"Not a feminist, but": A guide to what feminism is and isn't

Black Humor: I'd like to apologize. I honestly wasn't try to derail the thread into a thread on abortion. I just disagree with the idea that views on abortion should be used to exclude or include people from the feminist movement.

On the original topic: Although I wouldn't say "I'm not a feminist, but", I tend not to identify as feminist. *

I'm definitely in favor of equal rights, so - by definition - I am a feminist.

However, like this thread shows, it's hard to get people to agree with what precisely feminism is. I prefer the method of saying "it means equality of men and women" and let the individual determine the exact definition of equality.

edited 10th May '11 4:12:32 AM by LadyMomus

I like egalitarian, it lacks the gender connotations that the label 'feminism' has

edited 10th May '11 5:59:07 AM by joeyjojo

hashtagsarestupid

Yeah, I didn't really intend for it to become about abortion - I just meant to explain why being pro-life doesn't disqualify you from being a feminist.

edited 10th May '11 4:31:18 PM by LoniJay

Be not afraid...

@Abortion people: Just want to point out that the theoretical argument for abortion is that all people should have soveriegnty over their bodies not that women should have all the reproductive rights men have.

So it really shouldn't matter whether men can get pregnant or not; lack of abortion is a threat to a woman's right to control her own body, whereas having abortion is no such threat to a man.

Or TL;DR a woman does not have control over the fetus, only her uterus.

@Momus, Loni: Don't worry about it.

@joey: The thing about egalitarianism is that a philosophy based on equal rights for everyone necessarily has no teeth. If it focuses on any one group it's become something besides egalitarianism; if it focuses on all at once it's not got enough time to do everything for everyone.

It's great to be egalitarian as an addition to feminism, but it just doesn't work as an alternative.

edited 10th May '11 4:53:31 AM by BlackHumor

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

@Black Humor That's an even better way to put it, I think. ...wish I'd thought of it about two pages back.

And, I'm still going with "equalist".

Apparently I am adorable, but my GF is my #1 Groupie. (Avatar by Dreki-K)

That is a much stronger argument for it, I agree.

Not necessarily, I don't think.

I mean, previous tangent notwithstanding, IMHO there actually are very few issues which only affect one minority group without affecting any others. So either you have to consider more than one group to properly untangle the roots of a problem anyway, or it's possible to enact a helpful solution that will benefit multiple groups rather than just the one.

edited 10th May '11 5:29:37 AM by Jeysie

Apparently I am adorable, but my GF is my #1 Groupie. (Avatar by Dreki-K)

@ Loni: Don't you mean pro life?

@Black Humour: I'm not sure that I share your assumption egalitarianism is a toothless philosophy. At least not more so than the title of 'equalist' would be.

edited 10th May '11 6:06:27 AM by joeyjojo

hashtagsarestupid

I've skipped quite a bit of the thread (I'm not really interested per se in abortion specifically to be frank), so apologies if I'm re-treading another user's ground again.

Ultimately, your point obviously stands correct. Going by dictionary definitions, a lot of us probably end up labelled with things that we may've been taught to be more apprehensive with, perhaps due to some sort of political Flanderisation*

. If you study sociology ever, teaching newcomers that feminists =/= bra-burning lesbians is the first, but also possibly very tricky, step. I know you accounted for differences within feminism, but I think they're sharper than implied, for this largely media-orientated opinion alone.

But also especially due to how repulsively competitive academia is.

The thing is that it's also a very expansive theory. Like I say, your first definition is perfectly right, but once you get to thinking and studying, part of the theoretical development (in any field of study) is challenging what people have said... but using it to the same means. For instance, the strands of liberal feminism that went on to dispute Dworkin, Haskell, et al went on to have implications for anti-censorship groups in the name of feminism - it's why a lot of recent feminist media, to some critics, comes off in certain way. It's also got to be said that the radical second-wave writers also had numerous political goal specific to their time (early '70s): Haskell in particular spent an awful amount of time writing with a Nostalgia Filter in order to really sock it to then-contemporary filmmakers, TV people, etc.

Today, the fact that there's a debate about whether or not third wave feminism even exists marks a thing for "what kind of feminist you are", if you're thinking or writing within it as a theoretical sphere. Postmodernity and cognitivism have been clashing since the '80s for instance; since the '90s, we've had feminist writers like Judith Butler with notions that sexuality simply isn't all that it seems, that one's psychosexual continuity comes first and that psychoanalytical conditioning comes to serve that. It's the roundabout way of tackling, within feminism, the age-old problem of what to do with feminine men, in so many words. And other things, like revisiting Freud and sons to develop why people even bother with masochism.

I think a fairly safe way of putting it is that feminism to mean its ultimate definition and feminism as a theoretical practice are different things that overlap. Detrimental to both, potentially.

At least traditionally, there are a lot of differences that would make one Christian denomination consider another as "not Christian". With that in mind, with a limited understanding of feminism I'd hesitate to say I am one even though your definition is the one I've most frequently heard.

Btw that abortion debate really repeated itself, I went from page 3 back to 2 and didn't notice until the end.

Am I a good man or a bad man?

I don't support equal rights for everyone, because people are not equal.

Instead, I support treating people according to their needs, and allowing freedom for 'wants' that don't harm others.

For example, most people do OK taking their final exam in the same room as everyone else, and are not allowed to choose to take it in a room alone. A person who can't write, and instead dictates the answer to a scribe, is forced to do their exam in a room alone. A person who gets overwhelmed in crowds, or has certain self-calming mannerisms that could be distracting to others, gets a choice to take their exam in a room alone if they wish. I think that's fair, because those three people have different needs.

Back to feminism: men and women are inherently different. Abortion, as many people have pointed out, is not an equality issue, because men can't get pregnant (even if we figured out a way to cause male pregnancy, it still wouldn't be equal because men couldn't get pregnant accidentally). So it's not about which side of abortion gives more equal rights to both genders. Instead, it's about whether you think the rights of the mother, the child, or both are important, and if (like me) you choose both, then what the best way is to balance the two.

Also, if single mothers have a lot of struggles, that's not because they didn't or couldn't abort their children. It's because we live in a society where parenting is seen as the primary responsibility of a single household, with very little assistance given. If we had:

• free good-quality government-funded daycare

• all workplaces required to allow parental leave for either gender with a minimum of job penalty

• more support for working at home if the job allows that, so it's easier to balance parenting and working

• counseling and education to 'at risk' parents (eg very young ones) so they can do the best job of parenting they are capable of

• better supports for disabled children and adults so having a disabled child doesn't result in dealing with an immense burden of care for the rest of your life

Then abortion would be mostly unnecessary. (I'm sure you can think of situations where abortions would still be sought, but the vast majority of abortions would be unnecessary.)

Incidentally, the vast majority of pregnancies that endanger the mother's health, the child's death is virtually guaranteed no matter what. Ectopic pregnancy, for example, the baby isn't in the womb but in (usually) a fallopian tube. There isn't room for a full-term baby in there. Long before the child is viable, the tube will burst and the resulting bleeding will probably kill the mother. Aborting in that case means at least one of the two has a good chance of survival, and I can't see why anyone would choose not to abort no matter what their views on abortion.

About the only situation I can think of where the mother's health is endangered without pretty much guaranteed child death is cancer. Chemotherapy is really bad for an unborn baby, but postponing treatment for several months may mean the difference between a treatable cancer and an untreatable kind. So usually when cancer is diagnosed in a pregnant woman, she's advised to abort. Some do, some don't. In that particular situation, I think it really should be her choice, even though I'm generally pro-life.

If I'm asking for advice on a story idea, don't tell me it can't be done.

I'm not sure Sarah Palin does believe that women should have all the same rights as men. Oh, I'm sure she believes she should have all the same rights as a man, but I don't see her having much empathy or concern for other women. Particularly non-white, non-Christian, and/or non-wealthy women.

People are different =/= people are not equal.

OP: I think the problem is, equality is the default position today. (Kind of. Officially. Theoretically. Arguably. In developed countries. If you overlook some things.) If you take the trouble to identify yourself as a feminist, people expect you're in some kind of movement.

edited 11th May '11 3:10:09 PM by StrangeDwarf

"Why don't you write books people can read?"-Nora Joyce, to her husband James

" @Black Humour: I'm not sure that I share your assumption egalitarianism is a toothless philosophy. At least not more so than the title of 'equalist' would be."

Not more so than 'equalist', no, but only because 'equalist' is equally toothless.

---

@Ettina: Not equal is not the same as not identical. It's perfectly true to say men and women aren't identical, and it's perfectly normal and sane to say they shouldn't be identical, but if you say they shouldn't be equal that means one of them should be worse.

Also, about abortion: 'Pro-life' and 'pro-choice' are useless terms; they imply positions much broader than they actually mean, it's silly for both sides of an issue to be pro, and most importantly for this post they bundle up a bunch of different facets of abortion into the same term so that some people can, without changing their opinion at all, call themselves both pro-life and pro-choice.

The reason this is relevant is that when we replace 'pro-life' with the more accurate term, 'anti-abortion rights', nothing you've said up there is actually against the right to have an abortion at all. Merely thinking abortion should be rare is irrelevant; most people on both sides would like abortion to be rare.

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@Kara: Fair point, but she hasn't actually said anything about any other women.

And to be fair to her, she did at least encourage her daughter to not abort when she could've, and did not herself abort her kid with Down's syndrome even though it would've been a good idea, so I see no indication she's hypocritical about this. Obnoxious maybe, but not hypocritical.

edited 10th May '11 2:08:41 PM by BlackHumor

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

"Equalist" was my joking phrasing. But then, I think Black Humor is 100% wrong against the concept being toothless, for reasons I already stated.

Since essentially, there's not many things that fight discrimination against women that can't also be structured to perfectly fine address discrimination against men and/or blacks and/or gays and/or religious minorities, etc. etc. Because there's very few things like pregnancy that literally only one group ever can experience, and thus they're the only group that needs to address it somehow.

Apparently I am adorable, but my GF is my #1 Groupie. (Avatar by Dreki-K)

QED, man. Q. E. fuckin' D. Actual feminists? Actually talk about women's rights in the general sense.

And it is fairly hypocritical to hold herself and her daughter up as exemplars of pro-life values while simultaneously shilling for a political party that does everything it can to make it difficult for poor people to support their pregnancies and their born children. Sure, it's easy for her to raise her disabled son and her grandson on her salary.

That's the thing about movements - if I support the ERA, equal pay for equal work, provision of more childcare services for working women, women in combat units a la Israel, combating sexism in the workplace, yet I also oppose legalized abortion and contraception-as-such, does that make me a feminist or not? Or to take it outside of feminism, if I support 90% of the Democratic Party's platform, yet the remaining 10% deal with abortion and gay marriage, am I less of a liberal than, say, Nancy Pelosi? The problem is that in a broad enough movement, there are people, who for sake of coherence, want to narrow down political movements to make it mean something, which leave otherwise supportive people out of the camp, so to speak.

I mean, most political conflict in the Western World is really a case of We Are Struggling Together - most accept the general canons of liberalism in its political-science definition, and it's really the details that divide us.

edited 10th May '11 2:45:07 PM by Cojuanco

QED, man. Q. E. fuckin' D. Actual feminists? Actually talk about women's rights in the general sense.

No True Scotsman there. Having defined positions on all relevant issues isn't part of any definition of feminism I've ever heard of. (Unless you mean to emphasize "in the general sense", in which case I've never heard Palin say anything about denying rights to any woman or group of women that she would not also deny to men.)

And again, I never said she was a committed feminist, only a feminist period.

And it is fairly hypocritical to hold herself and her daughter up as exemplars of pro-life values while simultaneously shilling for a political party that does everything it can to make it difficult for poor people to support their pregnancies and their born children. Sure, it's easy for her to raise her disabled son and her grandson on her salary.

This may be true, but it's not true that she is against abortion only for other women, like you implied, and it's not true that that somehow makes her not a feminist.

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if I support the ERA, equal pay for equal work, provision of more childcare services for working women, women in combat units a la Israel, combating sexism in the workplace, yet I also oppose legalized abortion and contraception-as-such, does that make me a feminist or not?

Since you never explicitly answered the question in the main post, I can't tell you. From the list it seems likely, but the whole point of the main post is that there is one and only one question you have to answer to qualify.

Or to take it outside of feminism, if I support 90% of the Democratic Party's platform, yet the remaining 10% deal with abortion and gay marriage, am I less of a liberal than, say, Nancy Pelosi?

Yes, assuming that Pelosi supports the entire platform, and assuming you mean less in the sense that a penguin is less of a bird than a sparrow. Liberalism doesn't have a single defining question like feminism does.

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

The problem I have with the dictionary definition is that ultimately the point of language is to communicate, and as a result it evolves and changes while dictionary definitions often do not. The definition of feminist you want people to use is largely inadequate because it generally fails to properly communicate the idea across.

A few examples... faggot has a ton of different definitions to it, but there's one single one that dominates (and is listed in dictionaries). There are antiquated and unused ones now however, and to try to force people to use the specific definition you want when the lay definition is so prevalent just ends up coming across as asinine. To an extent, I feel you're trying to force the less "lay" definition and thus the less right one, because it doesn't communicate as well. Think of a multiple choice question that has D:"all of the above" as the correct answer. You're arguing that A is correct, and it is, but it's not the best choice and so from a certain perspective is wrong.

Second example, you said "Yes, assuming that Pelosi supports the entire platform, and assuming you mean less in the sense that a penguin is less of a bird than a sparrow. Liberalism doesn't have a single defining question like feminism does." What qualifies as a bird has a specific and defining set of characteristics, so technically a penguin cannot be less than a bird than a sparrow and going like that your analogy doesn't make any sense. However, because of lay definitions, it does get the point across and it works in ordinary language. Language and meaning aren't so thoroughly restricted.

Third, plenty of ideas are communicated without being a dictionary definition (slang).

@Kasie:

It's true that language evolves and changes but it's not true that this has happened to "feminist". Feminists themselves agree that's what it means, and if anyone would know they would.

Besides, if people outside the movement think it's composed of lesbian man-haters or some other such garbage, they are clearly and factually wrong.

I'm not arguing that the dictionary definition is right because it's in the dictionary, I'm arguing that the correct definition is the one I gave and using the fact that it's in the dictionary to support that. I agree that the dictionary only describes what other people are using words to mean rather than defining what words mean themselves.

But a common misconception about a word doesn't change its meaning or else Obama would be the first Muslim president of the US. So the fact that a lot of people think that feminists are man-harers doesn't change what feminism actually is any more that the fact that a lot of people think that Obama wasn't born in the US makes him magically have been born somewhere else.

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Third paragraph, I missed a clarification: A penguin is less like the prototypical "bird" than a sparrow is, but that doesn't mean it's less a member of the class "bird". But for liberalism, "shares opinions with the prototypical liberal" is all there is, so it really does come in shades and you really can be "only" 90% liberal.

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

@Black Hummor: while (pro-choice) feminists find it offensive to tell a women she shouldn’t have an abortion, it is found rather offensive to just about everybody to say that she should have one.

edited 10th May '11 6:37:54 PM by joeyjojo

hashtagsarestupid

I have absolutely no idea where you're getting the man-hating lesbian part of the layman's definition I'm pushing. I'm talking more about what was in post 5, about feminist being associated with organizing towards the goal/buying into the more mainstream feminist beliefs, like the right to choose. I'm not saying the layman's definition is the most accurate, but it is the one most communicated.

Then, as to the "Feminists agree what it means" thing... Christina Hoff Sommers advertises herself as a feminist, but gets labeled as anti-feminist for not believing in some/maybe even all of the claims of discrimination/mainstream rhetoric. She probably does want equality, like Sarah Palin probably wants what she thinks equality is, but has been labeled the reverse for not fitting in. If it's as black and white as your definition is, it wouldn't really even be contestible.

Conversely, I think Camille Paglia has thoroughly disassociated herself from feminism and they(academic/activist feminists, who would have played the biggest role in establishing the current definition) have done the same in kind, but she probably also believes women should have the rights men have, but disagrees with the current state of things and how to get there. Is she a feminist or not?

I'm just saying, like your liberal analogy, there is a prototypical feminist (or was, until the field got so thoroughly fragmented) and that's what people use in a lay definition.

As for the penguin thing... prototypical bird is kind of a weak argument. A penguin can only be less of the prototypical bird if you have that image in your head, which will be subjective, and people have that for feminists. If it applies to birds to allow for scale of degree of "birdlike", it has to apply to feminists for "feminist like" as well. Conversely, you could deny that there's a scale of degrees for both but would have to rescind the analogy... it's silly, and overly restricts language, but you could do that if you wanted to.

To be fair, I got the impression that the idea was to spare the kid of being born with down's syndrome in the first place.

Still though...

I'm sure there are a lot of people with Downs Syndrome who would rather not have been aborted, and quite a few parents who would be opposed to the idea too — and not all of them carried those children to term because of being pro-life campaigners, either. Probably not even most.

But if we want to have that discussion, or indeed an in-depth abortion discussion (if it's possible to have one that doesn't turn stupid within a page or two) it should be in another thread. Consider that a statement in my official mod role.

A brighter future for a darker age.

yeah good idea.

Either way I think it's a stretch to claim that Sarah Pailin is a feminist. As Karalora was saying to be feminism you should have to stand up for the right of all women not just your own electoral demographic.

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