Might help also to describe what you think feminism is, since it’s one of those terms that is overloaded.
I once had a physical therapist tell me she wasn’t a feminist because she thought women couldn’t be as physically capable as men when serving as soldiers, and seemed to believe feminism requires treating women exactly like men.
I told her I was a feminist because I believe in equal rights for men and women, an idea she did not seem so opposed to.
There are various schools of feminism, some of which have conflicting opinions. But the common feminist standpoints, like equal rights, seem to be just common sense for me, especially in this day and age. I’m not sure where the requirement for equal physical ability fits into the equation.
At least for me, going out and saying that you are feminist carries a sort of special connotation, and since I haven’t participated in any explicitly activist events related to feminism, I wouldn’t readily emblazon myself with the feminist label even though I stand by those ideas.
the physical therapist had a misconception of what feminism is, probably due to conservative misinformation that presents egalitarian movements like feminism as forcing men and women to be treated the same, and in this case the PT thought this meant soldiers were being forced to have women on their units that would slow them down or make them less effective because they weren’t allowed to vary the tasks based on strength because of “feminism”. I’m not even sure her story was based in reality, tbh - I’m not sure whether the military integrates women soldiers that way, but either way she has internalized some griping from her husband about this.
Either way, it’s interesting to me you wouldn’t identify as a feminist even if you agree with feminism - I wonder what connotations it has, and how those connotations will change if people who are feminists don’t own that … That was part of why I owned being a feminist in my interaction with the PT - she clearly had a misunderstanding of what feminism is, so I clarified why I see myself as a feminist. Otherwise she might not ever be challenged in her views, and “feminism” just becomes the absurd strawman she rejects.
If, say, I hear that “Bob is a feminist”, I reflexively think that Bob is somehow renowned or outspoken in contrast to the general public for supporting feminist causes, perhaps as an educator, figurehead, or activist. I’m not sure what other specific situations I would emphasize myself as feminist, but I’d do the same if put in your situation as a way of standing up.
I think the reflex naturally makes sense, but from the people I personally know to be outspoken and definitionally feminist, it’s more like calling yourself a feminist says you explicitly side with the feminist cause. Sort of like saying you’re anti-racist rather than identifying as someone lacking racism, which is actually a farce when we’re all biased.
oh interesting, the idea is that being a feminist is more than just about beliefs, it implies something more, like being an activist …
I tend to think identifying as a feminist is a lower bar, it just signifies you are in favor of equal rights among genders. I would have no problem identifying as a feminist just broadly - like on a bio, or in conversation.
I have to think about your meaning more, though - I feel like I have some sense of that, it’s maybe a bit like being “vegan” - it implies not just a belief, but maybe also actions you take. Perhaps being a feminist implies something like that in your world, that you are actively engaged in the feminist movement - whether organizing, theorizing, etc.
Either way, thanks for expanding my mind!
it just signifies you are in favor of equal rights among genders
It doesn’t “just signify that” though, as much as feminists act like it does. The term “feminist” does signify a person who, at least ostensibly, is in favor of equal rights among genders, but using that term also, necessarily, implies belief in the harmful dogma that is inseparable from the term itself (patriarchy theory, etc.). This creates a false dichotomy that makes people feel that in order to support equal rights they must also buy into feminist dogma, and that’s not at all the case.
Luckily, though, feminism doesn’t have a monopoly on gender equality, and it’s important to let people know that fact, both because of how incredibly misleading “feminism just means gender equality” is and because there are plenty of other more useful, more egalitarian frameworks through which to view the push for equality.
Yes.
Down with the liars who are talking of freedom and equality for all, while there is an oppressed sex, while there are oppressor classes, while there is private ownership of capital, of shares, while there are the well-fed with their surplus of bread who keep the hungry in bondage. Not freedom for all, not equality for all, but a fight against the oppressors and exploiters!
– Vladimir Lenin, Soviet Power and the Status of Women
Comrades, there is no true social revolution without the liberation of women. May my eyes never see and my feet never take me to a society where half the people are held in silence. I hear the roar of women’s silence. I sense the rumble of their storm and feel the fury of their revolt.
- Thomas Sankara
Thomas Sankara was a true hero that was killed because he dared to threaten the status quo of “haves and have-nots.”
I don’t think so. Haven’t really read feminist theory tho.
best time to plant a tree my friend
As an anarchist, sexism and cisheteropatriarchy are unjustifiable hierarchies, and therefore I oppose them. In turn, this makes me an intersectional feminist.
I believe that I am, but I’m told that my definition is wrong.
For reference, my definition is:
Anybody who believes in equal rights for women.
that’s about what my definition is too, what do you think other people think feminism means, why are you told your definition is wrong?
I want to be, yeah. I suffer under patriarchy and want it to change. And I’ve tasted glimpses of places and times when women and men are safe and free and I want that for everyone all of the time.
But also I’m way too problematic to get to call myself part of the movement. I’ve got bad history and shitty ideas that I still need to resolve so my contributions to feminism are only things that I can do anonymously. If I notice anyone trying to figure me out irl, I obfuscate and let them settle on their first incorrect conclusion.
I’m not, because I do nothing actively in feminist political spaces. I believe opinions count nothing and don’t change the world, so I don’t want to be bundled up with the plenty of people who use it as a label for virtue signaling while not actually putting the effort in.
My politics are death to america and death to israel. Free Palestine and free the planet from US empire and centuries of European colonial domination.
Feminists have not done much materially on that front lets be honest.
Throwback to big name feminist Judith Butler on October 13 2023:
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In fact, I do condemn without qualification the violence committed by Hamas. This was a terrifying and revolting massacre. That was my primary reaction, and it endures.
…
There are those who do use the history of Israeli violence in the region to exonerate Hamas, but they use a corrupt form of moral reasoning to accomplish that goal. Let’s be clear, Israeli violence against Palestinians is overwhelming: relentless bombing, the killing of people of every age in their homes and on the streets, torture in their prisons, techniques of starvation in Gaza and the dispossession of homes. And this violence, in its many forms, is waged against a people who are subject to apartheid rules, colonial rule and statelessness. When, however, the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee issues a statement claiming that ‘the apartheid regime is the only one to blame’ for the deadly attacks by Hamas on Israeli targets, it makes an error. It is wrong to apportion responsibility in that way, and nothing should exonerate Hamas from responsibility for the hideous killings they have perpetrated.
Judith was not the only big name feminist to hold such views following the magnificent al Aqsa Flood Operation.
I would say that the web of NED/USAID NGO’s that represent the face of feminism today has been a very effective tool of empire. I dont want women CEOs and women drone pilots and women iof soldiers and women politicians in puppet governments. I am a woman who wants the end of colonial occupation and superexploitation.
I am confused how this is controversial.
Comrade @Cowbee@lemmy.ml is this just upsetting the federated liberals or have I said something harmful?
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I’d say you’re 70% right, 30% wrong. Liberal feminism has often been a tool of empire, correct, but Marxist feminism is a critical tool for the liberation of the oppressed. Liberal feminists like the early suffragettes were only fighting for the rights of white women, as an example. The way your comment is framed unfortunately erases the need for feminism more than it highlights the imperialists coopting the movement. There are feminists like bell hooks and Angela Davis, Alexandra Kollontai, Leslie Feinberg, etc that point out that it is by uniting the oppressed segments of society that we can all liberate together. Marxism needs feminism, and feminism needs Marxism.
I understand what you are saying. And I agree that women are systematically deprived and oppressed and exploited. I just dont see feminism or at least western feminism as the route to achieve that.
I still am deeply suspicious of feminist figures generally as Angela Davis campaigned for Biden and Holocaust Harris . I have not heard of all the ones you mentioned though. So I wont say all of them are bad. I just remain suspicious.
I absolutely do not identify as anti-feminist as the people who staunchly identify this way are generally insufferable. I just am ambivalent about the label. Each society on earth will resolve secondary and tertiary contradictions but that is always delayed by the genocidal machine of imperialism and all its tentacles.
For instance, I have rarely ever seen self-described feminists recognize the power and importance of hijab and instead often attack it. But the hijab can and actually is an empowering thing for many women and is a weapon against imperialism as well. How can we expect social contradictions of gender to be resolved when entire societies are subjected to genocidal attacks?
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The manipulation of human rights in Western media has long been used to push for an agenda of regime change. The demonization of Iran is built on narratives of human rights violations. Its purpose is to subdue an autonomous Muslim state that speaks for the historical rights of Arabs in Palestine. Given the reach of “Israel” at the behest of imperialism and its involvement in fomenting wars across the globe, the Palestinian issue is an essential concern for the emancipation of humanity. The strength of Iran in opposing the US is the strength of the working classes in the region and throughout the world.
In this unambiguous struggle, siding with the liberalism of the Western world is siding with the enemies of the global working class. Moreover, in this lopsided context in which the power of the US and its allies is overwhelming, it is not possible to speak of the rights of women in Iran without referring these rights to their global class context. Class as I said above is after all transnational, and it is visible in the dominant ideas that govern the channeling of resources. Peoples are poor because they internalize the US’s faux science of markets, development and social rights. In fact, these dominant ideas of the West have not only depleted humans, but they also depleted the planet.
Rights cannot be divided like cakes and the totality of rights of the working class to its resources is the context to which any partial truth must be “referred back to” before arriving at a more concrete understanding of truth. Can any rights for any gender or any people be gained when US banks absorb much of the wealth of the world leaving many developing countries without electricity and potable water? The answer is clearly no.
I’m absolutely in agreement that secondary and tertiary contradictions are easier to solve when the primary contradiction is tackled. Social progress for Palestinians will speed along once Palestine is free, and would be stunted if Israel were to succeed in its aims. I do believe that uniting the oppressed in society is ultimately the best revolutionary strategy.
I do believe that uniting the oppressed in society is ultimately the best revolutionary strategy.
I agree completely. If Zionism emerges victorious from this war then we are all doomed. I just wish the rest of the world understood this as well.
You have a very developed viewpoint! Thank you for sharing it!
🫡
I’m a male vegan anarchist and reject every form of mistreatment based on immutable qualities like species, ethnicity, sex etc. At the same time women in my life have consistently broken my trust, which has left me with some generalized cynical views about them. I also believe that the west is at a point where women often receive preferential treatment in sectors like education and hiring, so advocating for them while men are left behind doesn’t make much sense to me. I do not consider myself a feminist.
I wish I could give you like an award for writing the most Lemmy comment of all or something, lol
I’ll write a more thoughtful response later, but in the meantime, thank you for sharing 🧡
EDIT:
more serious response time:
I was wondering why you believe women receive preferential treatment in hiring and education, what I have read is that empirically women are more likely to be turned down for jobs and they experience greater rates of unemployment and longer employment gaps than men (in the U.S.).
Do you mean you wouldn’t advocate for women in employment and hiring based on your views, or just generally? Because there are still many stark disparities between men and women in the West (including pay, cost of healthcare, sexual violence rates, and so on).
It’s surprising to me that you identify as an egalitarian and anarchist, but don’t consider yourself a feminist - what do you think feminism is, if not a movement for gender equality?
I call myself egalitarian. It distinctly means what you mean by feminist without being so readily confused with what she means by feminist.
ironically I think it’s more confusing, if I tell someone I’m an egalitarian they honestly might not know what that word means at all, whereas at least if I say I’m a feminist they are closer to understanding that I’m in favor of women’s rights …
What my physical therapist considers “feminism” is not something I generally take seriously as a real meaning of feminism, it’s a strawman, and it feels wrong to me to cede the meaning of the word to something so contrary to the actual context of what feminism is (both historically and in its present forms).
There are a variety of feminisms, but none of them advocate for the kinds of things my PT believed, so … I don’t know, it doesn’t seem reasonable to only call myself an “egalitarian” and not use the term “feminist”.
Don’t get too caught up in nuance and small strains of academic philosophy here. The difference is clear:
Egalitarianism is a philosophy that asserts equality among all people. An egalitarian holds the belief or principle that all people are equal and should be treated equally.
Feminism is a social movement born out of the pervasive and systematic disenfranchisement, oppression and abuse of women, which holds to an egalitarian philosophy of equal rights between men and women. A feminist is an advocate for the equal rights of women.
One is an abstract idea that influences modern humanism, liberalism and democracy. The other is a struggle to make that ideal a reality, that has a different face in every different time and place that it’s happening. Both are virtuous.
I place the result of ‘What’s an egalitarian?’ as better than the die roll as to whether they will take it as one or the other, or even a third interpretation. If I say egalitarian, and they can’t define it, they’ll probably go into a questioning mode, which helps make them more open to discussion. The number of people who could define it AND be against it would be minimal. On the other hand, feminist has become almost an epithet to a significant chunk of the English-speaking world. It’s a word that shuts down empathy and critical thinking for those people, even if they couldn’t define it, which your anecdote helps show it can be hard for people to do at any rate.
FYI you can’t be a feminist if you pay for the SA and murder of other women.
women aren’t cows. cows aren’t women. and artificial insemination isn’t SA, it’s a veterinary procedure.
Well cows wouldn’t call themselves “women” no, but I’m sure they do have some gender expression that is apart from just their sex. I could have said females, but I don’t really like using that word.
These cows cannot consent to having someone shove a fist inside them, it is very much SA. I’m sure colonizers had the same mentality as you when they were SA Women of colour and indigenous women.
doors can’t consent to have your keys jammed in them either. the very concept of consent can’t be applied to cows or doors.
Cows are sentient, you comparing them to objects is exactly the kind of shit feminism fights against.
If a human had the same intelligence as a cow do you think it would be okay to SA them?
sentience has nothing to do with consent.
Sentience has to do with among many other things, the ability to suffer. These cows suffer because they are SA, have their kids stolen from them and have their lives cut short only to end in some place worse than hell.
So no sentience does have something to do with consent because only with sentience does consent matter. I don’t need to ask a tree consent to cut it down because it does not feel anything. I do need to ask other individuals for consent because they can suffer.
consent and sentience are totally unrelated concepts. your response only continues to muddy the waters.
If a human had the same intelligence as a cow
I haven’t said anything about intelligence, or suggested sa is ever ok.
comparing indigenous people to animals is gross
Thinking just because someone has a different shaped body than you and isn’t as intelligent gives someone the right to SA them is gross.
The problem is you being so brainwashed to think it’s okay to abuse others that you forget indigenous people are animals. We all are.
indigenous people are animals.
kindly, leave me alone
That you think other animals are below you is the problem here. Don’t blame me for your human supremacy.
I haven’t made any such statements. please leave me alone
What is this referring to?
How dairy cows need to be pregnant in order to produce milk, so they’re artificially inseminated and kept pregnant throughout most of their lives?
Yes. They can’t consent and they are used like objects, only seen as a means of making milk and more cows.
Yeah, I’m a feminist. I’m also a masculinist.
Basically, if there’s not a good reason to prevent you from doing something, you shouldn’t be fucking prevented from doing it.
Who or what you were born as, or what you identify as, in and of itself, is not a good fucking reason.
Motherfuckers that try to prevent other people from living their own lives because of their own assumptions need to fucking fuck off.
No harm, no foul.
Somehow ive decided to just live life by this mantra and its going OK so far. I don’t have to understand or like anything that anyone’s doing, but as long as they aren’t hurting anyone its fine.
I think people get too hung up on labels sometimes, but that said… If you’re a feminist, then so am I. I don’t think your PT’s understanding was correct.
As a CIS male I consider myself a feminist because I recognize that women continue to face systemic challenges that demand more than just abstract ideals of equality. To me, feminism goes beyond egalitarianism. It’s not just about treating everyone the same, it’s about recognizing the different challenges people face and working to change the systems that create and sustain those imbalances.
I was raised by my mom and 3 sisters, and that gave me a front-row seat to the everyday injustices women face. Everything from subtle slights to overt discrimination to being victim of abuse. It wasn’t theory for me, it was lived experience, just one degree removed. I’ve seen the strength and resilience of the women in my life, and I’ve also seen what they’ve had to push through simply because of their gender.
Now, as a father with a daughter, I feel an even deeper responsibility to be part of the shift. I don’t just want her to grow up in a world that pays lip service to “equality”. I want her to live in one where she’s safe, respected, and empowered. That means doing more than being “not sexist.” It means actively pushing back against the structures and behaviors (the patriarchy) that holds women back.
I have zero tolerance for toxic masculinity and so-called “alpha male” attitudes that promote dominance, entitlement, and emotional repression. That culture hurts everyone, but it especially harms women by normalizing control and aggression.
I want my daughter and every woman to see examples of men who are allies, not bystanders. Feminism is a promise: to show up, to speak out (or more often shut up), and to help dismantle barriers so that every person, regardless of gender, can thrive without restriction or fear.
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She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.
She sets about her work vigorously; her arms are strong for her tasks.
She sees that her trading is profitable, and her lamp does not go out at night.
You sure you copy-pasted the right verse number from whatever?
Yeah, from Proverbs 31:10 on this chapter is describing what the author considers a “worthy woman”.
This is an odd passage. It seems to be encouraging the poor to drink to forget their poverty.
6 Give strong drink to him who is ready to perish, and wine to the bitter in soul.
7 Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.Proverbs 31:6-7 WEB translation (public domain).
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can you expand on why Proverbs 31 is why you are not a feminist, and what you think feminism is?
But why?
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No, why does Proverbs 31 make you decide not to be a feminist?
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