Feminism and Egalitarianism.

nee-med:

I don’t like to post about serious topics too much in short periods of time, however this morning i have read through such hatred on a particular blog ~~’fightingfeminism’~~ that it just kind of hurts my head.

Like with any cause, you get people that take it too far or misinterpret it. And that makes the cause look bad, right? And the people who take snippets of the bad views of the people who aren’t making a change (those who take it too far are in fact making it worse and creating a wider gap between the cause and outsiders) are also highlighting another problem: misinterpretation.

How i see any cause: i support it, but disregard an extremist point of view (we all sense the extremist views when we read/hear them). For example: I am a white woman - i have no say in racism as i am the one who is not discriminated against. And if i tried to argue against it (i wouldn’t, but for arguments sake) i would not know a single FUCK the amount of racism others experience in this world - and to try to turn their cause upside down and to highlight the extremist point of view would be morally wrong.


In this particular post i wanted to highlight the misinterpretation of feminism. As i said before, in any movement there is an extremist point of view. And when you try to whitewash a cause with this extremist view that is disregarding the problems the cause tries to resolve and is disregarding the people who have been affected by those problems.
Feminism advocates for equal rights for all persons regardless of gender, because gender is not an acceptable basis for discrimination. Feminism is a movement for gender equality. Not “female dominance”. So, if you are not a feminist then you support inequality - whether you are a man or a woman.

Feminism fired up over a century ago, perhaps with the Suffragette movement. Admittedly, the gender inequality was a LOT bigger back then (hence they named it feminism) and there have been massive changes which brings us closer today. But there are still problems for men and women. Like domestic violence - 40% suffered by men, and their abuse is overlooked a lot. And this is wrong. Statistics show (in Britain at least) there is still a 9.4% average wage gap between men and women. And this is wrong.

So rather than arguing against the extremist point of view, on tumblr of all places, please highlight your concerns about discrimination towards your gender and join the cause rather than become part of the problem by putting the extremes in the spotlight or try to invalidate the issues some of them have faced in their lifetime.
-Wage gap source: ( http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/ashe/annual-survey-of-hours-and-earnings/2014-provisional-results/stb-ashe-statistical-bulletin-2014.html )

"Like with any cause, you get people that take it too far or misinterpret it. "

With any other cause, such people are corrected or expelled or loudly denounced at the very least. In feminism, they are celebrated, they become the leaders, they become it's heroes.

http://oratorasaurus.tumblr.com/post/53087260843/lzbth-im-not-a-feminist-why-because-i

"How i see any cause: i support it, but disregard an extremist point of view"

So you passively enable the extremists, when decent people are denouncing them - then you get angry because people notice you sharing the umbrella and assume you are allied. How awful of them!

" I am a white woman - i have no say in racism as i am the one who is not discriminated against"
Really? By your twisted logic, if you are beaten because you are white by people who aren't white - it's not racism! You have to deploy doublethink because the meaning of the word for generations means discrimination based on race.

"Feminism advocates for equal rights for all persons regardless of gender"

Currently, it says it does, ignoring the long history of feminists arguing the opposite, and without any examples of actually doing equality.

Feminism assumes there's one cosmic scale.

Of course, they only see the one because if they looked at the real world, they'd see hundreds of different scales - conscription, prison sentences, parental surrender rights - where men had it worse than women.

They must be ignored - Feminism, as the name suggests, fights for women - egalitarians fight equally, but that would mean in some situations, Justice would make women worse off.

"if you are not a feminist then you support inequality" in the same way that " if you are not a communist then you support inequality". We've seen this all before. Movements make lovely claims about themselves - but what they do? What they actually DO?

"Feminism fired up over a century ago, perhaps with the Suffragette movement."

Or possibly a million billion years ago. You have no idea. Yet you are the one telling other people to educate themselves.

"Statistics show (in Britain at least) there is still a 9.4% average wage gap between men and women. And this is wrong."

No, it's called different pay for different work. We call that Justice. Men work longer hours and die at ten times the rate in workplace accidents. We take more risks - you don't think that deserves more pay? And we don't see any Feminist quotas for the nasty jobs we do to make that money - Feminists see themselves as CEOs, not up powerlines and down in the mines.

Almost no-one works as a CEO. Frankly, I think they are massively overpayed - were their position not uniquely disconnected from productivity, they'd be back to relative 1960s pay levels - but they have bought protection and are immune to oversight.

Yet that's the example Feminists focus on, a rare and extraordinary group living in conditions most men cannot comprehend, let alone will ever experience.