I’m a cis male and I believe in the importance of feminism, but I hesitate to call myself a feminist because it seems like there is a presumption of understanding women’s experiences as if I was part of the Me Too movement. In some binary sense given how hateful and shitty men can be I’m absolutely a feminist, but I wouldn’t declare myself to be one. What is your standpoint?
I was raised with Gloria Steinem’s definition of feminism shaping my understanding, and have called myself a feminist since I was a child:
“A feminist is anyone who recognizes the equality and full humanity of women and men.”
A more modern and inclusive version of that same idea, adopted by UN Women:
“Feminism is the belief that everyone, regardless of gender, should have equal rights and opportunities.”
Feminism is a very complex grouping of movements and ideologies, but I think “membership” within them is very simple: if you believe in equality regardless of gender, you’re a feminist.
How does it feel that the person who defined feminism for you was a CIA agent?
Not great!
Are you implying that feminism is a CIA initiative?
Steinem worked with the CIA to promote reactionary propaganda and helped direct the women’s liberation movement into a corporate-friendly, anti-socialist direction.
Source: Jacobin
They didn’t imply feminism is a CIA initiative, but the CIA definitely worked with her to influence the feminist movement.
Sure, because they cared about controlling the direction of the political movement, same way they influenced the Civil Rights movement. But once again, unless they are implying that the definition of feminism as offered by Steinem, quoted above, is part of a CIA influence op, or tainted by their influence, then what’s the point of bringing that up?
To have a conversation? To get further insight into how a person thinks? To gain understanding? To talk about the ideological framework through which the person views the world, and hopefully gain some perspective out of that talk?
If they truly intended it to be a neutral question, then they used a particularly bad choice of phrasing.
Most people understand the CIA is a tool of imperialist violence/authority, but framing that as “how does it feel to x” is clearly a condemnation of the association being pointed out, which in this case would only matter if that association itself in some way taints the topic it was brought up in response to… I.e. the definition of feminism by Steinem.
Fair point.
This raises the question whether feminist is the right word for those definitions. Humanist, maybe?
I’m not trying to “all lives matter” the situation – the history of the treatment of women warrants specific advocacy. But I think of a feminist as someone who (regardless of gender) is actively an advocate for change, not just someone who believes in equality.
That’s the connotation I have for the word anyway. Clearly UN Women are a more authoritative source, and they specifically use the word “belief,” so my connotation seems to be wrong.
What’s different to me is it’s feminism not femalism, in that feminine doesn’t tend to mean women specifically. I would actually argue it’s mostly used as a modifier of explicit non-women, and is, in a roundabout way, directly about men and anything unassociated with women as well.
As if to say “this isn’t about women, it’s about the opposition to non-manliness that exists in the world”.
Like a white person is not black, but a man can be feminine. That’s not to say black issues aren’t pertinent to white people in a similar way (if one of us is not free, none are free, nonblack people demeaned for cultural blackness, etc), but it’s an identity that can be wholely intrinsic to a man.
Oh, and another point you bring up I think is interesting is the distinction between holding the belief and directly or strongly acting on it, and should we consider a believer or passive actor as non-ideological? I think that comes down to a No True Scotsman sort of mindset.
Kind of rambling and pedantic, but I like to think about the little details.
Edit: Actually, the more I think about it, the more it kind of is the same as BLM, and I think even just holding the belief is important.
Yes, absolutely.
You don’t have to understand a woman’s experience so much as you have to not be a dick when she tells you her experience.
Look at all the men that got butthurt over “bear vs rando man” and I’m gonna be honest, I’d choose the bear over many of them too. They refused to listen to what was actually being said by that statement.
Hit the nail on the head. Being cis white het doesn’t make you automatically the enemy. Your actions do.
There are dozens of us!
–
Seriously though when I hear reactionaries complain about the different movements condemning the white patriarchy, all I can think is “oh you thought they were mad at you? Well I guess they were right to be”. It’s really not that hard to recognize the injustice and violence inflicted in the past and to try to stop it from continuing. And most importantly it’s not hard to know when to sit down, shut the fuck up, and listen
That’s a lot of buzzwords to agree with me.
Yes, I’m a cis man and I am a Marxist feminist. Feminism is not exclusionary to cis men, and Marxist feminism is critical as patriarchy is a secondary contradiction that rests upon the primary contradiction of class society. Attacking sexism attacks capitalism, and attacking capitalism attacks sexism. They are connected.
Thanks for saying this. There was a rather popular unpopular opinion a while ago about how the only struggle should be the class struggle, and feminism was getting in the way. People need to see that they’re both part of the same fight.
That is a vulgar materialist conception, from those who do not grasp dialectical materialism, as well as those who reject it deliberately. Class reductionism doesn’t recognize secondary contradictions that rest upon the base of primary contradictions, seeing each as separate and butchering how contradiction actually works as an engine of change in dialectics.
Highly recommend reading Domenico Losurdo - Class struggle for more on this.
It gets into how there’s not just a single class struggle, i.e. working class versus bourgeoisie, but many different and related class struggles. Both Marx and Engels held this multivariate view of class struggle too, and it was only later that chauvinists, anti-feminists, and imperialists restricted its meaning to the workplace only.
I had professors ask us to raise our hands if we’re a feminist, and usually every young man did. This was in the Obama administration, before the right became so fascist, but still. We don’t expect you to have an equally deep understanding or to be familiar with academic feminist works. We just expect you to believe women are equally valuable individuals, who have the right to pursue their own happiness, live their lives how they want to live them, and be supported by their community in their health, wellbeing, and pursuits.
Yes 100% bc the literal definition of feminism is the equal treatment for all genders. I don’t go around just telling people that. They can probably just tell I am bc I’m not shitty to a specific gender…
Of course I would and I do. I find the arguments that there are many branches of feminism to be a reason to not consider yourself a feminist to be kind of ridiculous. There are multiple branches of everything. Not all anarchists agree, not all socialists agree, not all communists agree. No group is a monolith with perfectly aligned values and thoughts.
I hesitate to call myself a feminist because it seems like there is a presumption of understanding women’s experiences
Being a woman is the only thing that gives someone access to women’s experiences, but being a woman doesn’t automatically make someone a feminist. Neither thing presumes the other.
The phrase I use as a male is “I emphasize with feminists” it puts them in the drivers seat but I’m there to support them.
Yes. Even in the most cynical light, standing with women is within my own self interest because my rights will surely erode alongside theirs. But also i like women and am disgusted with how they are treated socially and economically, and want that to change for the better. So a feminist i am.
It’s really hard to call yourself a feminist when you realize that all major achievements of western feminism aren’t the direct result of activism but rather capitalism. To paraphrase DiCaprio’s Character from Django, activism had their curiosity, the financial incentive had their attention.
Industries and governments realised that they were essentially not capitalizing on 50% of the population.
Women in the work force wasn’t a noble grant of freedom, it was an increase in production and profit. If it were truly as noble as it is made out to be, they would’ve given them equal pay from the start.
Same thing goes for women being able to have their own bank account. Women having their own money means they will spend it, driving the economy. Even the right to vote just provides another angle of attack to influence and radicalize the population. Those are the 3 corner stones, work for capital and pay income tax, spend your money and pay sales tax and vote for whoever the TV tells you to vote. Everything else is just comfort to sweeten the deal. That’s also why 3rd wave feminism has grinded to a halt. The is no capitalist financial incentive to give women even one more inch of freedom than they already have.Women haven’t won anything they’ve just gotten of the side lines, right into the corporate meatgrinder.
And now we’re here, where a two head family can’t afford to have a child because both members working 9-5 can barely support themselves financially, yet alone have the money or time to have a child. And neither corporations nor the government are eager to support them as if giving back even a single cent of profits is a cardinal sin.
I’m sorry, but that is a huge crock of horseshit with absolutely nothing to back it up but vibes. That’s like saying the abolitionist movement achieved nothing because it is superceded by a broader class struggle against capitalism.
Women fought for and won the the right to self determination, the right to vote, the right to divorce, the right to bodily autonomy, the right to be legally treated as persons instead of as the property of their husbands, etc, and none of that is diminished by its byproduct of a larger workforce being better for capitalists. “Women haven’t won anything” fuck outta here
Maybe I simply have a hard time imagining a world where politicians listened to the demands and protests of the people and governed themselves accordingly.
Maybe 100 years ago politicians where less corrupt and more empathetic towards the problems of the working class people.
Maybe back then it was more difficult to pay off a few key people to let a bill pass in your favor.
Or maybe, an economic plan was created based on the post war industrial development in which out of pure desperation for manpower, women have proven themselves to be just as effective in working at factories as men. And in the name of improving effectiveness, this got the ball rolling to ultimately elevate women’s rights on par with men’s.
Feminism isn’t some new last century concept. Women have been fighting for right for millennia but where always at bane of powers outside their control (AKA monarchs, the church, etc.). So there must be a good reason why it only worked out after the bloodiest most brutal self induced chapter of human history. What was the alternative, saying: “Thanks for the help, now go back home and tend to your crippled husbands.”? That’s actually exactly what governments did, and the result was a severely crippled economy that catapulted the world right into another World War.
No matter which country you’re from, your great great mother has most likely contributed to getting the country through some of the worst times in it’s history. A time when people weren’t buried, they were dying in the streets and eaten by rats. And the reward was… that exception has turned into expectation. And as over the past 100 years almost all the money has wandered from the pockets of many into the pockets of few, women’s right to work has turned into a necessity to work.
I don’t believe for a second that the leaders of the 1920s had given women any more rights than in the centuries before out of the goodness of their hearts unless it was absolutely economically necessary.
Have you not noticed how workers have become customers to their own workplace? Corporation not only want to pay you less, they want you to give your paycheck back to them. And all the safeguards put up over the last decades for women in society and the workplace are being slowly dismantled by a very evident right shift of global politics. All to get you to the perfect algorithmically determined point of anger, desperation and contempt to make you pay exactly one cent less than the highest possible asking price for any given service (or as it was once called “product”). Modern day 1st world feminism is engineered. As evident by every corporation dropping the rainbow flags the second pride month ends, is that if corporations don’t have to care - they won’t. Feminism isn’t excluded from that.
How long ago do you think women’s suffrage was? This wasn’t something that just happened in the last couple of decades. Literally over 100 years ago the 19th amendment passed giving women the right to vote. Nobody is saying that politicians it the government did it out of the kindness of their hearts, it’s because women and allies fought like Hell for it.
A crippled economy is not the reason for a second world war, that’s just ridiculous correlation, and barely even that.
You’re conflating multiple things and assuming that’s causation. Yes, women entered the workforce and started earning their own money. Yes, the economy has changed to the point where people of all genders are now stuck working to survive. That didn’t happen because women were working, it happened and also women are working.
Just because corporations are shit doesn’t mean that feminism isn’t a thing. Look up the definition of feminism. It’s an ideology as well as a movement. There’s still a long ways to go to truly get all genders to be perceived and treated as equals, but the last 150+ years have been huge for women’s equality. It’s been too slow by any reasonable person’s standards, but big changes in society and they way people view each other doesn’t happen over night.
yeah, you’re right. it’s not all just about economics. it’s also about religion.
-
“the right to self determination” stems from e.g. calvinism which advocates the “priesthood of all believers”, i.e. that every person is able to conceive what is right and good themselves, without needing the instruction of another. this effectively translates to the right to self-determination in a modern democracy, since a person who is physiologically able to make their own decisions should also be practically able to make their own decisions.
-
the whole rest of the rights that you listed are more or less direct consequences of the right to self determination.
-
Guess everything was better when every woman was barefoot and pregnant, right?
But seriously, what the hell is this analysis? Women have always been a part of the labor and productive forces. Do you think women existed solely in a state of domesticity before fighting for the right to vote in the US? This entire argument rests on the notion that capital is the driver of social change. I guess you might not know that people can react to their material conditions just as much as capitalists can react to people. Like there’s some kind of…oh I don’t know, a dialectical relationship between these forces.
To expand on what @FishLake@lemmygrad.ml said, this analysis ranges from reductive to completely ahistorical.
Women have been part of the productive workforce long before the notion of equality was even on the table. The idea that women were exclusively bearing and rearing children before the industrial revolution is nonsense, women were crucial workers in agriculture and manufacture and it was impossible for a family to be fed only by the patriarch.
The relationship between capitalism and feminism is actually partly the other way around from what you are presenting. Industrialization required centralization and urbanization, which meant it was easier than ever for women to organize with their colleagues and comrades and demand equal rights. It also eased access to weapons, which allowed for direct violent action to force the ruling class to pay attention. Capitalism accelerated or even sometimes spawned feminist movements, which were always in direct contradiction with the actual capitalists who were entirely male at the time.
The idea that women haven’t won anything is just bullshit. You are right that they didn’t “win” the “right to work”, because they had that “right” forever. But what they actually did win is a smaller gender gap in pay and economic opportunities, access to better education, right to political representation, legal prohibitions on some kinds of gender violence. If you think all of this was somehow “granted” by (male) capitalists because it is profitable, that’s just untrue, most of it was directly or indirectly hurtful to the ruling class when those measures were first introduced.
Damn dude. Great read.
deleted by creator
If Feminism is equality between genders, then yes, I am a feminist.
But if Feminism is unconditional trust towards women, then no, I’m not a feminist.In my experience people who call themselves feminists often put women above men, and will deny any criticism towards them because they’re women, and women never do anything bad.
I have never met a feminist that does these things despite being a feminist and in feminist circles for decades.
Was going to say essentially this. It can really feel like the most outspoken feminists have a ‘women good, men bad’ mentality (of course many men are equally deranged).
The injustice towards women is absolutely greater, but look at health and happiness metrics and it looks like men are much worse off, and those two points are very much intertwined, a lot of cause and effect both ways (just my opinion and how I’ve made sense of everything). I think there’s probably no such thing as womens problems or mens problems. Only human problems that bounce around and affect everyone.
I think there’s probably no such thing as womens problems or mens problems. Only human problems that bounce around and affect everyone.
To your point, yes absolutely these issues affect us all, because we’re all connected as humans. But you might want to reconsider how you phrase that. This has big “I don’t see color” energy.
Both men and women absolutely have unique and specific issues that need recognition if we are to meaningfully address them.
True we certainly have lots of issues to recognise and address, but we’ve been trying for decades and not getting all that far. You don’t think it’s at all worth considering these issues in a broader sense? How some men’s treatment of women is influenced by women’s treatment towards men? Or what women can do to help those men be better. It’s not like one person’s actions is anyone else’s responsibility, but surely it could be an area of focus?
Well feminism is from Latin “femina” - a woman, so it is a fight for women’s rights, and not for gender equality. Men also face lots of expectations that can be called toxic, like supressing their emotions, being the one responsible to bring the beacon home, going at war etc. These things are out of scope for feminism.
If you have to pull out an etymology argument to justify a political position, you’re wrong by default. Because you’re blatantly ignoring the actual movement & extracting whatever meaning you want out of that word.
Feminism fights against the patriarch, which in modern terms include both traditional restrictions placed on women and men. So the fight against patriarchal expectations placed on men, among them toxic masculinity, are absolutely part of feminism as a political stance today.
Etymology doesn’t exist separately from the meaning of the word. If something is called “womanism” (the literal translation from Latin), that means it actually does have to do with women.
Yes, I have heard a lot of feminists talk about also fighting against patriarchal expectations placed on men, but again the opposite of patriarch is matriarch, not gender equality. So women are still considered victims and men are considered aggressors - or victims of other men, for that matter. It’s still in essence a fight of women against men. If it wasn’t, it would be called something else. For example, humanism, because the word “human” makes no gender distinction.
My interpretation of it equals to same standing. Both in duties as well as in wages.
A woman should get the same wage regardless of if they get a child or not.
Same Job? Same output? Same wage!
Absolutely would call myself a feminist and here’s the reason. Calling yourself a feminist is a declaration that you aren’t in performance for brownie points for men’s sake and you aren’t going to fade to the background the first second the going gets tough. Feminists don’t “hate men” but the fact that their issues get sidelined the minute anybody’s feelings about their personal masculinity gets hurt means most of the time any discussion about women’s issues become about mincing around insecure men.
Feminism is egalitarianism, it is strictly NOT female superiority. The issue with calling feminism egalitarianism is it tends to be a label summerizing the passive part of the movement that asks nothing of people.
Systems that aren’t artificially adjusted just end up replicating the same shit they always had over and over and the adjustments don’t feel fair or equal to the people who have always benefitted before the change. Justice sometimes meaning giving up something to the party in need. Damn near everyone is up for equality in theory, but the moment they are asked to give up anything suddenly it’s women’s superiority. They don’t look at being passed over for the promotion in favor of an equally deserving and more generally underrepresented woman as being just or needed when it’s them who doesn’t get chosen. They still in their heart of hearts believe that whenever a woman comes out on top it’s not because she deserves to be there.
And it’s hard. It’s hard to put justice first. It’s hard to hire someone who isn’t your close personal friend who looks just like you and instead choose someone who acts or looks different who you won’t be as comfortable around. It’s hard to change your culture to be mindful of needs you don’t personally have to make someone else comfortable. The whole POINT is that it’s hard. Everything that is hard for you is a comfort, a point without personal friction you have, a PRIVILEGE that you are purposefully choosing to not cash in on anymore because that privilege was never on the table for someone else.
If you aren’t willing to face the minor discomfort of being devisive and calling yourself a feminist and gaining the ire of other men what other comforts are you not going to give up?
Feminism is egalitarianism, it is strictly NOT female superiority
Exactly, the latter is matriarchy and that’s the one I really want to try out! I don’t think it would be perfect but I am just curious how it would turn out? For science!
Honestly me too. And YES i am biased as hell here. I don’t like people in general and my objective opinion is that power will attract the wrong people regardless of gender.
BUUUT my subjective experience will not let me believe that women in charge would not change things for the better overall. From a purely curious place i would really like to see how it would work out, a failure would be just as interresting to me as a success.
I want to add that i also believe the main problem of patriachy is not the oppression of women but the oppression of “female” coded traits. What i would really like to see is a society that favors empathy and collaboration, i don’t need women in charge for that and i certainly don’t base my support for anyone on their genitals, that would be crazy.
Would you call yourself a feminist?
Yes.
Anyway the “shaming men for being feminists”/“only women can be feminists” thing is absolutely a thing the fascists have peddled to cripple feminism.
Hard yes. If you believe in equality and justice what the fuck else would you be?
Though, I suppose there are those that don’t… They can fuck off
Feminism is a social movement, made up of the practical activity of people in solidarity with each other. While centering and amplifying the voices and experiences of women and other victims of chauvinism is absolutely essential, remember that there is an incredible need to organize. Movements need people to take notes, make phone calls, promote campaigns, educate, show up to events, share our own experiences where people we care about were victims of patriarchy, and much much more.
Feminism isn’t just an idea, and patriarchy victimizes men as well as women, though obviously in drastically different ways and to drastically different degrees. Ideas don’t make up social movements, people do. Ideas help us name the world/the problem, which is the first step of revolution, but actual abolition of social structures takes work. Leaving all that work to the victims of patriarchy actually reinforces patriarchy.
Patriarchy and other consequences of class hierarchy are defeated by the contradictions that they create in society. A man who devotes himself to the abolition of male dominant society is the embodiment of such a contradiction. That’s what we are, don’t over think it. Just roll up our sleeves, listen and take good notes, offer to help organize and always center the voices and experiences of the victims of patriarchy.
No, never.
Because I don’t even understand what feminism is. There’s so many conflicting opinions under that umbrella that the label doesn’t even make much sense to me.“Feminism is the belief that everyone, regardless of gender, should have equal rights and opportunities.”
That bit is just common sense, though.
Feminism is, indeed, just common sense
So, why is it so uncommon?
