this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
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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.