feminist movements, big and small. I’ve been a feminist long before I even knew that some people consider it to be “a movement”. > Feminism is a movement that fails Again I’d like to disagree: It’s not “feminism” (the concept) that failed and still fails from time to time, but some feminists whose interpretation of feminism was/is intolerant, hateful etc. And I personally doubt that it’s been those… Read more »
I just wish that there was a different name? I dont know how egalitarian it can be if it’s called feminism.
I agree. I’m all for feminism, but besides not knowing much about the history of it, the fact that it’s called that is always why I hesitated to call myself a feminist. As a 16 year old, black male, I like to think of feminism as a movement that seeks to establish equal opportunities for women and men of all, creeds genders and sexual orientations. I’m constantly hoping that my concern over what we this beautiful idea isn’t a ridiculous thing to worry about.
I agree, monkey. Maybe gendered language isn’t such a pressing widespread issue within the feminist movement anymore, but ironically the name “feminism” is what made me get gendered language. The notion of fairness and equality is specifically equated with a word that is inherently gendered towards being female – which doesn’t strike me as particularly realistic.
I get that you identify with it despite its flaws. But those flaws are what make others not wish to identify with it (like me for one). In practice we’d disagree on very little, but I think it’s important that we let people identify with whichever group they wish. (And to be clear I intend for this to go both ways – like I said, I get that some people can acknowledge the many flaws in feminism and still agree with it and that even though I don’t identify with it, that doesn’t mean others can. Now I just want… Read more »
Urgh, “can’t”, not can.
Now I just want it to become possible to say “I don’t identify with feminism” and not get “DERP so you don’t think women are people too/don’t deserve equality” back in return.)
Either that or start requiring feminists to start showing proof of copyright/trademark/patent on the idea of believing in equality and fairness for all people.
Now if we could just work on the idea of getting feminists like Ozy (and others around here at GMP) to become closer to what someone thinks of when they wonder what a feminist is like.
I concur, I told the woman that I was beginning to see that I don’t identify with feminism, but then it quickly devolved into “are you one of those anti-misandrists because I don’t see them as a legitimate movement”. :/
Or get the standby, “Why do you hate women.”
Oh, the jump cuts.
Love the video. I have some quibbles (it’s a bit gynocentric, e.g. focusing on how our culture views women as less-than and men as more-than, without also similarly acknowledging the ways out culture views men as less-than and women as more-than). But still, love it.
Btw, I still absolutely hate the auto-refresh on this site. It is a horrible, useless, counter-productive feature. I realize it was not your choice, Ozy, and is inherited from GMP. But if you could _please_ insist to the appropriate people to disable the auto-refresh, I will love you even more than I already do.
Hi 5 for calling out those that give feminism a bad name. I have much respect for people who not only see the harm some do, but call them out on it. Hopefully your feminism will become the most common form.
High 10 🙂
Totally 2nd what Archy said.
It’s really hard to identify as a feminist on this site when there is such a thick stigma attached to the name. No matter what you say you end up defending *your* feminism and making a clear distinction away from those who identify as feminist in contrast to supporting men–that’s not my feminism, and there’s so much hate that spews from this. Kudos for shining light to this.
I think a part of it is old wounds. Some of the people that end up attacking feminists are people that were hurt/offended/etc… by feminists that will basically never own up to it so they are left lashing out at ones that actually respond for the precise reason that you are hearing them out in a way they never got from other feminists.