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.

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Originally Posted by DanaC

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.

They aren't going too, precisely because they are reactionary.

They all unite under anti-feminism but can't collect around any actual agenda, because they anti feminism includes everything from the most progressive gender egalitarians to the most traditionalists to actual movement of individualist feminism who have gotten thrown out of the sidelines of the movement during the 80s and 90s to MGTOWs who are pretty much an ironic answer to lesbian separatism mixed with PUA.

Take one simple issue: Father's rights in divorce law. All of the above groups can use this rhetorically as an example for unfairness. But Will they act on it if the progressives who want equal parenting rights need to get together with the traditionalists who want things to look like american 50s movies and thus outright want fathers to be the providers so that mothers can be the caregivers?

To actually get anywhere they need a movement that stands together on what they are for, not just what they are against. For men that doesn't currently exists.

Originally Posted by 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.

Do you?

I am asking because in larger scale discussions I have constantly seen how "not all feminists" used as a deflection tactics, the feminists who disagree with those "Extremists" don't actually show any actual disagreement with them publicly but will indirectly defend them from criticism through the defending the label for what it means for them, and yet there is no actual reference to the "extremist" other then that label or a full way to describe it.

Look at it from the other side: How do you criticize feminist movement within literature, feminist dogma in academia, feminist political organizations, feminist lobby groups, feminist campus activism, feminist blogosphere and so on, if you are not allowed to use the word feminism because it includes people who might not quite agree with it? And if the "casual feminists" do have disagreements the "hardcore feminists", why is saying there are not one of them more important then actually expressing your disagreements with them?

The reality is that if you simply believe in equal rights for women, well - so do 85% of americans (and an even larger portion of brits if I recall)... yet only 18% of them identify as feminists, not because 67% don't know how to read the dictionary, but because feminist academia and has grown to include a lot more then that, often at the expense of meeting the dictionary definition.
After getting downsized to 18%, the chances that if you are still identify as one of them you are closer to being among the "hard core" group then you'd think is pretty high, even if you think the criticism only applies to the even more extremists.
Most of the criticism does not require lesbian separatists in order to count, if you believe in the patriarchy as a reasonable interpretation of social exchange the chances are the criticism applies to you too.

But maybe all of this truly doesn't apply to you and you genuinely both disagree with those the criticism is applicable too - in that case why not just accept the meaning of the word and their meaning they acquire in the context used by the people saying them and allow a critical discussion of people you - according to the very sentiment of "not all feminists" - disagree with? Take a step back and look at what role your position can take within the exchange, and whether you truly want to act as a smoke screen for extremists you disagree with.