I don't like calling myself a feminist anymore, I used to but not anymore. I support it but I came to the conclusion that it's really up to the women who are in that movement, and directly affected by those issues, to decide whether or not I'm on their side. If someone wants to call me a feminist or an "ally" then that's cool, but I don't want to go out of my way to earn "social justice cookies" by claiming that I speak for movements that aren't really my own. Edit: People have never been comfortable using it.
We used to hear this sort of stuff 35 years ago while we were helping to teach rape relief classes... I am not sure how the average male is meant to feel when tarred with this brush because of his genitalia. It is confusing when there is trend in this direction as I do beleive that there has been a move over time further and further away from accepting brutality to women. Am I the only one who remembers... one more time Alice and Boom! to the moon! from the Honeymooners? I noticed that recently when there was a report that similar numbers of violent attacks were perpetrated by females as males that apologists in the feminist crowd said that it didn't count as the same thing as a man hitting a woman.. we were supposed to accept that women had to have a way to strike out at the things a man did that aggravated her.. I am sure I saw an article in the Independent or Guardian that essentially said this. I believe that everyone should be treated fairly and should be able to live without fear of attack or abuse or any other of a myriad of things that should not be happening. I have two daughters and lots of female friends that I would hate to see anything happen to. I struggle though with statistics that between 1 in 10 to 1 in 6 of us males will abuse a woman. If it is the case that this happens then yes we should all be on the look out to help our frineds/relatives/colleagues to feel safe. On the other hand I ndon't think that there should be a double standard where a woman hitting/stabbing/kicking or otherwise hurting a man is ok because men 'deserve' it... Does wind me up a bit..... :' P LFD
I support equal rights too, but I would be seriously ticked off if someone called me a feminist. Just because you're against one thing doesn't mean you're automatically in support of the opposite thing by extension. As Southpaw said, the term simply carries too much baggage - a lot of which could be considered the wrong kind. ===== As for the main article...while I don't disagree with his notions about jumping on abusive/improper conduct, to tar the whole male race just because life decided to give them half a grandfather clock with provocative and misleading text is just insulting. I spent more time being angry at the author I should have been nodding in agreement with because of his diabolical choice of language in places.
I feel like I'm in the same boat and there's a lot of knee-jerk reactionary talk going on. The main concern is that things like "men get raped too"/ "men get hit too" have been used for so long as a way of deliberately shutting down or hijacking feminist discussions that some people seem to be really nervous about properly committing themselves to the discussion because they've been made to feel like acknowledging this is somehow a loss. This has happened before. It used to be a common feminist line that "gender is a performance", that outside of biological sex our gendered behavior was just the result of social pressure.... then this theory hit a snag. People started talking about Transgender people, and that group doesn't consider gender to be just about social behavior. They experience gender as something innate which undermined certain aspects of radical feminist theory. So what was the response of a lot of radical feminists? They totally disowned transgender people and said they were liars and faking. Thankfully they are a small bunch today, but it shows what can happen. I think the same stuff has happened within certain feminist circles when the topic of domestic abuse of males and male rape comes up. Now to be clear, most feminist theories can account for these things quite cleanly, it's not the same problem as the "gender is performance vs trans people" debate, but... The two subjects have been used so many times to undermine feminist discussions about domestic violence that there are people now who just don't seem to be able to recognize when those topics are being used in a way that advances the discussion and want to shut the conversation down whenever it arises. Kinda sad really.
Story time: Back when I had the time and mental energy I helped on the sidelines with certain feminist projects on my old University campus. As always there was a certain contingent of men who identified with the phrase "I'm all for equality and that's why I'm not a feminist". Incidentally these were often the same people who tried to gate-crash feminist discussions and constantly butt in with "but men are raped too", they seemed to live for interrupting and derailing. A couple of feminists took note of this and decided to extend the benefit of the doubt and do something positive (something quite praiseworthy IMO). As a result a couple of friends of mine set up a group call "AEPIS" (An. Equal. Place. In. Society). The goal of AEPIS was to create a space for gender discussions where men were free to air their concerns alongside women about topics they felt were important to them. It was essentially a very small project to create a feminist discussion that catered to that very group that would constantly remind us of things like domestic abuse against men and accordingly those people were specifically invited to air their concerns... and they agreed to join in... hurray! In the end, the group flopped. Now, I have a particular interest in the applying of feminist theory to male issues like prison rape and the people who set this group up had very similar honest intentions and we purposefully excluded feminists who we thought might become too confrontational but none of that helped. The problem wasn't that the discussion descended into mindless bickering. The discussions were good, but it just wasn't enough for the "equality not feminism" people and the end result was that once these guys figured out that they couldn't use male victims of domestic abuse and rape as a way of bashing feminism they slowly and quietly realized that they weren't actually that interested in the topic. Within a couple of months, ironically, the majority of the people bringing men's issues to the table were feminists because the "I'm not a feminist, I'm pro-equality" people slowly started to disappear once it became clear that AEPIS wasn't going to facilitate the cat-fight that they were hoping for. Nowadays I'm more cynical of that kind of "I'm pro equality" argument because in my personal experience when groups do go out of their way to have inclusive discussions geared to co-operating and sharing with that particular group the"I'm a feminist but..." crowd suddenly lose interest in male victims of domestic violence when it no longer provides a platform for attacking the bra-burning lesbian femi-nazi's. TL;DR, We tried setting up a group specifically for the people who claimed that they were "super duper interested in equality and gender, if only the mean feminists would stop excluding them" and they quickly grew bored and left. Note: Some of the "I'm not a feminist" camp did stick around, but the vast majority of them spent a couple of weeks trying to pick fights before moving on once it became clear that the feminists weren't biting. Interestingly enough the 2 who did stick around, who I still talk to, are now quite happy to call themselves feminists.
I can easily believe that. Thing is I place a sizeable chunk of the blame for things like that on those bra-burning lesbian femi-nazis. I've had friends on facebook who are radical feminists and I engaged with her and her friends a couple times over their views. The problem was that their stance was so combative (let alone all the BS language those extreme feminists have invented which is infuriating to wade through) meant that by the end I didn't care about whatever serious issue they may have raised, they'd just angered me into wanting to beat them in an argument. With them my only choice was basically to accept everything they said was right because as a man I had no idea, my opinion was pointless since I have "male privilege" and my "mansplaining" was a waste of everyone's time. The hostile way radical feminism carries and presents itself destroys their movement since they completely alienate men. Who ironically they kind of need on side to help change things. I'm not saying that's what happened in your story because I've seen more than enough examples of men who don't care about the issues and only want to argue back against their gender being attacked and try to trivialize the female problems. It reminds me of aggressive athiests who force their way in to religious discussions so they can poop over all the religious people. But, I find it hard to say that feminism hasn't brought it on itself to some degree. Especially in recent years where more of the interaction people have with feminism is over the internet where more radical fringes tend to be the vocal and visible ones.
What I hadn't said before but had posted on was the fact that there has been institutional acceptance of rape in certain quarters of society and this would have had a large gender bias. http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?t=112776 This was about rape in the forces (in both the US and UK forces it seems, and both to men and to wormen but obviously more to women) Thank goodness the movement mentioned in that thread has lead to changes in , at least the US military, to allow women a better chance at prosecuting rapists.. (and concurrently make men not be such asshats that they would even consider such nonsense) LFD
I mean... I get it... I totally understand... If it weren't for two particular women who helped me out I wouldn't be supportive of feminism because a lot of people were very hostile to my views when I first engaged with it and that really put a sour taste in my mouth. Though to be fair, looking back at the kinds of questions I asked and arguments made, I said some really idiotic and offensive stuff that made it abundantly clear to others that I really hadn't studied the debate as much as I had pretended to. Btw: The problem isn't limited to feminism, it seems to happen in all areas of activism and especially student activism at that. In the end I try to remember just how many times people like me have blundered and demanded that feminists tell me about X thing or listen to me about Y thing. While for me it's the first time, for them it's the 400th (which is especially frustrating for them when they know a couple of minutes on google and some actual listening would of cleared most of my questions up). It's a problem that's being talked about especially in the last couple years or so because the jargon has gotten so thick and the environment so hostile to people who don't know how to navigate it that it does alienate people including the people the movement is suppose to support. I've honestly lost count of the number of women I've met who have a deep distrust of feminism. There is an element of blame with feminists but I'm also hesitant to say that they have to be nice and smiley and explanatory when I try and tell them that they "shouldn't really worry about topic Y" (classic male privilege there). There's something really insidious in the idea that I don't have an obligation to take them seriously if they don't make me feel good about myself. "You know, I'd just love to take racial profiling seriously but I just wish minorities weren't so angry about it" I try and push myself to look past that anger when it does arise because when it's a topic that's important to someone, I don't like telling people how they should feel about it when I, unknowingly, spit in their face. "If you came here for salvation, then you best go see a priest, cause forgiveness from those who we hurt in this world, well it never was guaranteed."
I make women/people aware of me and not feel threatened by squeaking like a puppy. wait... that seems a bit creepy
I'm part of a Rape Culture... The Government Rapes me of regulations and taxes On another note, females think of guys in sexual manners as well
i have to say this: bra burning didnt happen in the context of feminism. radical feminism isnt anything like more common feminist thought which strives for equality between the sexes SOUTHPAW - just because there are a few people who are radical feminists talking louder than everyone else, it doesnt sully feminism (just like not all people who believe in capitalism are scum or that not all muslims are terrorists) most of you mappers don't realise it but you're feminists. feminism looks to breakdown social constructs of gender (e.g. masculinity is about aggression and fighting while femininity is about being dainty and pretty). we all like ronda rousey and she destroys all the ideas on gender constructs. on rape - i understand why women feel scared but objectifying women... women objectify men all the time! just dont yell it out, i dont eat food and yell "man this cheese cake is tasty!" in restaurants - inside voices people.
Thank you for giving us a demonstration of the type of man the article was talking about. You've managed to both trivialise sexual assault and conflate sexual desire with rape in the same post.
I don't like her, she's a douche who cries when she doesn't get her way (tuf). I love her as a fighter though.
...not sure what you're getting at here. Because you know some rape victims, you think it's acceptable to trivialise their suffering by comparing it to taxation?
To be honest most feminists are radical feminists to some degree. A lot of the background theory that was developed by radical feminism, both the emphasis on gender as something separate to a persons sex and sexuality and the idea of patriarchy are now bread and butter for most feminists in the third wave. Radical just means "to the root", it is not the same as being extreme or violent or angry (though being angry isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's far more preferable than apathy). Naturally the third wave has taken what it wanted from Rad-fems and left the stuff it didn't like behind. Things like transgender women, women of color and women of different economic, sexual and cultural backgrounds have irrevocably changed it. That being said radical feminism used to be a much more diverse movement; contrary to popular belief radical feminists in the 60's both called for lesbianism and also dismissed lesbian issues as un-important/detrimental to their cause. Nowadays the contingent that explicitly calls itself radical feminists are essentially trying to conservatively entrench themselves against all that scary progress that the third wave have been making. Basically radical feminism underpins a huge amount of feminist theory and the only people who feel the need to emphasis that they are "not just feminists but radical feminists" are the people who are trying to distance themselves from the more inclusive nature of third wave feminism. ---- On objectification: Objectification is one of the most widely used terms I have seen that so very few people seem to understand. It is not sexual desire. It is the reduction of a human to the status of an object to be used without any care for its well being. Arguably the tap out crowd at an amateur MMA event boo-ing fighters and throwing drinks at them as they walk out because they found the fight boring are objectifying the fighters.
No. It is not looking to trivialize rape in the actual sense. If going to semantics will help you, rape is not always defined as a sexual account That said, we all know victims of rape will be scarred mentally for life. The subject has to be in clear definition and not that of pointing out the errors of a specific gender
honestly i just spewed the same thing my girlfriend and her sister havie been telling me (they study sociology) with all that black feminism and belle knox stuff they complain that the current wave doesnt include the suffering of men under social constructs (appearance of strength and masculinity etc) and ignores male sex work while focusing on female sex work. EFIT: ive probably got what theyve said wrong
Cool, to be honest I've not really read much of black feminism. I'm aware of how influential it was to the third wave but I've yet to go straight to the source and look at what criticisms it made of second wave radical feminism. Something I really liked about the library here in Linkoping was just how massive the gender politics section was and the fact that its section on masculinity studies was huge. I found a really fun book that's easy to read, and really relate-able, about the effect that "femme-phobia" has on the way that American politicians are forced to market themselves in election campaigns and the detrimental effect that it has on the kinds of people who get elected and the ways in which they try to garner votes by looking tough. [ame="http://www.amazon.com/The-Wimp-Factor-Politics-Masculinity/dp/0807043451"]The Wimp Factor: Gender Gaps, Holy Wars, and the Politics of Anxious Masculinity: Stephen Ducat: 9780807043455: Amazon.com: Books[/ame] In all honesty I'm a little nervous about this area. My fear is that feminist activists might get too caught up in a cat-fight with people trying to undermine them by bringing up men's issues that they'll throw the baby out with the bathwater and end up failing to capitalize on a super important topic that could really bring the movement forward in leaps and bounds.
It's derailing. You know very well that's not what the thread was about, you're just muddying the waters and saying something along the lines of "Well, if you think about it, Obamacare makes World War 2 veterans of us all." Rape victims should not be treated as dirtied goods. They are people who have experienced a traumatic event but are no more defined by it than any of us are by our own traumatic events. Quibbling about definitions does nothing to solve very real problems within our culture.
