Wednesday, July 16, 2014
This was a response to a friend of mine who posted this on a popular social media website and then proceeded to defend it by saying that feminism is divisive.
First (among other things that are better iterated below) my response was:
By declaring your opposition to feminism you are being divisive, insisting that the particular ways in which one group or another is oppressed is greater than the oppression that women face. Empowerment movements (such as feminism, black power, red power, gay pride ad nauseum) exist in order to change the conditions of oppression under which these groups suffer. What could be wrong with that?
Of course, after much internet nonsense, I finally wrote this:
Read [your response], still don't understand what your problem with the term feminism is. Was going to leave well enough alone, but I'll oblige this rather specific request for my two cents, or dollar or whatever. My response is basically what I said before: 1) feminism is an empowerment movement for an oppressed group the same way black power, red power, gay pride etc. are. 2) there is not one feminism, but many feminisms. what historians call the first wave was primarily concerned with suffrage and was also very much linked to the abolition movement. you argue that feminists betrayed abolitionism, but the reality is that abolitionist men betrayed feminism as they felt that the sight of liberated women in the abolition movement would turn more conservative men who might be sympathetic to abolition (industrialists mostly) against the abolitionist cause. the second wave I do have problems with. basically it was in the 1970s and women were bossing other women around telling them that they shouldn't have children or do house work, but instead focus on their careers. this was particularly beneficial to capitalists as they were able to pay lower wages (adjusted for inflation) to both men and women (although there is still a pay gap between the sexes to this day, women making 70 cents on every man's dollar) as now heterosexual households were expected to collect dual incomes. the third wave started in the 1990s and concerned connecting struggles of oppressed peoples. unfortunately, some feminists in the current era seem to have reverted back to second wave and also justifications of female separatism and misandry have become accepted by some (especially radfems/terfs). 2a) the radical justification of misandry (which is a form of prejudice, but not sexism i.e.: systemic, institutionalized discrimination) is not all feminism. The Black Panther Party opposed the Nation of Islam's anti-white doctrine, but both can be described as black power movements. Again, I am an anti-Stalinist communist, but I do not say that Stalinism is not communism, just not a form of communism that I subscribe to. I would like to add this quote from bell hooks and encourage you to read the book that it is from (linked below - pdf).
Most men find it difficult to be patriarchs. Most men are disturbed by hatred and fear of women, by male violence against women, even the men who perpetuate this violence. But they fear letting go of the benefits. They are not certain what will happen to the world they know most intimately if patriarchy changes. So they find it easier to passively support male domination even when they know in their minds and hearts that it is wrong. Again and again men tell me they have no idea what it is feminists want. I believe them. I believe in their capacity to change and grow. And I believe that if they knew more about feminism they would no longer fear it, for they would find in feminist movement the hope of their own release from the bondage of patriarchy.
Also, check this out.
Finally, allow me to give you a personal anecdote as to why feminism is something that I (although I am a man, and although I have endured the occasional (in my mind undeserved) ad homenim attack of "oppressor," "partiarch," "sexist" ad nauseum from self-described feminists) not only subscribe to, but also identify with. When I was a kid I was into poetry, art and music. I was vegetarian at the age of 10. I never played with toy trucks as a kid nor was I interested in the least in sports. In fact, I hated my gym teachers. Not only did I have to face being called a "girl," "faggot," and "pussy" from the other kids in school, but my teachers, those in authority, made the same complaints about me, although in perhaps less vulgar language. I was actually in a fist fight in the locker room once because another boy on my soccer team felt I didn't perform soccer manly enough and that was why we lost the game. I never was really hurt by being called a girl (even though I knew I was not) or gay (which I also knew I was not) because those things were not bad in my eyes. I always enjoyed the company of girls. I often sat with them at lunch. I sometimes felt that I related better to the girls in my class than I did to the boys. Of course, I realized that this must not be something natural. I believed that probably many of the boys in my class felt the same way I did, but just weren't courageous enough to stand up the sexism they were confronted with and instead lived in this fictitious role of the masculine male. Now, there's not necessarily anything wrong with masculinity, per se. Some of us have more aggressive, more utilitarian personalities. I have known many women with these traits. It's not wrong, it's just not inherently male.
First (among other things that are better iterated below) my response was:
By declaring your opposition to feminism you are being divisive, insisting that the particular ways in which one group or another is oppressed is greater than the oppression that women face. Empowerment movements (such as feminism, black power, red power, gay pride ad nauseum) exist in order to change the conditions of oppression under which these groups suffer. What could be wrong with that?
Of course, after much internet nonsense, I finally wrote this:
Read [your response], still don't understand what your problem with the term feminism is. Was going to leave well enough alone, but I'll oblige this rather specific request for my two cents, or dollar or whatever. My response is basically what I said before: 1) feminism is an empowerment movement for an oppressed group the same way black power, red power, gay pride etc. are. 2) there is not one feminism, but many feminisms. what historians call the first wave was primarily concerned with suffrage and was also very much linked to the abolition movement. you argue that feminists betrayed abolitionism, but the reality is that abolitionist men betrayed feminism as they felt that the sight of liberated women in the abolition movement would turn more conservative men who might be sympathetic to abolition (industrialists mostly) against the abolitionist cause. the second wave I do have problems with. basically it was in the 1970s and women were bossing other women around telling them that they shouldn't have children or do house work, but instead focus on their careers. this was particularly beneficial to capitalists as they were able to pay lower wages (adjusted for inflation) to both men and women (although there is still a pay gap between the sexes to this day, women making 70 cents on every man's dollar) as now heterosexual households were expected to collect dual incomes. the third wave started in the 1990s and concerned connecting struggles of oppressed peoples. unfortunately, some feminists in the current era seem to have reverted back to second wave and also justifications of female separatism and misandry have become accepted by some (especially radfems/terfs). 2a) the radical justification of misandry (which is a form of prejudice, but not sexism i.e.: systemic, institutionalized discrimination) is not all feminism. The Black Panther Party opposed the Nation of Islam's anti-white doctrine, but both can be described as black power movements. Again, I am an anti-Stalinist communist, but I do not say that Stalinism is not communism, just not a form of communism that I subscribe to. I would like to add this quote from bell hooks and encourage you to read the book that it is from (linked below - pdf).
Most men find it difficult to be patriarchs. Most men are disturbed by hatred and fear of women, by male violence against women, even the men who perpetuate this violence. But they fear letting go of the benefits. They are not certain what will happen to the world they know most intimately if patriarchy changes. So they find it easier to passively support male domination even when they know in their minds and hearts that it is wrong. Again and again men tell me they have no idea what it is feminists want. I believe them. I believe in their capacity to change and grow. And I believe that if they knew more about feminism they would no longer fear it, for they would find in feminist movement the hope of their own release from the bondage of patriarchy.
Also, check this out.
Finally, allow me to give you a personal anecdote as to why feminism is something that I (although I am a man, and although I have endured the occasional (in my mind undeserved) ad homenim attack of "oppressor," "partiarch," "sexist" ad nauseum from self-described feminists) not only subscribe to, but also identify with. When I was a kid I was into poetry, art and music. I was vegetarian at the age of 10. I never played with toy trucks as a kid nor was I interested in the least in sports. In fact, I hated my gym teachers. Not only did I have to face being called a "girl," "faggot," and "pussy" from the other kids in school, but my teachers, those in authority, made the same complaints about me, although in perhaps less vulgar language. I was actually in a fist fight in the locker room once because another boy on my soccer team felt I didn't perform soccer manly enough and that was why we lost the game. I never was really hurt by being called a girl (even though I knew I was not) or gay (which I also knew I was not) because those things were not bad in my eyes. I always enjoyed the company of girls. I often sat with them at lunch. I sometimes felt that I related better to the girls in my class than I did to the boys. Of course, I realized that this must not be something natural. I believed that probably many of the boys in my class felt the same way I did, but just weren't courageous enough to stand up the sexism they were confronted with and instead lived in this fictitious role of the masculine male. Now, there's not necessarily anything wrong with masculinity, per se. Some of us have more aggressive, more utilitarian personalities. I have known many women with these traits. It's not wrong, it's just not inherently male.