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Yeah, why do that when you can let women who hate men define feminism as ‘women who hate men’ lol
Like seriously, are we just gonna pretend that the feminist movement doesn’t have a ton of loud, hateful bigots who often take way too long to be kicked out? Hell, even TERFs still get to call themselves ‘feminists’ somehow.
Leave it to Lemmy's 77% male userbase to discredit the entire feminism movement because some self-proclaimed 'feminists' are misandrists and TERFs in sheep's clothing.
Women are always held responsible for other people's behaviors. Holding the vast majority of normal feminists who just want to be treated like people accountable for the actions of a crazy minority of men-hating folks is just another example of this.
lol I love how you’re using ‘TERFs’ as a scapegoat while ignoring that TERFs are, quite literally, Trans-exclusionary Radical Feminists. They’re not ‘masquerading’ as anything, they are feminists and have always been. They’re also mostly women, which means these specific women are being held accountable for their own behavior. To claim otherwise is to infantilize these women and take their agency away from them.
Lemmy and its ‘77% male userbase’ can hardly be blamed for the real and enduring shortcomings in the feminist movement itself. It’s not a problem that should simply be ignored or handwaved away if feminists want to get rid of the stigma their movement carries.
This may come as a surprise to you, but people often deliberately mislabel themselves for credibility, or believe themselves to be something that they are not. For example, so called 'leftists' in the US are actually centrists and by international standards.
You are holding all women feminists accountable for the actions of a few self-proclaimed women feminists. That is not infantilization, that is pointing out the impossible standards that women are held to by anti-feminists and how some women will always be blamed for the actions of others.
Lemmy's userbase is problematic because often times people don't think about whether or not their experiences are relevant before speaking. Judging by your condemnation of feminists because of misandrists who claim to be one, you don't seem to understand that feminism is fundamentally about equality and bringing men and women up to par with each other. This goes beyond just women's rights. Feminism is just as much about making safe spaces for discussions about men's mental health, male sexual assault victims, paternity leave, custody, and so much more. The reason why these things are not accessible to lots of men is the same reason why women aren't being treated as people. It's because of systemic patriarchal barriers that force men and women alike to conform to certain detrimental behaviors or be ostracized.
Look, it doesn’t matter what you want the movement to be about or what you think TERFs are. The reality is that TERF isn’t a self-given label, radical feminist isn’t a self-given label, and more than a few notable individuals in the feminist movement (a movement that, at its core, is about womens’ rights) are misandrist. This is a reality that, no matter how much you pretend is fake, is still real.
And if feminists spend more time denying this reality than actively changing it, the movement itself won’t change, nor will its general perception.
Christ can you not understand that most feminists fundamentally disagree with TERFs? I don't know why you are so insistant to lump them with actual feminist. Maybe consider listening to feminists, like me, instead of perpetually mansplaining about what feminists are.
It's not a 'general perception' that all feminists are TERFs. It's what your perception and the perceptions of other anti-feminists. Hell most normal men, who are feminists with or without labels, don't share your perception. You seem to have this warped perception that all feminists are out to get you and hate on men, when the reality is so far from the radicalized scheme that you think it is. People like you perceive the existance of feminism as an attack on you. It's not. It's not even about you, because you don't seem to care about men's issues either. It's about everyone else who wants to lift men and women above the patriarchy.
Wow, didn’t take you long to get personal with your replies huh. Keep blaming the terrible image of the feminist movement on ‘misogynists’ all you want, but it’s misandrists, TERFs and other bigots in the movement who give it a bad name, as well as the people who only respond to criticism of the movement itself with deflection, accusations and ad hominem.
Anyway, it’s not like I care anymore what the image of the feminist movement is; I stopped associating with it ages ago. Do with it what you will.
I am the feminist movement. You are speaking it right now. This is the image of feminism. If you don't like what you see, don't shuffle around and just admit that you are an anti-feminist.
The feminist movement isn't some men-hating caricature you see on Fox news. It's normal people caring about those who suffer from the patriarchy, men and women alike. It's people over at Men's Liberation community. It's donating to the local women's shelter because over 90% of SA victims are female. It's donating to men's suicide prevention charities because over 80% of deaths are from men. It's understanding that the men's mental health crisis is a consequence of patriarchal structures. It's understanding the pervasiveness of systemic oppression on women's lives. It's learning to empathize with the different but real struggles that the other genders face.
If you simply 'don't care anymore' because you are concerned about image, that's not good enough. You should care. And that starts with embracing the idea that feminism isn't a dirty word, and it's not defined by extremists. It's 2023 and it's what everybody should strive for ffs.
Look, you go ahead and keep on pretending that the feminist movement is perfect and that all the bigots are ‘not true feminists’. Keep acting like feminism is only all the good things, and it wasn’t feminists who had battered men’s shelters shut down, that TERFs aren’t ‘real feminists’. Keep pretending that anyone who criticizes feminism is actually just ‘anti-feminism’. In the end, it won’t change what the image of the movement is, nor will it change the people behind that image.
Whatever you think feminism is doesn't change what feminism actually is. I don't think you see the irony here of how you are explaining what feminism is to a feminist.
If you are not a feminist, you are anti-feminist. It's that simple. You think you are criticizing feminism, when in reality you are criticizing misandrists and TERFs who are not accepted by feminist (ask me, a feminist).
Can you just stop and think about the optics for a second? You are explaining to me, a feminist, what feminism is. You are explaining to me how i support misandrists and TERFs when everything I have written couldn't be further from that. You need to take a step back and start treating me, a woman, as a person with valid thoughts and opinions that exist independently of your narrow world view. And you need to stop putting down men who are feminists because doing so makes you just as much of a misandrist as the people you claim to hate. If you have any respect for yourself and other men's mental health issues, start accepting that feminism is the solution.
Again, this whole thread was about the image of the movement, and the culpability of misandrist feminists in painting an image of feminists as ‘women who hate men’.
You're not going to argue equality away by bringing up the worst people you can think of associated with the movement. There is no substance to arguments based on ad hominem character attacks. I don't care how transphobic someone is, feminism is about equality for women. There is nothing misandrist about wanting to be equal to men in society. And here is a reality check for you, no one needs to be nice, or have a good public perception, to get human rights. Our rights are supposed to be something you get for being human.
The ‘worst people’ shape the image of the movement. The core of the argument still doesn’t change, no matter what you say. The ones defining feminism as ‘women who hate men’ aren’t misogynists alone; it’s the misandrists within the movement itself.
No the worst people of the movement are used be the people who don't like the movement to discredited the movement. An ad hominem argument will always be a substanceless ad hominem argument. The image of the movement isn't what's important, it's the substance of its arguments. Wanting equality with other people is not hatred of those people.
Again, this whole thread was about the image of the movement, and the culpability of misandrist feminists in painting an image of feminists as ‘women who hate men’. In this particular thread, the ‘image of the movement’ is literally the core topic of discussion.
I would recommend checking the meme again. It's about not letting men who hate women define feminism as women who hate men. This is a question about what feminism is, not its image or public perception. And misandrist feminists couldn't be more off-topic.
Misandrist feminists couldn’t be more on-topic if they tried, since it’s their actions that provide the vast majority of the fuel for feminism’s perception as a misandrist movement. They, as members of the movement, define it far more than external factors like ‘men who hate women’.
The actions of a minority of individuals in a movement do not define what the larger movement is. A movement is also not defined by the people who seek to misrepresent the movement to others. The actions of the majority of the people in the movement are what defines it. Arguments directed at individuals, especially those individuals that do not represent the larger movement, neither change what the movement is nor are they compelling.
I personally recommend the hierarchy of disagreement. Arguments that focus on the refutation of arguments will be more compelling than those directed at the people giving the arguments.
https://themindcollection.com/revisiting-grahams-hierarchy-of-disagreement/
In that case, maybe you should’ve replied to the post itself to argue that ‘men who hate women’ can’t possibly define the movement, rather than this long defense of feminism and how only the majority of the movement can define it (which isn’t entirely true either)
maybe you should’ve replied to the post itself to argue that ‘men who hate women’ can’t possibly define the movement
I've been doing that. Your comments specifically seemed a good place to start.
Individual people can certainly try to define a movement, but the voices of the majority of people in the movement are going to best represent what the movement actually is. Most sizable movements inevitably have some bad actors that do not represent the majority of people in the movement. If we judged every movement by its worst individuals we would never have any kind of social change at all. edit: spacing
The reality is that TERF isn’t a self-given label, radical feminist isn’t a self-given label,
You're right, it's not a self-given label, and that's why when people decided that these people are actually not welcomed in feminist spaces, they changed the label to FART (Feminism-Appropriating Reactionary Transphobes).
Feminism, as defined by the majority of the movement, is about equality and intersectionality. If you hold exclusionary views you're not part of the movement, you're only appropriating the word.
Again, that’s a nice sentiment but it doesn’t change the reality that ‘FART’ is a joke term used by some feminists; the vast majority still call them TERFs, because the feminist movement has historically cared far more about the issues of biological women.
If anything, it’s the people who call feminism a movement for ‘equality and intersectionality’ who’re appropriating a term for a movement that, at its core, has primarily been about women’s rights.
Plenty of people call North Korea the DPRK as that's it's official name, despite being well aware that it's undemocratic, not a republic not for the people, and only of half of Korea, even in the same sentence as condemning it for not being the things it claims to be. What you're saying is effectively equivalent to saying anyone in favour of democracy is evil on the grounds that North Korea labels itself as democratic, and is a bad place.
Except the DPRK is a self-given name of an out-and-out fascist country, not a name given to it by other democracies for still standing by the essentials of democratic republics. This is unlike TERFs, where they’re still considered feminists (hence the name) since they still stand by the essentials of the movement (ie more rights for women).
Terf is their self identified label. I think "feminism appropriating reactionary transphobes" is a more accurate label.
TERF isn’t a self-identification label though, it was given to them.
You are my todays hero ☺️
Terfs are not feminists and do not define feminism
‘Trans-exclusionary radical feminists’ are, as much as you hate them, ‘feminist’ by definition. They’ve been part of this movement since before the term was a thing, and continue to be part of it. Hell, the term itself wasn’t even meant to be derogatory when it was conceived.
Man you must think the Nazis were socialists. Dipshit. Log off and read a damn book.
There's no use, the UK lives rent free in their head.
Every group has their extremists but fail to realize that's how the opposition will always perceive them. With the left, Antifa is how the right views them. With the right, The Proud Boys are how the left views them. It's the same with feminism. The insane women calling themselves feminists and screaming at the tops of their lungs that all men should be killed are how a lot of people view feminism as a whole. I don't know what the solution to that is, but it's why I personally don't vibe with 'feminists'
The problem with feminism is that far too many loud bigots were allowed to call themselves ‘feminists’ and openly air their bigotry for far too long. At this point, the name’s been so thoroughly poisoned that even some people who are feminists, at least in ideology, no longer want to associate with the term.
Yeah, it's honestly exhausting that, whenever I hear someone talk about feminism, I need to take a minute to deduce whether they're a fellow Human Rights Enthusiast or if they're just a pink fascist.
lol you just need to let ‘em talk and maybe mention trans rights or men. Eventually, their bigotry will spill out because they can’t really control their own hatred.
Lol worst kind of equality :)
Yeah that's the thing about humans. They tend to create ingroups and outgroups.
3rd wave kinda.. did that on their own. Barely a few years ago there were 'feminists' shutting down MRA sessions by pulling fire alarms where it was literally a bunch of dudes talking about their problems. It's still relatively recent memory that people who called themselves feminists were some of the most unhinged human beings we had to deal with.
Yes, you can argue "those weren't actually feminists" or "they were extreme and don't represent everyone" but a lot of people still have those feminists in mind when the term comes up. It's not "men who hate women" who created this perception, it is the women who hate men.
The issue is men on youtube showing those few bad apples and declaring: "This is feminism"
You can find idiots in any movement. You can't "kick them out". Feminism isn't a club you join.
The issue is men like you not being able to think for yourself and simple believing what some dudes on youtube tell you.
Just about every critique of the feminist movement(s) gets quashed by ad hominem and accusations of sexism. Perhaps there is a need to reconsider how this movement treats men, and how much venomous rhetoric is aimed in their direction?
If you think feminism bad bc they fight against MRAs Idk what to tell you other than stop hating women. MRA's are garbage and have never given a fuck about men's issues. They're the male equivalent of terfs, using a progressive social movement as a guise for their bigotry. As someone who used to think 3rd wave feminism was cringe and bad, you really need to reexamine your views and question why you're still going to bat for MRAs of all people
Ah yeah the group of people that have the highest suicide rates don't have any problems to talk out. You're right, we should tell them to suck it up and be a man.
You're the reason I hate feminism. Please fuck off.
They were talking about MRA's and how that movement is/was very misogynistic and just a backlash to 3rd wave feminism. That movement hid behind real struggles of men to just be misogynistic and uphold patriarchy.
Men have very pressing and real struggles however you can't solve those problems by hating women.
MRAs existed before third wave feminism and only became widely known after being attacked by said wave of feminism. It absolutely did push to the top a bunch of edgy and shitty people that somehow became popular because people found comfort in someone trash talking horrible people calling themselves feminist. Said people have fallen off dramatically and are now seen as more vile than they once were because the worst of the feminist movement has essentially moved on to actually defending women against the modern day 'manosphere' which is overwhelmingly misogynistic and uses men's issues as a shield from critique rather than treating it as an important issue.
Third wave feminism was the embodiment of 'Women have very pressing and real struggles, however you can't solve those problems by hating men' and I'd wager the feelings you have towards the misogynistic manosphere are the same many of us had towards third wave feminism.
Where did I say anything close to that???? Ofc men have shit tons of problems, you'd have to be super ignorant or bigoted to deny that. MRA's don't give a shit about those problems. They just pay lip service to them as an excuse to decry feminists and often women in general bc they hate women and unknowingly contribute to the kinds of unhealthy masculinity that cause men a lot of the problems they face.
Most feminists aren't the screeching misandrist TERFs that are super loud and way too plentiful in a lot of spaces, though I'll admit I don't really call myself one anymore. Terfs kinda ruined the term for me by hijacking it as a guise for their transphobia. But most feminists want toxic masculinity to end, and for people to not have to conform to gender norms. Most feminists realize that men face a lot of issues, and those issues are societal and not inherent to having a dick
The problem is that there are even ingorant women that hate feminism.
It is not the problem but a problem. I grew up in a western country and everyone told me, there is no need for feminism anymore. It took me years to understand that's a lie, but if you simply don't know were to get informations... if you are told feminist now are hysterics so you don't seek their help/advise... there is nothing left than to recreate the things you are told.
Cause if you get yourself educated you can easy become social isolated.
New Blur album's pretty good
The problem is, no one can agree on what feminism stands for anymore, or rather, the movement is fractured, and all the different groups denounce each other. Feminism's problem isn't men, it's feminists.
Feminism is always a slay! (Esp intersectional 😍)