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Should men describe themselves as feminists, if they are supportive of feminism?

Yossarian said:
How do you define a feminist?

The dictionary says it's somebody who believes men and women should have equal rights, which means everybody who isn't a complete sexist bigot can call themselves a feminist.
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This really is the long and short of it.

There's a lot of hand-wringing about what feminism means these days (well, hasn't there always been?), with different groups holding different views with different goals, and in turn endless diatribes about wanting a different word, people saying "I'm not a feminist, I love men!", or wankers saying "I'm an equalist!!!"

You can have your discussions about what 'equal rights' means under a capitalist system, about whether there can ever be gender equality under capitalism; you can have your arguments with TERF cunts about what even constitutes a woman: but outside all of that, if you don't think gender should be a barrier to being granted rights and justice and fairness and whatever else, well that's feminism.
 
Vintage Paw said:
Intersectionalism gets a harsh rap (round these parts, definitely). At its heart, it's an academic term to describe how it's more fruitful to understand how the different ways in which the state works on people intersect, rather than viewing every struggle as separate and therefore risking further division.

In practice, it's used a lot in inelegant ways by people who aren't very politically minded. But isn't everything?

For example, bell hooks writing Ain't I A Woman? = intersectionalist. That's all it is, really. An invitation to nuance in a world that increasingly packages us off into neat little boxes with precise labels in an attempt to 1) get us to buy stuff that reaffirms those labels that gets us to buy more stuff that reaffirms those labels..., and 2) erase the common root of our struggles so we see ourselves as forever in opposition to one another, instead of recognising how the same system utilises the same power in different ways on each of us, sometimes in different ways at different times, sometimes in multiple ways at the same time.

My post in the IWD thread that described examples of intersectionality got a lot of likes and positive replies. I wonder if it's just the label people don't like?
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I don't think its the label or the practise in of itself that gets so much objection- personally I think that 'check your privilege' is sometimes a useful thing to ask yourself, when examining your politics, your societal positon etc.

Whats objected to a lot is if its being used in an identity top trumps situation iyswim. I've seen this go on in twitter spats etc. That does fall under your inelegant use bit I suppose but its politically minded people doing it. Twitter is the worst for discussion though
 
Vintage Paw said:
This really is the long and short of it.

There's a lot of hand-wringing about what feminism means these days (well, hasn't there always been?), with different groups holding different views with different goals, and in turn endless diatribes about wanting a different word, people saying "I'm not a feminist, I love men!", or wankers saying "I'm an equalist!!!"

You can have your discussions about what 'equal rights' means under a capitalist system, about whether there can ever be gender equality under capitalism; you can have your arguments with TERF cunts about what even constitutes a woman: but outside all of that, if you don't think gender should be a barrier to being granted rights and justice and fairness and whatever else, well that's feminism.
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What's TERF cunt?
 
Theres no need for men to say they're feminists tho, it's often a way to insist they're not a misogynist. And frankly yeah sometimes I feel embarrassed to call myself a feminist what with people who say there's absolutely no problem with porn and sex-work describing themselves as that, and then on the other hand there are a certain breed of rad fem that seem to suggest that angela merkel is more oppressed than some blokes working a dirty and dangerous job for a pittance, simply because they have a penis and she doesnt. You need an analysis that combines marxism and feminism imo. It's weird, i'm reading a lot of feminist stuff (of all types) atm and I agree with a lot of it but a lot of it I really find quite alien to my experience as a woman.
 
DotCommunist said:
I don't think its the label or the practise in of itself that gets so much objection- personally I think that 'check your privilege' is sometimes a useful thing to ask yourself, when examining your politics, your societal positon etc.

Whats objected to a lot is if its being used in an identity top trumps situation iyswim. I've seen this go on in twitter spats etc. That does fall under your inelegant use bit I suppose but its politically minded people doing it. Twitter is the worst for discussion though
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I'd agree on the 'identity top trumps' thing. That's not something to necessarily lay at the door of intersectionality, though - not completely, anyway. I know identity politics is the devil, but the fact remains we have been very successfully packaged into our various little identities, and they are reinforced in myriad ways whenever we interact with the world in some way - watching tv, at work, dealing with bureaucracy, buying something.... I worry sometimes that we are so anti-identity politics that we forget why people adopt identities in the first place. We need to incorporate the reality of this identity culture into our politics, otherwise we're missing a huge chunk of the picture.
 
frogwoman said:
Theres no need for men to say they're feminists tho, it's often a way to insist they're not a misogynist. And frankly yeah sometimes I feel embarrassed to call myself a feminist what with people who say there's absolutely no problem with porn and sex-work describing themselves as that, and then on the other hand there are a certain breed of rad fem that seem to suggest that angela merkel is more oppressed than some blokes working a dirty and dangerous job for a pittance, simply because they have a penis and she doesnt. You need an analysis that combines marxism and feminism imo. It's weird, i'm reading a lot of feminist stuff (of all types) atm and I agree with a lot of it but a lot of it I really find quite alien to my experience as a woman.
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Why do you think that is? The not-appealing i mean.
 
I'd actually go as far as saying it's a bit of a sad state of affairs that the op is concerned about whether to call themselves one or not. It's become, much like the word socialism, a word that's been so twisted and misrepresented that it's come down to concerns about whether or not to identify yourself as such.
 
frogwoman said:
Theres no need for men to say they're feminists tho, it's often a way to insist they're not a misogynist. And frankly yeah sometimes I feel embarrassed to call myself a feminist what with people who say there's absolutely no problem with porn and sex-work describing themselves as that, and then on the other hand there are a certain breed of rad fem that seem to suggest that angela merkel is more oppressed than some blokes working a dirty and dangerous job for a pittance, simply because they have a penis and she doesnt. You need an analysis that combines marxism and feminism imo. It's weird, i'm reading a lot of feminist stuff (of all types) atm and I agree with a lot of it but a lot of it I really find quite alien to my experience as a woman.
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Watch out, your intersectionality is showing :p

Perhaps there's a problem with expecting there to be one movement or set of ideas that can perfectly align with what we all believe. Maybe we need to chill with the realisation that while 'feminism' basically just means gender should be no bar to fairness/justice/equality there are going to be lots of different ways that people interpret that wrt their own experiences and their own social location, and just keep on plugging away for the variant that we believe in. Just stop worrying that someone we don't like is using the same word as us. Like cunt. Nasty fucking misogynist shits in America use it to describe women in the vilest ways possible. I use it because it feels nice in my mouth (no pun) and I like saying it. Just like I'm not going to tell a black guy not to use the n word just because some white racist wanker is going to use it in a racist way.

idk, language is tricky. You get some who say language is just words and we shouldn't let it hold power over us, but that's ridiculous because it clearly already does, and people who say that invariably are doing so from a position of power they are trying to protect. But it's nuanced, there's no rulebook that says "always use this reasoning, never that." All we can do is keep negotiating the bumpy terrain as best we can.
 
butchersapron said:
Not to me. The term and your use = pretty ambiguous.
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In the debates around 'what is feminism', looking at the dictionary definition two basic elements appear to be key: gender and equality. Some people might ask, in that case, what is gender, and what is equality, and how do they relate to each other here? I offered a couple of examples of questions people might pose when exploring those issues: is equality possible under capitalism; what is a woman? Even before we get into the various ways people interpret feminism, these seem to be two areas that could be sticking points for some. One warrants more discussion than the other, afaic. Then I moved on to say that ignoring those questions, at its heart feminism means achieving equality of the genders.

I used the term TERF cunts because they seem to be the loudest in showing their concern over what constitutes a woman and whether they should be 'allowed' to be a feminist. And they are, by and large, cunts.
 
"A feminist advocates or supports the rights and equality of women."

Can't see anything wrong with a man describing himself as one of those.
 
Vintage Paw said:
In the debates around 'what is feminism', looking at the dictionary definition two basic elements appear to be key: gender and equality. Some people might ask, in that case, what is gender, and what is equality, and how do they relate to each other here? I offered a couple of examples of questions people might pose when exploring those issues: is equality possible under capitalism; what is a woman? Even before we get into the various ways people interpret feminism, these seem to be two areas that could be sticking points for some. One warrants more discussion than the other, afaic. Then I moved on to say that ignoring those questions, at its heart feminism means achieving equality of the genders.

I used the term TERF cunts because they seem to be the loudest in showing their concern over what constitutes a woman and whether they should be 'allowed' to be a feminist. And they are, by and large, cunts.
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Right, thank you. Looked to me like an abusive dismissive way of summing up one side. But i'm naive like that.
 
Vintage Paw said:
In the debates around 'what is feminism', looking at the dictionary definition two basic elements appear to be key: gender and equality. Some people might ask, in that case, what is gender, and what is equality, and how do they relate to each other here? I offered a couple of examples of questions people might pose when exploring those issues: is equality possible under capitalism; what is a woman? Even before we get into the various ways people interpret feminism, these seem to be two areas that could be sticking points for some. One warrants more discussion than the other, afaic. Then I moved on to say that ignoring those questions, at its heart feminism means achieving equality of the genders.

I used the term TERF cunts because they seem to be the loudest in showing their concern over what constitutes a woman and whether they should be 'allowed' to be a feminist. And they are, by and large, cunts.
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This is all very interesting and much more nuanced than my point of view. I don't know much about the subject but I always felt there were 2 kinds of people: feminists and twats. In my world, if you believe that women deserve equal pay and recognition for carrying out the same job as a man, you're a feminist. If you don't, you're a twat.

Anyone can be a feminist, but by the same token, anyone can be a twat.
 
i describe myself as a feminist and believe i am one. to me, feminism is the belief that women have been culturally, socially, and legally discriminated against and that our society is still intrinsically anti-women in many ways; and that this needs to be changed by whatever means necessary.

however, not calling yourself a feminist because you don't want to take over women's struggles whilst still not being a massive dickhead is much much better than all the men who call themselves a feminist but don't translate that into behaviour

of course, feminism is different things to different people. plenty of tories describe themselves as feminists but that doesn't extend to working class women's equality. plenty of people believe that feminism is about choices, so that you should be free to choose which of the patriarchy's chains you adopt and pretend that its a free choice.

but to me, if you don't call yourself a feminist without a good explanation then you're a wrong un! if you say "i'm not a feminist" you're basically saying "i am opposed to any and all of the strands of movements towards social equity for women, and don't believe that there is any need for those movements" which, IMO, is factually incorrect, morally wrong, and deeply suspect.
 
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