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?
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This is an extremely male-centric view that erases actual struggles faced by women around the world, and is atrociously reactionary. Feminism has been important in tackling systemic issues that exist and persist to this very day (largely because capitalism and class struggle still exist), and women that are angry have every right to be angry.
Brushing away “sexual harassment going down” as not an actual improvement is a real tell on yourself. I’d wager if given the choice most women would prefer to not be sexually harassed even if that meant they wouldn’t have a “serious relationship”, or at least they need to be able to make that choice.
You seem to be making things about men again. Men are already an exceptionally privileged demographic compared to other genders, feminism does not need to help them, it needs to help women.
I’ll ignore that part to keep the discussion good-faith and I sincerely recommend you to remove it from the comment
Actual statistics and history back up the fact that the world is bad. Men have systemically oppressed women for centuries and still do, which lets them get away with some awful shit. Men are more likely to be trusted by police or courts, they generally have more wealth and power, they are on average stronger than women. Men are statistically way more likely to engage in abuse and violence, both psychological and physical. It is reasonable for a rational woman to take precautions when interacting with men, even those she knows already.
One in three women have experienced sexual violence at one point in their lives. About 15-20% have experienced rape. Almost every woman has experienced some form of sexual harassment. The vast majority (>90%) of perpetrators of those crimes are men.
It is not unreasonable to be angry all the time when you are being sexually harassed, assaulted, or raped, and the society enables and protects the perpetrators. In fact it would be totally unreasonable to ignore an issue as serious as this.
First off, I agree with your comment of course, wow the person you’re responding to is delusional. But I want to raise a point of discussion:
If the definition of feminism adopted by most feminist organizations is truly that all people, regardless of gender, should be treated equally, then surely that would mean they should take actions to solve gender-related issues that don’t exclusively affect women? If not, then the definition they’re using is at odds with the actions they’re willing to take, no?
I think it’s a fair question/point. Different factions within feminism will give different answers to that. Personally as a cis man I am fine with feminism focusing primarily or exclusively on women’s issues (it’s in the name), we should have other movements to deal with the way those same issues affecting other genders. Activism and organizing is almost never a zero-sum game, someone can be a feminist and an LGBTQ activist and a socialist for example.
The way this ties into the OC is that it is OK for feminist activism to take away privileges from men if that means improving rights for women. Even if there was a dichotomy of “there are fewer hetero relationships but women are safer from sexual harassment” as presented by OC — which, to be clear, is a false dichotomy and not actually what the vast majority of feminists are advocating for — it would be a fine step to take.
What I’m saying is, I think both of these views are entirely reasonable, but that it’s incompatible to truly hold both of them simultaneously:
I recognize that people don’t tend to hold both of these views simultaneously, but it’s not like it never happens. Regardless, to me it seems like this is a rather important distinction between two popular types of feminism.
That’s funny because absolutely none of these ramblings have any connection to real life. Get well soon.
i’m not sure how large the distance between us has to be sothat you have never made any of these observations when you actually look. how different can things be over at your place?
Bruh, you done been black pilled.