rachellephant:

oodlyenough:

blaue-box:

Wow. Everyone who thinks it’s “degrading” for a woman to call herself a feminist can go unfollow me now. You don’t want to call yourself a feminist? Fine, you don’t have to. I would probably disagree with your reasons, but it’s your decision. But don’t you dare call my decision to call myself a feminist “degrading”.

You know, I didn’t always think of myself as a feminist. When I was about 18 years old, my label of choice was “anti-sexist”. I was against sexism, and for my clueless 18-year-old self (not to say that everyone’s clueless at 18), the term feminism was just another form of sexism, because it put the focus on women. But the more I read, the more it became obvious to me that there was a reason for that. That reason is called institutional oppression. Women have been an institutionally oppressed group for most of Western history, and oppression doesn’t just disappear from one day to the next. The term “feminism” focuses on women because to this day, women are discriminated against because of their gender. Can men be discriminated against? Yes, they can, but (in most societies today) not because of their gender, but because of their race, their class, their religion, etc.

And because most people probably don’t know what started this rant: it was this post (written by one of my followers). There’s so much to unpack here that I don’t even know where to start.

These women who label themselves “feminists” — yes, they label themselves; how degrading is that? — can’t get any more creative than “equality.” Why not throw a little brotherly love in there? The French did (not that it’s always a good idea to follow the French, but they did get a little more expressive with their slogans).

This is hilarious to me, because does this person know that when french revolutionists talked about “liberté, égalité, fraternité”, they only meant men?

I’ve never understood why women have problems using the terms “mankind,” businessman,” etc. Somehow these women feel they are excluded from the huMAN race or from the work world because we don’t say “womankind” and “businesswoman”

English isn’t my first language, so I can only comment on this issue from what I know of my native language German. German is a highly male-dominated language. Basically, all nouns are gendered in German. Whenever you talk about a person whose gender is unknown, you’d use the male form. Whenever you talk about a group of people of different genders, you’d use the male form. (Even if you had 99 women and one man, you’d have to use the male form of the noun.) Feminists have criticized this because it completely erases the existence of women. Nowadays, there are a few strategies to avoid this problem, like the Binnen-I. And many (anti-feminist) people absolutely HATE it. It destroys language! Nobody can write/talk like this! But the thing is, language matters. If women are constantly erased from language, it will have effects in real life.

The point is not that men are somehow better than women, but that they are the ones who are supposed to support and protect women. And trust me, ladies, we want it that way.

Speak for yourself. Support is fine. I support my partner and he supports me. But why the hell do I need protection? Protection from what?

How many women are now not only figuratively but also quite literally “wearing the pants” in every relationship? She is the boss at work, the boss at home, the boss in the community and at church and with friends. Men don’t know what to do with themselves anymore; women have taken charge of every facet of life, so much so that they have over-burdened themselves (making them grouchy, uptight, hen-pecking cranks) and left man nothing to do but sit around and play video games.

(Wow, is this person serious?) It’s true that many women are overburdened. The solution isn’t to return to traditional gender roles. Instead, men should adopt tasks that are traditionally associated with femininity, like cleaning, cooking or parenting. Unfortunately, not many do.

And this “equality” thing: since when do women want to be equal to men? In some ways, women are far superior to men. It’s not sexist; it’s just true.

I want to be equal to men and most women I know do too (even the ones who don’t call themselves feminists). However, I don’t believe that women are superior to men. I think that both men and women are human. Boys and girls are socialized differently, so that explains why there are some differences in behavior. But studies show that there is more variation among the group of men and among the group of women than there is between individuals of opposite sex.

I’ll stop here, but you get the idea. Feminism is important to me. If you can’t respect that, you know where the unfollow button is.

I was going to add some kind of sparkling commentary but I’ve got nothing. If by any chance you agree with that blog post you may as well unfollow me as well plz & ty.

I’d also like to add one thing, about how that blog post said that feminists need to be more “creative” than simply saying they want “equality.”

Do you want me to define what we mean when I say “equality” for you? I will. My clarification: I want political equality—freedom to vote how I want to vote and run elections without my femininity being seen as a disadvantage. I want sexual equality—freedom to be myself in between the sheets or, if I choose not to go there, to have my “no” respected. I want equality of choice—I want my opinion to matter, especially when it deals with my body and infringes upon my rights. I want equality of pay in the work force, I want equality of representation in government to ensure my voice is heard, I want equality of treatment all around. When we say “equality,” we use it as an umbrella term for—well, everything that men have that we don’t have. When we say “equality,” we do not say that we want to be men, we say that we want the freedom to be ourselves.

Let me clarify further: when we say we want “equality,” we do not mean we all want to be bodybuilders—but we would like to have the right to be bodybuilders if we wanted to.

…Frankly, women wrestlers/weightlifters/etc. are some the ugliest creatures I have ever seen.

So because you don’t think women who are wrestlers/weightlifters/physically muscular at all in any way shape or form/etc are ugly (ie, you’re conforming to conventional standards of beauty, which is sexist on both parts, but, lets be honest, more so on the woman), girls shouldn’t go into bodybuilding, be passionate about working out, enjoy being as muscular as they want to be? Gee, good thing that men and women have different body types, or else more women would be encouraged to bodybuild, which is ugly to me anyways, so no big deal. Am I really reading this?

Another clarification: when we say we want “equality,” we do not mean we want to be praised for the gendered benefits we “already have”—but we would like the right to have and be proud of those qualities if they are part of who we are.

…women (generally) have an infinitely superior capacity for common sense. I think even my own life is a constant proof of that. For another, women (again, I generalize) are much better at connecting with other people, understanding other people, being able to help others. Men often miss the nuances of social interaction; they can become very easily confused about many things in life.

As mentioned in the stellar post above me, the tendency of women to be more “nurturing” or “socially apt” is because of gender socialization. Thanks for saying I have a shitton of common sense and then denouncing women who call themselves feminist (read: me) as total idiots who backstab normal hardworking obviously non-sexist women like yourself in the back in the name of our frivolous fight to equality.

(Also, who told you it was okay to be sexist to men and generalize them as stupid and socially dumb?)

One last clarification for the books: when we say “equality,” we do not mean “Give us your shiny toy because I deserve it more than you do”—but we do think we deserve the shiny toy just the same as the next gender stereotyped kid.

Why must we always want something we don’t have? Why must we always be jealously searching to see what everyone else has?

I do not jealously search for “equality,” in the same way that one does not jealously search for the right to wake up every morning, walk outside their door, and not be murdered on the spot. The tragedy here is that the dead cannot speak after they have been mortally wronged—I, however, can. Feminists can. Anti-sexists can. People who hate the oppression of other people can. We don’t need to get more creative than “equality” because by this point (and by a point a long, long time ago), it should be simple enough for me to say, “I want you to stop treating me like shit,” and have the world know what we’re talking about.

I could put all the bows and frills on “equality” if you want me to. But still, at the core of the belief, it means the want to exercise a freedom that is still massively socially regulated.


Posted 3 months ago with 55 notes
© blaue-box

via keepoffthedirigibleplums



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  12. rachellephant reblogged this from orbitingasupernova and added:
    I’d also like to add one thing, about how that blog post said that feminists need to be more “creative” than simply...
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  23. planetarygirl reblogged this from oodlyenough and added:
    Hi, Catherine. It seems to me that you make observations without going deeply on them. TBH, I think you’re afraid to...
  24. thegallifreyanbuccaneer reblogged this from blaue-box and added:
    This. This so hard it hurts. I can’t even think of anything to add because you’ve hit every nail on the head.
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  28. nyksi said: My boyfriend is a very traditional/conservative person, but he respects me and I wear the pants in our relationship. He’s fine with that, as he should be. I don’t see why I need to be “the heart” and he needs to be “the brain.”
  29. oodlyenough reblogged this from blaue-box and added:
    I was going to add some kind of sparkling commentary but I’ve got nothing. If by any chance you agree with that blog...
  30. laughingisunderrated reblogged this from blaue-box
  31. oodlyenough said: what even is that whole post omfg