Feminists in Everything But Name
Oct. 22nd, 2010 03:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jamesqThe best definition of feminism that I've heard is this one:
Yet whenever I've ever been in a discussion about whether someone is a feminist or not, there is always someone who will answer something like this: "Oh, I'm not a feminist - I believe in equal rights for everyone." - a statement which literally contradicts itself (it would be like saying five is not greater then zero because positive integers are greater then zero). This happened last night, and I also remember it happening on Facebook when a friend brought it up.
In these discussions a weird sort of one-upsmanship always occurs. The Facebook example started with the question "Are you a feminist and if so, why?" I responded with something like "I'm a feminist because I believe in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes" (yes I looked up the definition before my comment - I'm that much of a grammar Nazi). Immediately afterward someone else posted with "I'm not a feminist because I think everyone should be equal." and other people chimed in in a similar way. Like clockwork.
Mostly, this happens because people don't want to just ditto the first responder. They also don't want to imply that they're limiting themselves to just this one issue. That's fine and all, but it's mildly irritating because I always sense a tone of "so what's your problem?" towards me. Like I'm being admonished for only caring about gender equality, when in fact I've made no statement about my support or non-support of other categories of civil rights. Don't use me to score points on in some imagined game of who's-the-most-progressive just because I answered the question correctly and concisely without volunteering additional, irrelevant, material.
It's a little like a joke a friend used to tell (there's no punchline, it's all in the delivery):
Getting away from that pet peeve, there's also the fact that people who clearly agree with feminism don't want to be identified as feminists. Why not? Because the term feminist has become a pejorative. It shouldn't be, but it is. I blame a media that cares more about artificially created conflict then reporting the facts. Far easier (and better for ratings) for some pundit to generate heat by demonizing feminists and portraying something really very simple (feminism) as something it's not (a bunch of man-hating ball crushers).
As an aside, they've done the exact same thing to "Liberal", at least in the States.
And it's worked! I bet if I commissioned two surveys - one asking if the person were a feminist, and the other asking if the person believed that social, political and economic equality of the sexes was a good thing - the number of people saying "yes" to the latter would far exceed the people saying "yes" to the former. Even though they're synonymous.
Belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.It's straightforward and gets to the heart of the matter.
Yet whenever I've ever been in a discussion about whether someone is a feminist or not, there is always someone who will answer something like this: "Oh, I'm not a feminist - I believe in equal rights for everyone." - a statement which literally contradicts itself (it would be like saying five is not greater then zero because positive integers are greater then zero). This happened last night, and I also remember it happening on Facebook when a friend brought it up.
In these discussions a weird sort of one-upsmanship always occurs. The Facebook example started with the question "Are you a feminist and if so, why?" I responded with something like "I'm a feminist because I believe in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes" (yes I looked up the definition before my comment - I'm that much of a grammar Nazi). Immediately afterward someone else posted with "I'm not a feminist because I think everyone should be equal." and other people chimed in in a similar way. Like clockwork.
Mostly, this happens because people don't want to just ditto the first responder. They also don't want to imply that they're limiting themselves to just this one issue. That's fine and all, but it's mildly irritating because I always sense a tone of "so what's your problem?" towards me. Like I'm being admonished for only caring about gender equality, when in fact I've made no statement about my support or non-support of other categories of civil rights. Don't use me to score points on in some imagined game of who's-the-most-progressive just because I answered the question correctly and concisely without volunteering additional, irrelevant, material.
It's a little like a joke a friend used to tell (there's no punchline, it's all in the delivery):
"Is there a doctor in the house?"The other part of the joke is unspoken - someone needs medical treatment, while these three tools are comparing academic qualifications.
"I'm a doctor!"
"I'm a doctor of mathematics!"
"I'm a specialist."
Getting away from that pet peeve, there's also the fact that people who clearly agree with feminism don't want to be identified as feminists. Why not? Because the term feminist has become a pejorative. It shouldn't be, but it is. I blame a media that cares more about artificially created conflict then reporting the facts. Far easier (and better for ratings) for some pundit to generate heat by demonizing feminists and portraying something really very simple (feminism) as something it's not (a bunch of man-hating ball crushers).
As an aside, they've done the exact same thing to "Liberal", at least in the States.
And it's worked! I bet if I commissioned two surveys - one asking if the person were a feminist, and the other asking if the person believed that social, political and economic equality of the sexes was a good thing - the number of people saying "yes" to the latter would far exceed the people saying "yes" to the former. Even though they're synonymous.
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no subject
Date: 2010-10-22 11:25 pm (UTC);)
So the term feminist also validly implies that you subscribe to the values of the feminist movement - which has other ideologies then what the dictionary definition states.
There are different flavours of feminist ideology - liberal, conservative, ecofeminism, postmodern.... blah blah blah.
Thus a lot of women who believe in equality do not self identify as feminists. I think this is because we, for the most part, do not want to be classified and placed in a box... even as a child I recognized those who used the term wanted to place me in a box as something strange oddity... (okay maybe there might be some merit to the fact that I'm a bit odd... but I digress)
Really if you think about the word and it's definition it makes no sense... if you are for equality of the sexes why in the world would you distinguish it as being a female in it's etymology.
I think that's why so many of us rebel against using it at all and perfer to use egalitatian or some other non-sexed version meaning equal to describe our belief system (which encompasses more then just equality of the sexes).
no subject
Date: 2010-10-23 02:25 pm (UTC)