Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected].
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected] or [email protected]
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
The problem with feminism is that there are multiple waves, and there are fringe ideas that are still 'feminist'. Some of the well=-knon feminist theorists in the 2nd wave came up with some really crazy ideas. Some of that is still around.
Yup, the issue is that it’s sort of like “Christian” in that it describes an extremely wide spectrum of worldviews. Are you a Southern Baptist who thinks everyone will burn in hell, (and makes it their life’s mission to scream that in everyone’s faces)? Or are you a Unitarian who just wants to follow the golden rule while smoking your weed? Both are Christian, but would fundamentally disagree with each other on what the proper definition of a “true Christian” is.
Many feminists would be better off describing themselves as egalitarians instead. But that’s not as trendy or as widely understood, and may be a little too broad if they’re mostly focused on women’s rights. Meanwhile, there are full blown TERFs who try to pick and choose which women should have rights, or feminists who swing the pendulum too far in the opposite direction and land squarely in misandry instead. And if you’re going to counter by saying that those aren’t true feminists, then you have fallen into the exact same problem that the above listed Christians have. Whether or not you agree with them is secondary to the fact that they’re using the same “feminist” title that you are.
Some feminists(not misandrists) are trying to take the word back from terfs and misandrists.
It also doesn't help public perception of feminism when you have conservatives using words like 'feminazi' to discredit the movement entirely and give people the impression that all feminists hate men. Thanks Rush Limaugh.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminazi
Admittedly there are some fringe parts of the movement that are in need of constant criticism(terfs in particular, misandrists). It unfortunate when extremists start trying to overtake a movement and start shoving bullshit into it, but it's not impossible to take it back. Just a lot of work and community effort from folks acting in good faith.
One of the parts I was thinking of specifically revolved around sexual politics in 2nd wave feminism.
The basic idea was that consent to sex can only happen between equals; if one party has a higher social status than the other, then sex is coercive. 2nd wave feminism says that women always occupy a lower social status than men, and therefore sex can never be consensual, e.g., all sex is rape (except gay or lesbian sex, I guess?, but then there's still relative social status between the participants to consider...). That discounts any agency for an individual person though; it says that women can't freely consent.
Backlash against that line of thought is part of what drove the 3rd wave of feminism.