470>Doesn%26#039;t this tendency imply that feminism is something negative, radical, or always liberal? Worse yet, doesn%26#039;t it imply as well that it%26#039;s BAD for WOMEN... to want crazy, misguided things like education, equal health insurance, similar pay to what men earn in similar professions, freedom from harassment, and funding for medical problems concerning women, such as breast and uterine cancer research, which are the primary concerns of feminism??
**Please note that somewhere toward the end of the twentieth-century, society has caricatured these demands as %26quot;MAN-HATING%26quot;...or %26quot;ANTI-FAMILY.%26quot;
(Also, ...lol...
...as the antidote to such thinking, keep in mind the broader mysogynistic definition ladies: a feminist is anyone who thinks that women are people too.)
Any takers? Danke
Reply:I think the main problem with this might be the word itself. Here%26#039;s the definition of feminism according to the Encarta Dictionary:
fem-i-nism (noun)
1. belief in women%26#039;s rights: belief in the need to secure rights nd opportunities for women equal to those of men, or a commitment to securing these.
2. movement for women%26#039;s rights: the movement commited to securing and defending rights and opportunities for women that are equal to those of men.
Now keeping this in mind, anyone NOT a feminist wouldn%26#039;t believe there%26#039;s a need to secure rights for women equal to those of men (definition #1), that would make them sexist.
Women that bash men or blame them for all the world%26#039;s problems or believe women are superior are NOT feminists. They%26#039;re sexists.
I think that many people are reluctant to use the label %26quot;feminist%26quot; because they believe it means the superiority of women over men, because the word is based on %26quot;femin-%26quot;, meaning female.
It%26#039;s an unfortunate choice of word to mean equality, I think using a word based on a certain gender to mean the equality of both genders defeats the purpose and makes people wary of using it.
In conclusion: many women think %26quot;feminist%26quot; means ball-busting, man-bashing, tough-as-nails b*tch*s who hate men.
Reply:feminists are ball-busting, man-bashing, tough-as-nails b*tch*s who hate men. everybody knows it. Report It
Reply:I think the reason you%26#039;re not getting many takers is that you%26#039;re requiring answerers to implicitly agree to your arbitrary redefining of the term %26quot;feminist.%26quot;
It%26#039;s been a long, long time since %26quot;feminist%26quot; had the connotation you are trying to give it, if indeed it ever had it. The word no longer denotes equality; it now denotes an attitude of female supremacy, and has for a long time, due to the egregious abuses of early feminism%26#039;s hard-won moral capital by later gender feminists, who used it (abused it, really) to go off into their own loopy world of male-bashing and institutionalized reverse discrimination. This is why women start off with %26quot;I%26#039;m not a feminist, but...%26quot; - it%26#039;s because organized feminism has given itself a bad name, and a reputation for screeching extremism that no reasonable person wants to publicly embrace.
(By the way, I think you are using the word %26quot;misogynistic%26quot; wrong. %26quot;Women are people too%26quot; is not a misogynistic statement.)
Reply:The problem is that too many people have forgotten that feminism is about fighting for all those things and NOT for the imminent destruction of men.
Reply:This question has already been asked 300 times. Do a search before asking.
%26#039;%26#039;....education, equal health insurance, similar pay to what men earn in similar professions, freedom from harassment, and funding for medical problems concerning women, such as breast and uterine cancer research.%26#039;%26#039;
Girls can already have an education. In fact, the school system way of teaching is girl-focused, and as a result a lot more women than men graduate [1]. Women have %26#039;%26#039;equal health assurance.%26#039;%26#039; Not sure where you got the idea they didn%26#039;t. If their assurance is more expensive, it%26#039;s for a reason, just like men%26#039;s car insurance being more expensive. Women already have equal pay [2], and are protected from harassment just the same men are. As for their medical problems, they receive a lot more funding for their health problems [3, 4].
EDIT: %26#039;%26#039;therefore, when reading statistics, I tend to take them with a grain of salt; better yet, I weigh them out in terms of ...let me see...REALITY! %26lt;smile%26gt;%26#039;%26#039;
So you believe your own anecdotal experiences over statistics from, say, the Government?
Reply:LOL, that always cracks me up when people give the %26quot;I%26#039;m not a feminist, but%26quot; line.
We should come up with a questionnaire that tells you what kind of feminist you are if you take it. Of course there would be one nonfeminist choice in each question. Then at last people find out for sure whether they are or aren%26#039;t.
But then, they probably still wouldn%26#039;t admit to their feelings.
Reply:i am proud to call myself feminists and i celebrate all the opportunities feminists have provided me - being able to work, able to travel, etc.
i think the backlash against feminism was strong--rhetoric like calling us man-haters, fat %26amp; ugly, etc. left a stigma --in effect, it silenced many of us, made us ashamed of feminism, took us away from studying about women. note that this rhetoric was simply that - empty, hollow words - and note that nobody seems to remember the chauvinists- those male supremacists who said women can%26#039;t do this/can%26#039;t do that. remarkable how selective that memory is, huh?
i don%26#039;t think all women have to call themselves feminists. perhaps they don%26#039;t like labels. i tend not to, but this is one label i wear proudly - at no other time would i have liked to live - b/c it has only been in the last 30 years that we have so many opportunities - thanks to women%26#039;s (and men%26#039;s) hard work. as for women who really are feminists but who feel shame at the word - perhaps they are too spineless - too concerned with how others view them to not be able to stand up for their beliefs and go against the grain (isn%26#039;t this what women had to do to fight for our rights? they faced ridicule, power struggles, etc.) if they can%26#039;t do that, then they really can%26#039;t be agents of change --people who work for social justice b/c if anything you need a spine. martin luther king, during his time, was actually hated by many - yet he perservered b/c of his strong beliefs in the causes he fought
Reply:I think that women who say that are denying that %26quot;caricature%26quot; that you described in your question. I have made that statement before. What I was saying is, %26quot;I deserve the same rights that you have, I am capable of doing just about anything you can do, and I better get the same pay you do if I%26#039;m doing the same job as you. But you may open the door for me as a common courtesy, and I won%26#039;t bite your head off for it.%26quot;
Reply:Many do not like the stigma that feminism gives, yet at the same time they support it.
Women have always been people. I%26#039;m most definitely not a feminist; nor will you ever catch me attaching the word but....
I have always believed women are people; they will always be people.
Reply:Problems with your argument:
1) Women go to college more than men. Because of catering to girls, boys are left behind in grade school: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lENB8DPq_...
2) Younger women are making more than men in large cities with it being 17% higher in New York and 20% higher in Dallas. This is reflective of our schools catering to girls and ignoring boys. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/03/nyregi...
3) $16700 of government funding goes to research Prostate Cancer for every life lost, but $21800 goes toward Breast Cancer for every life lost. This is only government funding, and donations are much more extreme. Women get more research by far. http://www.fightprostatecancer.org/site/...
4) As far as man-hating and anti-family, there are hundreds of examples. A few are:
%26quot;We can%26#039;t destroy the inequities between men and women until we destroy marriage.%26quot; -- Robin Morgan (Editor of Ms. Magazine--largest feminist magazine)
%26quot;Marriage as an institution developed from rape as a practice.%26quot; - Andrea Dworkin
%26quot;All sex, even consensual sex between a married couple, is an act of violence perpetrated against a woman.%26quot; -- Catherine MacKinnon (legal feminist scholar; Universities of Michigan %26amp; Yale)
%26quot;Men who are unjustly accused of rape can sometimes gain from the experience.%26quot; - Catherine Comins
%26quot;All men are rapists and that%26#039;s all they are%26quot; -- Marilyn French, Authoress; (later, advisoress to Al Gore%26#039;s Presidential Campaign.)
This doesn%26#039;t even include the false stats that feminists throw around to portray men as evil.
Edit: I suppose you can take the %26#039;Deny Everything that doesn%26#039;t benefit you%26#039; approach. But you probably believe the feminist stats, don%26#039;t you? Without feminist stats, what would feminism be? You just said %26quot;equal health, equal pay, equal this, and equal that%26quot;... what do you think equal is based on? Feelings? No, Numbers...
Reply:All women I hang out with say %26quot;I am a feminist, but what other feminists do is clearly misandric and it makes me throw up%26quot;.
Rio: Perhaps people forgot it due to the misandric things the most influent feminists say or said, or perhaps due to the constant demonization of men, or ridiculization by dumb trends (which may not be endorsed by radical feminists, but are surely used by). Or perhaps, if we talk about the world.. that man tax.
Saying that feminism is about women%26#039;s rights is like saying that terrorism is about middle eastern rights.
Reply:I find that it isn%26#039;t the movement itself that women distance themselves from - it is the way in which some %26#039;members%26#039; of the movement behave that has the rest of us women not wanting to associate ourselves with it.
I cannot imagine why any human being - in our Western World, anyway - would not want to see equity for anyone. But the sense of entitlement and associated bitterness gives the movement of equality a very bad name.
Reply:All the things that you listed(education, equal health insurance, funding for medical problems, wages etc..etc..) are irrelevant and make no sense whatsoever, since women already have all of those things and much more. In the West, women actually have many special benefits and special treatments that men doesn%26#039;t have.
Reply:The true social problems are fetusphobia and mysandry, not mysogyny,
Reply:I think it is because people make so many assumptions about what feminists are and believe, and it is so often SO negative, that a woman who has a set of beliefs entirely compatible with feminism knows that if she actually SAYS the f word that one word is likely to get her the worst verbal abuse even though everything she has said is entirely reasonable and anti misandrist.
I had an experience like this recently, when declaring myself a feminist there was one man in the group who simply decided that he didn%26#039;t like me based on that statement, and after that he interpreted every word I said as related to me being a misandrist, in spite of the fact that the debates we were having I would always refer my statements to facts and make very few based on opinion only.
If someone wants to assume stuff about you they will no matter what you say.
Reply:When people like Rush Limbaugh go on rants about %26quot;feminazi%26#039;s%26quot;---which he does frequently---other people get braver about copying his agenda driven propaganda and spouting it off in their daily lives. That makes some women want to disassociate themselves from labeling themselves as a feminist. He has been applying the same techniques that he and the Conservative Right have used to try to turn the word %26#039;liberal%26#039; into a dirty word and it%26#039;s working. You can listen to one of his rants and the next day you%26#039;ll hear his words repeated in your daily life and see them on message boards.
Reply:It is simply from not understanding the true meaning of feminism and hearing the myths about feminism and feminists. I know b/c used to be like that too. It was only recently that I learned and now I love to call myself a feminist.
Women have a total right to live as full and equal human beings in this world and to fight the system that tries to deny that and supress us anywhere.
Reply:Because I%26#039;m proud to be considered a feminist and understand it%26#039;s history, I%26#039;d never post a disclaimer like that. Perhaps some women do for fear of males%26#039; reactions.
Reply:There is a reticence about that word because some women describing themselves as feminists have spewed some ugly rhetoric (the Catharine MacKinnons and Andrea Dworkins of the world), and all feminists, by extension, have been unfairly tarred with that brush. Many misogynists such as Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Rush Limbaugh, etc., have used them as an example of what a feminist is, instead of the hardworking women who just wanted autonomy.
But saying all feminists are fat, ugly, hairy lesbians who hate men is as unfair as saying all religious leaders are fat, ugly, old white men who hate women.
As Dame Rebecca West said back in 1913, 鈥淚 myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is; I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.鈥潀||The term %26quot;I%26#039;m not a feminist, but...%26quot; is usually followed by opinions that indicate that the speaker is, in fact, a feminist.
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