Curious to see what the Pox lot think on the subject: Good/Bad/Necessary or Out of date, what do you think on it in general?
Good though not without some unfortunate impulses. Note: I am pretty liberal and most of the women I know/date are feminist.
Every social movement has its radicals; it's expected. Feminism seems to attract a lot more of them than usual though. As for the concept itself, true feminism is based on the idea that women deserve the same economic, social, and political rights as men. I don't think many people would argue that there's anything wrong with this in theory. In practice however, modern feminism has devolved into simple animosity between the sexes with no clear goals other than "men = evil, must punish". As with Communism, the idea works great in a vacuum. It's a shame we live in the real world.
]Depends on your conception of feminism. People have a tendency to replace it's meaning with overall dislike/hate for men. The world still gives reasons for feminism to be a thing as long as it sticks to it's actual meaning. There is still lack of gender based equality within our social context. Overall, yes, still needed, but burn tumblr.
Maybe it is just the social circles I run in, but I haven't really encountered any of the men = evil punish style of feminists. What are your basing your perspective that that is the foundation of modern feminism?
from all i've seen, the main problem with modern feminism is the lack of cohesion. many claim to be feminist, but can mean very different things by doing so. outsiders become perplexed, and often focus on the extremes (as people do). i've heard that "christian" as a descriptor wasn't in common use til fairly recently- instead you had baptists and methodists and catholics and i'm really not clear on all the various branches of christianity, or on how far down it was broken. perhaps if there was a reformation movement that resulted in decidedly and obviously differing schools of thought it would be easier to tag a name onto it than calling everyone a feminist i mean, still with the christian thing, when you call someone a christian, what does that mean? should it apply to x branch? why/why not? and so on. as for my actual stance on the subject, i don't really have one. i know a lot of people that demand that it's a pressing issue, and i respect both them and their concerns- i just really don't get out much/haven't looked into it at all. it's not one of mine. i support them, so far as it goes, but it's more of an "in spirit" sort of thing.
people deserve equal rights and authority over their own bodies. sadly not everyone has understood this yet. a lot of people that post and talk about these rumoured "feminazi's" seem really sexist to me. including the condescending morons who want to turn it into a sematics debate about the name feminism. of course misandrists do exist however I conclude that women are still marginalised on a grander scale than we would like to admit.
I would argue that there lies an inherent flaw in the argument of defining anything as "True", for example I consider myself a Feminist and yet, as opposed to what you note, argue that the patriarchal system inhibits and harms both genders. By your argument would I therefore not be a "True" Feminist? To continue, since as you say we do live in the real world, is not imposing a single specific definition upon something as vast and individual as an Ideology itself wholly unrealistic, and indeed the basis for the sort of straw-man arguments we see throughout such discussions?
As long as you believe that women deserve the same economic, social, and political rights as men, then you can in some way consider yourself a Feminist. Any beliefs beyond that will place you into a sub-category of Feminism such as Standpoint Feminism, Post-Feminism, or Difference Feminism. I think you might have misunderstood my last point. I was not trying to argue that there is a single specific definition of Feminism, but rather that many of those who call themselves Feminists today care little for campaigning for women's rights and are only in it to hate on men. They are misguided, and use a legitimate ideology to fuel their own prejudice.
