[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

It is therefore not unreasonable for women to politely refuse the help of men in their struggle.

Is this a concession that feminism is actually a struggle to "improve the state of women in those things where women systematically have it worse than men" (this statement excludes "improve the state of men in those things where men systematically have it worse than women"). This would make it a one-side equality movement that would be interest in solving only one side of the coin (which, I think, is a vanity because the coin will always consist of two sides that inevitably interact).

What basis does there exist for the feminist movement to ignore this rich history of involving both the repressed and the 'oppressors'

If you mean trans here, it's because radfems want to perceive women as an exclusive "club". Which to me is in fact counterproductive to the point of dissolving gender roles: if we want to make it so that gender doesn't matter (at all, so much) in your social interaction why would we enforce gender-based barriers? Only to build a "cult group".

All things considered though, I don't think explicitly banning men from participating achieves much. If someone agrees with your point and wants to help make it reality, then by all means, penis or no penis, put them to work!

Isn't this the point of feminism. Penis or no penis, it doesn't matter?

"'war' between transactivists and radfems". Apparently there's some history here that I was not previously aware of. These are not generally places I frequent, and I'm happy to report I will continue to avoid them.

Radfems are a bunch of their own - but historically speaking, many of their lead figures are a lot of "bread and butter" of even college feminist literature. I'm not sure you can simply nod and say "that's not my feminism". The point of these two articles was just to elaborate that even the radfems between each other have trouble agreeing on the "definition".

That source of power is not accessible to women who are not as naturally well endowed, or as capable of affording the various means by which to look better, or with as much access to the media's tools of the trade.

Most privilege in the world is such that it's not accessible to most people and is naturally endowed. Birth is the most defining factor here: if you're born wealthy, you're given a massive doze of it. The point was to elaborate how difficult it is to put homogenous tags on groups of people and say "these are under-privileged in comparison to those" because a person born wealthy (or noble) is going to be more privileged than one born into poverty.

Once free, people can still choose to conform to the gender rules as they previously existed; what would be impossible is for our society to coerce people into conforming to them.

Yes. I agree this would be ideal.

That fallacy went through my mind several times while I was writing my previous post, but it doesn't apply. This definition of feminism that I've been using simply does not cover 'radical feminism', what I call misandry. You won't hear me say everyone who calls themselves a feminist fits that mold, but by the common definition of what feminism is (and you can't get much more common than the first paragraph of a Wikipedia article), they do not. I'll also refer to the 'no true scotsman' article, especially the 'Discussion' section, which explains the subtle difference better than I ever could.

See but that is the point. It's such a matter of personal opinion, what "feminism" is. One person could perceive me as a feminist (on the crude term that I think women - and men - have the full right to decide what happens to their bodies) but another might consider me not one.

It could very well be the case that Alice only uses the term "Scotsman" to refer to people who like haggis, while Bob uses it to refer to people born of Scottish parents. If that is so, Alice is in fact properly conforming to her definition, but not to Bob's, but unfortunately each of them incorrectly assumes that the other is using their own definition.

Case: you and radfems? I'm sure you're both using a very different definition to feminism. I don't think they'd agree to being labeled 'misandrists'. They'd probably just call you a 'misogynist' for it. (I dislike the tags "misandry" and "misogyny". They're over-used and mostly just empty punchlines).

If we stick to (Wikipedia's) common definition of feminism

But the problem still persists that feminists along each other cannot agree on the definition. How could anyone, then? This is why I took the "primary" and "everything else is secondary" -approach. If we tag "women's rights" as the primary cause, then yes, you and radfems are both feminists. You just have slightly different "secondary" ideals but they're not as "interesting" to the definition.

However, I will say this much, regarding military service: I do not consider any such obligation a privilege. Maybe that was your point?

My point was that many feminists consider it as a privilege. However, what fights against this thought is that if it was one, then surely women would absolutely flock into service since they have all the right to participate on volutary basis. They don't. This is mostly the bluntest possible instrument available to show that the coin DOES have two (or three, trans, or infinite, individuals) sides: systemic discrimination that comes from the gender roles doesn't only hurt women.

One would expect the military service to be the priority target for feminists to dismantle because if you want a dictionary definition of patriarchy there is a picture of military service next to it. It enforces gender roles, it enforces and encourages discrimination by gender. But all of this is indirect consequence from a woman's perspective: they don't have to attend. However, doing this to essentially all of the male population has an indirect consequence to women. Because removing this would involve "also considering men's position", it is a feminist taboo. They won't touch it - they're not interested (which is ironic).

In fact, a female feminist presidential candidate, when asked on a panel during the previous election round, said that military service actually discriminates women: because men are automatically given medicals during their allocation, and women have to take care of this themselves in order to voluntarily participate. She would have, as a feminist, found it not discriminating if medicals were also automatic to voluntary women. No mention of obligatory towards men.

You can easily support the kind of feminism you agree with, without supporting the kind you don't. The feminist movement does not have a single pot of money, so you can control what kind of feminists you support. You'd probably sometimes have to explain to people that no, you don't support these people, but you do support these other people, but other than that, I don't see the problem.

It's difficult here, though. Since say the major national organization for example uses it's funding for women-only conferences (which I don't agree on). A while ago, the ministry of health and social services was planning on giving a funding to an academic project that had the goal of researching female violence. The women's sections of essentially all political parties and a good bunch of non-political feminist groups signed a petition to refute this (the research ultimately did not receive funding). The argument was that it's already been proven that women aren't really violent, and if they are, it's only self-defense, and that the money should be instead invested into protecting women.

In brief, there isn't a feminist group available here that'd define feminism as you define it (on the 'proper' section) so there's really nothing to support or take part in (attend places and stuff). Plus, really - for all the reasons mentioned before (like radfems and such) I don't really want to be labeled a feminist. It could imply what you call misandry. There's no 'commonly accepted' definition to it you could attach. Calling oneself a feminist will trigger this same conversation around and around, really. And for a good reason too.

This definition of feminism that I've been using simply does not cover 'radical feminism', what I call misandry

A number of feminists will argue that misandry can't exist, or it exists only when it mirrors misogyny (ergo; homosexual feminine men face discrimination due to their feminine traits that are subject to misogyny).



But yeah. I get your point - if one narrows down the definition of a feminist to what you earlier called 'proper', then it'd be very difficult (even from a moral philosophical viewpoint) not to sign it and tag oneself a feminist. But the problem persists that feminism involves and is so much more than that. And there are parts to it that would be contradictional to this. I'd probably just rather call myself a humanist - or a supporter of negative liberty (from both social rules and legistlative rules in that sense).

I completely agree with you on the fact that certain groups that call themselves feminists really aren't, but, I'm eagerly waiting for a media-power wielding feminist to toss this skeleton out of the closet. It'd sound like a risk of loosing a lot of support from the fringes, but possible gaining a more "positive" image along those people that keep distance to the subject due to these fringes.