The Gender Equality Checkpoint

[DanaC]

I'm always uncomfortable with the idea of the, or a feminist movement. There are feminist movements I'd say - or if there is a movement it is a very disparate one.

The problem with comparing feminism with MRA is that generally speaking there is no soft wing, so to speak. To self-identify as MRA at all requires a degree of intensity that isn't necessarily needed to self-identify as feminist - in part because of the ways in which those two movements arose. Lots of people casually identify with feminism in general terms but aren't particularly part of any movement or activism - it's like classing yourself as liberal, or conservative - a secular kind of feminism. I'd venture to suggest that most people who self-identify as feminist do so at that casual level. It is understood, mostly, I think, as a statement of a desire for equality and a recognition that some of the ways we organise ourselves as a society are a little screwy.

Hardcore feminism, like any hardcore philosophy, is a sometimes necessary (this near-equality we appear to have achieved in our society was never uncontested) and sometimes counter-productive mess. A little like liberalism or conservatism, feminism is much broader than an individual party. Like those philosophies, or viewpoints, it is embedded in our political and philosophical landscape as part of an ongoing discourse stretching back almost 200 years.

MRA is a fairly recent and usually very specific reaction to feminism - it is reactionary in every sense. It hasn't yet acquired those embedded roots or broader meanings.