I’m a cis male and I believe in the importance of feminism, but I hesitate to call myself a feminist because it seems like there is a presumption of understanding women’s experiences as if I was part of the Me Too movement. In some binary sense given how hateful and shitty men can be I’m absolutely a feminist, but I wouldn’t declare myself to be one. What is your standpoint?
Yes, because I view it as part of being a socialist. Uniting the working class means uniting ALL of the working class, and we can only do that through mutual respect and acknowledging and trying to remedy existing biases.
Unfortunately liberal feminism co-opted the movement at the mainstream level and has used it to legitimize the status quo. The fact that there are TERFs or people who call themselves feminists but support capitalism, which impoverishes women, and imperialism, which kills women around the world is insane. It clearly shows that those people don’t actually understand or care about bigotry. At best they want to make their own lives better and at worst they use it as cover to justify those things.
So yeah. I’m more than happy to associate myself with anyone willing to fight for equality, not so much girlboss “feminists.”
EDIT: Also on a personal level, I think something people misunderstand about feminism is that it’s not JUST for women. Men are also hurt by the patriarchy. The flip-side of the societal expectations for women to be passive, emotional, and attractive homemakers is for men to have the pressure of working outside the home, exposing themselves to violence in wars, suppressing emotions and self expression because those are associated with being feminine and if women are lesser, then that also makes them lesser, hence transphobia and less extreme versions of gender policing.
Feminism is good for men too. It’s good for trans people. It’s good for non-binary people. It’s good for anyone who doesn’t fit the rigid expectations society has burdened them with since birth. Even if you consider yourself to be a heterosexual cis man, do you never feel stifled by people not taking your emotions seriously or looking down on you for having them? Do you not wish that you could stay home and see your kids more?
Even for purely selfish reasons men should want to be feminists.
I tend to be fairly sensitive, and I haven’t been very successful in quieting my own kneejerk defensiveness when “yes all men” and “male tears” come out. A lot of feminists are justifiably angry but I don’t have to stay in a room where I don’t feel welcome.
So I tend not to label myself a feminist even though I agree with feminists on most things. I vote for feminist candidates, I’ll defend feminism when people tell lies about it, but I can’t be a feminist myself because I can’t participate in it.
Yeah, I consider myself to be a feminist.
yeah it’s useful to call yourself a feminist and it doesn’t cost much. you might be overthinking this, do not deprive yourself of future interactions with people who share your values
Absolutely would call myself a feminist and here’s the reason. Calling yourself a feminist is a declaration that you aren’t in performance for brownie points for men’s sake and you aren’t going to fade to the background the first second the going gets tough. Feminists don’t “hate men” but the fact that their issues get sidelined the minute anybody’s feelings about their personal masculinity gets hurt means most of the time any discussion about women’s issues become about mincing around insecure men.
Feminism is egalitarianism, it is strictly NOT female superiority. The issue with calling feminism egalitarianism is it tends to be a label summerizing the passive part of the movement that asks nothing of people.
Systems that aren’t artificially adjusted just end up replicating the same shit they always had over and over and the adjustments don’t feel fair or equal to the people who have always benefitted before the change. Justice sometimes meaning giving up something to the party in need. Damn near everyone is up for equality in theory, but the moment they are asked to give up anything suddenly it’s women’s superiority. They don’t look at being passed over for the promotion in favor of an equally deserving and more generally underrepresented woman as being just or needed when it’s them who doesn’t get chosen. They still in their heart of hearts believe that whenever a woman comes out on top it’s not because she deserves to be there.
And it’s hard. It’s hard to put justice first. It’s hard to hire someone who isn’t your close personal friend who looks just like you and instead choose someone who acts or looks different who you won’t be as comfortable around. It’s hard to change your culture to be mindful of needs you don’t personally have to make someone else comfortable. The whole POINT is that it’s hard. Everything that is hard for you is a comfort, a point without personal friction you have, a PRIVILEGE that you are purposefully choosing to not cash in on anymore because that privilege was never on the table for someone else.
If you aren’t willing to face the minor discomfort of being devisive and calling yourself a feminist and gaining the ire of other men what other comforts are you not going to give up?
Feminism is egalitarianism, it is strictly NOT female superiority
Exactly, the latter is matriarchy and that’s the one I really want to try out! I don’t think it would be perfect but I am just curious how it would turn out? For science!
Honestly me too. And YES i am biased as hell here. I don’t like people in general and my objective opinion is that power will attract the wrong people regardless of gender.
BUUUT my subjective experience will not let me believe that women in charge would not change things for the better overall. From a purely curious place i would really like to see how it would work out, a failure would be just as interresting to me as a success.
I want to add that i also believe the main problem of patriachy is not the oppression of women but the oppression of “female” coded traits. What i would really like to see is a society that favors empathy and collaboration, i don’t need women in charge for that and i certainly don’t base my support for anyone on their genitals, that would be crazy.
I’m a woman who calls myself a feminist because I don’t want to let the transphobes known as TERFs (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists) have the word. (Potentially useful to highlight that whilst not all transphobes are TERFs, all TERFs are transphobes)
Some people are opposed to using the term TERF because of how misogynistic TERF ideology is — they don’t just hurt trans women, but all women. Whilst I agree that their form of feminism is harmful to women everywhere and vehemently disagree with their views, there is no “Council of Feminists” who decree who gets to call themselves a feminist. So if I want to call myself a feminist, it means having to share the room with TERFs. I don’t like that, but I’d rather do it than let them define what it means to be a feminist.
Yes, I’m a cis man and I am a Marxist feminist. Feminism is not exclusionary to cis men, and Marxist feminism is critical as patriarchy is a secondary contradiction that rests upon the primary contradiction of class society. Attacking sexism attacks capitalism, and attacking capitalism attacks sexism. They are connected.
Thanks for saying this. There was a rather popular unpopular opinion a while ago about how the only struggle should be the class struggle, and feminism was getting in the way. People need to see that they’re both part of the same fight.
That is a vulgar materialist conception, from those who do not grasp dialectical materialism, as well as those who reject it deliberately. Class reductionism doesn’t recognize secondary contradictions that rest upon the base of primary contradictions, seeing each as separate and butchering how contradiction actually works as an engine of change in dialectics.
Highly recommend reading Domenico Losurdo - Class struggle for more on this.
It gets into how there’s not just a single class struggle, i.e. working class versus bourgeoisie, but many different and related class struggles. Both Marx and Engels held this multivariate view of class struggle too, and it was only later that chauvinists, anti-feminists, and imperialists restricted its meaning to the workplace only.
I don’t have a gender (I lost it somewhere, sorry), and I still call myself feminist.
I think feminism is something more related to the fight against a type of oppression rather than an identity thing.
Yes, absolutely.
You don’t have to understand a woman’s experience so much as you have to not be a dick when she tells you her experience.
Look at all the men that got butthurt over “bear vs rando man” and I’m gonna be honest, I’d choose the bear over many of them too. They refused to listen to what was actually being said by that statement.
Hit the nail on the head. Being cis white het doesn’t make you automatically the enemy. Your actions do.
There are dozens of us!
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Seriously though when I hear reactionaries complain about the different movements condemning the white patriarchy, all I can think is “oh you thought they were mad at you? Well I guess they were right to be”. It’s really not that hard to recognize the injustice and violence inflicted in the past and to try to stop it from continuing. And most importantly it’s not hard to know when to sit down, shut the fuck up, and listen
That’s a lot of buzzwords to agree with me.
Feminism is a social movement, made up of the practical activity of people in solidarity with each other. While centering and amplifying the voices and experiences of women and other victims of chauvinism is absolutely essential, remember that there is an incredible need to organize. Movements need people to take notes, make phone calls, promote campaigns, educate, show up to events, share our own experiences where people we care about were victims of patriarchy, and much much more.
Feminism isn’t just an idea, and patriarchy victimizes men as well as women, though obviously in drastically different ways and to drastically different degrees. Ideas don’t make up social movements, people do. Ideas help us name the world/the problem, which is the first step of revolution, but actual abolition of social structures takes work. Leaving all that work to the victims of patriarchy actually reinforces patriarchy.
Patriarchy and other consequences of class hierarchy are defeated by the contradictions that they create in society. A man who devotes himself to the abolition of male dominant society is the embodiment of such a contradiction. That’s what we are, don’t over think it. Just roll up our sleeves, listen and take good notes, offer to help organize and always center the voices and experiences of the victims of patriarchy.
I was raised with Gloria Steinem’s definition of feminism shaping my understanding, and have called myself a feminist since I was a child:
“A feminist is anyone who recognizes the equality and full humanity of women and men.”
A more modern and inclusive version of that same idea, adopted by UN Women:
“Feminism is the belief that everyone, regardless of gender, should have equal rights and opportunities.”
Feminism is a very complex grouping of movements and ideologies, but I think “membership” within them is very simple: if you believe in equality regardless of gender, you’re a feminist.
How does it feel that the person who defined feminism for you was a CIA agent?
Not great!
Are you implying that feminism is a CIA initiative?
Steinem worked with the CIA to promote reactionary propaganda and helped direct the women’s liberation movement into a corporate-friendly, anti-socialist direction.
Source: Jacobin
They didn’t imply feminism is a CIA initiative, but the CIA definitely worked with her to influence the feminist movement.
Sure, because they cared about controlling the direction of the political movement, same way they influenced the Civil Rights movement. But once again, unless they are implying that the definition of feminism as offered by Steinem, quoted above, is part of a CIA influence op, or tainted by their influence, then what’s the point of bringing that up?
To have a conversation? To get further insight into how a person thinks? To gain understanding? To talk about the ideological framework through which the person views the world, and hopefully gain some perspective out of that talk?
If they truly intended it to be a neutral question, then they used a particularly bad choice of phrasing.
Most people understand the CIA is a tool of imperialist violence/authority, but framing that as “how does it feel to x” is clearly a condemnation of the association being pointed out, which in this case would only matter if that association itself in some way taints the topic it was brought up in response to… I.e. the definition of feminism by Steinem.
Fair point.
This raises the question whether feminist is the right word for those definitions. Humanist, maybe?
I’m not trying to “all lives matter” the situation – the history of the treatment of women warrants specific advocacy. But I think of a feminist as someone who (regardless of gender) is actively an advocate for change, not just someone who believes in equality.
That’s the connotation I have for the word anyway. Clearly UN Women are a more authoritative source, and they specifically use the word “belief,” so my connotation seems to be wrong.
What’s different to me is it’s feminism not femalism, in that feminine doesn’t tend to mean women specifically. I would actually argue it’s mostly used as a modifier of explicit non-women, and is, in a roundabout way, directly about men and anything unassociated with women as well.
As if to say “this isn’t about women, it’s about the opposition to non-manliness that exists in the world”.
Like a white person is not black, but a man can be feminine. That’s not to say black issues aren’t pertinent to white people in a similar way (if one of us is not free, none are free, nonblack people demeaned for cultural blackness, etc), but it’s an identity that can be wholely intrinsic to a man.
Oh, and another point you bring up I think is interesting is the distinction between holding the belief and directly or strongly acting on it, and should we consider a believer or passive actor as non-ideological? I think that comes down to a No True Scotsman sort of mindset.
Kind of rambling and pedantic, but I like to think about the little details.
Edit: Actually, the more I think about it, the more it kind of is the same as BLM, and I think even just holding the belief is important.
I prefer the term “egalitarian”. Functionally the same, but firmly places the focus on equality regardless of gender, and creates distance from the toxic misandrists who have tried to co-opt the “feminist” label.
Most feminists I’ve talked to about it say they hate people who describe themselves as “egalitarian,” essentially equating it to the “enlightened centrist” meme.
And I hate the misandrists who describe themselves as “feminists”, equating it with the “red pill” guys who turned a metaphor for radical systemic awareness into misogyny.
True, but they seem to dominate every feminist space I’ve been in, so the definition of “feminist” is hard for me to work out; nicer people seem to think it’s 1:1 with “egalitarian,” but then why have two words for the same thing?
So my conclusion has been that I’ll just keep voting and speaking in the interests of making our world treat men and women equally, and just shrug my shoulders at the labels. As I said elsewhere, that’s not enough for some feminists, so they’ll just have to continue disliking me. Misogynists dislike me too, so I’m used to it.
I once met a girl (or should I say, she once met me), who wore a shirt that said: "Feminism is the radical notion, that women are people, too. "
So, yes, I consider myself a feminist.
Now I have Norwegion Wood stuck in my head
I understand what you are saying, but you don’t need a lived female experience to be a feminist.
I will declare you one. You are a feminist. Be proud.
Of course I would and I do. I find the arguments that there are many branches of feminism to be a reason to not consider yourself a feminist to be kind of ridiculous. There are multiple branches of everything. Not all anarchists agree, not all socialists agree, not all communists agree. No group is a monolith with perfectly aligned values and thoughts.
