this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
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Look, it doesn’t matter what you want the movement to be about or what you think TERFs are. The reality is that TERF isn’t a self-given label, radical feminist isn’t a self-given label, and more than a few notable individuals in the feminist movement (a movement that, at its core, is about womens’ rights) are misandrist. This is a reality that, no matter how much you pretend is fake, is still real.
And if feminists spend more time denying this reality than actively changing it, the movement itself won’t change, nor will its general perception.
Christ can you not understand that most feminists fundamentally disagree with TERFs? I don't know why you are so insistant to lump them with actual feminist. Maybe consider listening to feminists, like me, instead of perpetually mansplaining about what feminists are.
It's not a 'general perception' that all feminists are TERFs. It's what your perception and the perceptions of other anti-feminists. Hell most normal men, who are feminists with or without labels, don't share your perception. You seem to have this warped perception that all feminists are out to get you and hate on men, when the reality is so far from the radicalized scheme that you think it is. People like you perceive the existance of feminism as an attack on you. It's not. It's not even about you, because you don't seem to care about men's issues either. It's about everyone else who wants to lift men and women above the patriarchy.
Wow, didn’t take you long to get personal with your replies huh. Keep blaming the terrible image of the feminist movement on ‘misogynists’ all you want, but it’s misandrists, TERFs and other bigots in the movement who give it a bad name, as well as the people who only respond to criticism of the movement itself with deflection, accusations and ad hominem.
Anyway, it’s not like I care anymore what the image of the feminist movement is; I stopped associating with it ages ago. Do with it what you will.
I am the feminist movement. You are speaking it right now. This is the image of feminism. If you don't like what you see, don't shuffle around and just admit that you are an anti-feminist.
The feminist movement isn't some men-hating caricature you see on Fox news. It's normal people caring about those who suffer from the patriarchy, men and women alike. It's people over at Men's Liberation community. It's donating to the local women's shelter because over 90% of SA victims are female. It's donating to men's suicide prevention charities because over 80% of deaths are from men. It's understanding that the men's mental health crisis is a consequence of patriarchal structures. It's understanding the pervasiveness of systemic oppression on women's lives. It's learning to empathize with the different but real struggles that the other genders face.
If you simply 'don't care anymore' because you are concerned about image, that's not good enough. You should care. And that starts with embracing the idea that feminism isn't a dirty word, and it's not defined by extremists. It's 2023 and it's what everybody should strive for ffs.
Look, you go ahead and keep on pretending that the feminist movement is perfect and that all the bigots are ‘not true feminists’. Keep acting like feminism is only all the good things, and it wasn’t feminists who had battered men’s shelters shut down, that TERFs aren’t ‘real feminists’. Keep pretending that anyone who criticizes feminism is actually just ‘anti-feminism’. In the end, it won’t change what the image of the movement is, nor will it change the people behind that image.
Whatever you think feminism is doesn't change what feminism actually is. I don't think you see the irony here of how you are explaining what feminism is to a feminist.
If you are not a feminist, you are anti-feminist. It's that simple. You think you are criticizing feminism, when in reality you are criticizing misandrists and TERFs who are not accepted by feminist (ask me, a feminist).
Can you just stop and think about the optics for a second? You are explaining to me, a feminist, what feminism is. You are explaining to me how i support misandrists and TERFs when everything I have written couldn't be further from that. You need to take a step back and start treating me, a woman, as a person with valid thoughts and opinions that exist independently of your narrow world view. And you need to stop putting down men who are feminists because doing so makes you just as much of a misandrist as the people you claim to hate. If you have any respect for yourself and other men's mental health issues, start accepting that feminism is the solution.
Again, this whole thread was about the image of the movement, and the culpability of misandrist feminists in painting an image of feminists as ‘women who hate men’.
You're right, it's not a self-given label, and that's why when people decided that these people are actually not welcomed in feminist spaces, they changed the label to FART (Feminism-Appropriating Reactionary Transphobes).
Feminism, as defined by the majority of the movement, is about equality and intersectionality. If you hold exclusionary views you're not part of the movement, you're only appropriating the word.
Again, that’s a nice sentiment but it doesn’t change the reality that ‘FART’ is a joke term used by some feminists; the vast majority still call them TERFs, because the feminist movement has historically cared far more about the issues of biological women.
If anything, it’s the people who call feminism a movement for ‘equality and intersectionality’ who’re appropriating a term for a movement that, at its core, has primarily been about women’s rights.
You're not going to argue equality away by bringing up the worst people you can think of associated with the movement. There is no substance to arguments based on ad hominem character attacks. I don't care how transphobic someone is, feminism is about equality for women. There is nothing misandrist about wanting to be equal to men in society. And here is a reality check for you, no one needs to be nice, or have a good public perception, to get human rights. Our rights are supposed to be something you get for being human.
The ‘worst people’ shape the image of the movement. The core of the argument still doesn’t change, no matter what you say. The ones defining feminism as ‘women who hate men’ aren’t misogynists alone; it’s the misandrists within the movement itself.
No the worst people of the movement are used be the people who don't like the movement to discredited the movement. An ad hominem argument will always be a substanceless ad hominem argument. The image of the movement isn't what's important, it's the substance of its arguments. Wanting equality with other people is not hatred of those people.
Again, this whole thread was about the image of the movement, and the culpability of misandrist feminists in painting an image of feminists as ‘women who hate men’. In this particular thread, the ‘image of the movement’ is literally the core topic of discussion.
I would recommend checking the meme again. It's about not letting men who hate women define feminism as women who hate men. This is a question about what feminism is, not its image or public perception. And misandrist feminists couldn't be more off-topic.
Misandrist feminists couldn’t be more on-topic if they tried, since it’s their actions that provide the vast majority of the fuel for feminism’s perception as a misandrist movement. They, as members of the movement, define it far more than external factors like ‘men who hate women’.
The actions of a minority of individuals in a movement do not define what the larger movement is. A movement is also not defined by the people who seek to misrepresent the movement to others. The actions of the majority of the people in the movement are what defines it. Arguments directed at individuals, especially those individuals that do not represent the larger movement, neither change what the movement is nor are they compelling.
I personally recommend the hierarchy of disagreement. Arguments that focus on the refutation of arguments will be more compelling than those directed at the people giving the arguments.
https://themindcollection.com/revisiting-grahams-hierarchy-of-disagreement/
In that case, maybe you should’ve replied to the post itself to argue that ‘men who hate women’ can’t possibly define the movement, rather than this long defense of feminism and how only the majority of the movement can define it (which isn’t entirely true either)
Individual people can certainly try to define a movement, but the voices of the majority of people in the movement are going to best represent what the movement actually is. Most sizable movements inevitably have some bad actors that do not represent the majority of people in the movement. If we judged every movement by its worst individuals we would never have any kind of social change at all.
Plenty of people call North Korea the DPRK as that's it's official name, despite being well aware that it's undemocratic, not a republic not for the people, and only of half of Korea, even in the same sentence as condemning it for not being the things it claims to be. What you're saying is effectively equivalent to saying anyone in favour of democracy is evil on the grounds that North Korea labels itself as democratic, and is a bad place.
Except the DPRK is a self-given name of an out-and-out fascist country, not a name given to it by other democracies for still standing by the essentials of democratic republics. This is unlike TERFs, where they’re still considered feminists (hence the name) since they still stand by the essentials of the movement (ie more rights for women).
Terf is their self identified label. I think "feminism appropriating reactionary transphobes" is a more accurate label.
TERF isn’t a self-identification label though, it was given to them.