Do you identify as a feminist?

[Butterfree]

Yes, 'feminism' is a word that is misleading about the intentions of the movement if read literally. Do you have any idea just how many words in English are misleading for the same sorts of historical reasons? If you're just reading the words, clearly astrology is the study of the stars whereas astronomy is their regulation. Yes, it's unfortunate, but it's still rather silly to shy away from the movement because of that, much the same way it would be silly to refuse to get a degree in astronomy because the name implies it's less scientific than astrology.

 

[Tarvos]

I'm not talking about "if read literally", I'm talking about not giving women's rights precedence over any other group of people's type of rights since I advocate equality for all. If that's what you define as feminism then I am a feminist but I prefer calling it equalist or anything of the sort

 

[Eloi]

I'm not talking about "if read literally", I'm talking about not giving women's rights precedence over any other group of people's type of rights since I advocate equality for all. If that's what you define as feminism then I am a feminist but I prefer calling it equalist or anything of the sort

But -ist is a masculine Latin ending, why not an equaler? No wait, 'er' derives from 'wer' meaning man in Old English. Okay, why not 'feminist', a word meaning female with a masculine ending?

 

[Dannichu]

I'm not talking about "if read literally", I'm talking about not giving women's rights precedence over any other group of people's type of rights since I advocate equality for all. If that's what you define as feminism then I am a feminist but I prefer calling it equalist or anything of the sort

But you're implying that identifying as a feminist and other progressive movements are mututally exclusive; quite the opposite. One can identify as a feminist, civil rights advocate, and LGBT supporter without giving one precedence over the others.

 

[Zuu]

if the name is misleading, what exactly is the objection in changing it if it will only help the movement ...? since that seems to be the sentiment here.

and what i believe Tarvos to be saying is basically, why should i have to call myself a feminist and something else? why not just equalist or whatever.

after all, femina is the Latin word for woman. it doesn't imply anything about any gender or sex other than the female.

 

[Zhorken]

if the name is misleading, what exactly is the objection in changing it if it will only help the movement ...? since that seems to be the sentiment here.

Because people are already aware of the movement as "feminism"? Because, like opal said, it's historically been "feminism" and it's still the same movement, and it is mostly women who face discrimination? Because given what feminism is about, it wouldn't make sense to change the name just because people get uptight over it suggesting women?

I mean, ideally—from my feminist perspective of what's ideal—people would go "oh, huh, okay" when they learn what feminism is, having previously thought it was only about women, and why we keep the term anyway, rather than kicking up a fuss about oh how awful it is for the name to have misled me so!

EDIT: The snark here is aimed specifically at Zuu, but the point stands for everyone else saying the same thing. Bachuru's post is also awesome.

 

[Zuu]

Because people are already aware of the movement as "feminism"? Because, like opal said, it's historically been "feminism" and it's still the same movement, and it is mostly women who get hit by sexism? Because given what feminism is about, it wouldn't make sense to change the name just because people get uptight over it suggesting women?

I mean, ideally—from my feminist perspective of what's ideal—people would go "oh, huh, okay" when they learn what feminism is, having previously thought it was only about women, and why we keep the term anyway, rather than kicking up a fuss about oh how awful it is for the name to have misled me so!

is it fun to end all of your sentences with question marks like this? even though it sounds a bit silly? :P

i agree that sexism is mostly targeted at women. but not all sexism is! i'm simply saying that feminism is just a bit misleading, and it causes people to be distrustful. i'm nit-picking here, but: i understand about the historical precedence, but the previous things about astronomy~astrology don't quite apply in the same way here. -nomy and -logy both basically mean the same thing, they allude to a collection or set of knowledge about a subject. but ... looking at feminism - well, -ism implies an ideology, so the ideology of women? that's not at all what feminism is about, so. yeah! moving along from etymological nonsense ...

of course. i am not reacting in that way at all; personally i don't particularly care what it's called. i was simply suggesting that a lot of people get that idea and it's hard to change their minds afterward! you know how we can be stubborn and hard-headed. well, people who are ignorant of it in the first place will be doubly so, i think.

 

[Creepy Kecleon]

I'm a feminist, very strongly, but I'm also a malenist, which not many think about - men suffer from severe things in many countries since the beginning of history until today. Putting it simply, I'm against any sort of oppression or discrimination based on gender, with the word feminism mostly directed at the female gender. In my country for example, homosexual acts among males are illegal (on paper and rarely to never ever punished for it but still) and homosexuality among girls has no mention whatsoever. In my country women even receive more then men do at work in a wide-range of jobs. The feminist side of me says that this is a sort of liberation for girls comparing with older times, plus the government might justify why it does so for many different reasons, but that other malenist side of me says eh

 

[surskitty]

I'm a feminist, very strongly, but I'm also a malenist, which not many think about - men suffer from severe things in many countries since the beginning of history until today. Putting it simply, I'm against any sort of oppression or discrimination based on gender, with the word feminism mostly directed at the female gender. In my country for example, homosexual acts among males are illegal (on paper and rarely to never ever punished for it but still) and homosexuality among girls has no mention whatsoever. In my country women even receive more then men do at work in a wide-range of jobs. The feminist side of me says that this is a sort of liberation for girls comparing with older times, plus the government might justify why it does so for many different reasons, but that other malenist side of me says eh

You should probably note that most people who identify as masculinist are anti-feminist. While yes, sexism hurts men, too, and this is important to mention, quite a lot of feminism is intended to help everyone. Not to say that the feminist movement doesn't have problems! But there are things like this and this is also feminist.

Also as a general rule the lack of laws against female homosexuality have at least a bit to do with a denial that women can have their own sexuality. :(


... my point's mainly that you should probably stick with the label of feminist because I don't think you'd want to associate with most of the people who identify as masculinist.

 

[Eloi]

after all, femina is the Latin word for woman. it doesn't imply anything about any gender or sex other than the female.

Yes, but -ist is a masculine ending.

 

[Zuu]

Yes, but -ist is a masculine ending.

in what language, exactly? :P

and in this case -ist comes from -ism

 

[shy ♡]

Another reason why there is no reason to identify as 'masculist' or 'malenist' is because sexism against women is largely also sexism against men. For example telling women they have to fit into so-and-so gender binaries is telling men they have to fit into the opposite gender binary: women are 'weak' and cry all the time, men are strong and never cry. This hurts both genders/sexes. Fighting against sexism towards women is fighting against sexism towards men.

 

[Zuu]

Another reason why there is no reason to identify as 'masculist' or 'malenist' is because sexism against women is largely also sexism against men. For example telling women they have to fit into so-and-so gender binaries is telling men they have to fit into the opposite gender binary: women are 'weak' and cry all the time, men are strong and never cry. This hurts both genders/sexes. Fighting against sexism towards women is fighting against sexism towards men.

mmm for the most part this is actually a good point, i hadn't actually considered it from this angle.

 

[Eloi]

in what language, exactly? :P

and in this case -ist comes from -ism

In Latin, just as 'femina' is Latin. And, I don't believe so. They are related semantically (a belief system, one who believes in said system) not etymologically (at least not directly), as -ist is an Old French from Latin from Greek borrowing, wherein -ism is a direct Greek borrowing..

 

[Zuu]

i don't recall any Latin endings that are -ist, and especially not masculine ones :(

 

[Pwnemon]

or we could you know realize that most people don't scrutinize for weeks the fact that our words have masculist endings and oh holy fuck i didn't even realize it was one until you pointed it out so how in the hell could it have altered my conscious so it does not matter and don't take pc to the point it makes me want to strangle you.

 

[Butterfree]

Even if -ist is a masculine ending in Latin, the fact is that modern English uses "Xist" to mean "person who does/approves of/engages in X", with no implication of gender. All -ist words are used gender-neutrally in English, and English-speakers have no reason to associate the ending with masculinity. At this point, even if it's originally a masculine ending, that's just linguistic trivia, not a meaningful statement about the implications of the word.

I'm not exactly opposed to changing the name of the feminist movement, but changing the name of a movement is a bit more complicated than just making a new sign for the door of the Feminist Central Office. In the meantime, identifying as a feminist suits me just fine, because if my interlocutor appears not to understand what it means, I can simply explain it.

EDIT: The fact 'feminism' is more specific than 'equalism' or whatever also helps in one regard: it calls attention to a specific issue in itself. A statement like "People should be equal" is great, but because it's a very vague, high-level statement, it doesn't have a lot of power in expressing your position. Calling it feminism is saying "Women have a very disadvantaged status in modern society and we think doing something about that is important." It doesn't mean that's the only thing that's important, hence why feminists also care about males being affected by the same issues feminism deals with and feminists can also be part of the LGBT rights movement and so on (which are also named to call attention to specific issues), but calling it feminism is giving the term an immediate, significant meaning (if a potentially slightly misleading one) instead of just letting all the actual issues at hand get completely lost in a blanket term.

 

[Eloi]

or we could you know realize that most people don't scrutinize for weeks the fact that our words have masculist endings

Google says 0.6 second(s) not weeks.
As well, people are raising shit about it being derived from a Latin word meaning female, so why not raise the point the ending is masculine?

Even if -ist is a masculine ending in Latin, the fact is that modern English uses "Xist" to mean "person who does/approves of/engages in X", with no implication of gender. All -ist words are used gender-neutrally in English, and English-speakers have no reason to associate the ending with masculinity. At this point, even if it's originally a masculine ending, that's just linguistic trivia, not a meaningful statement about the implications of the word.

This is a good point, but people are trying to use etymology as a justification, and that bugs me.

and oh holy fuck i didn't even realize it was one until you pointed it out so how in the hell could it have altered my conscious so it does not matter

So "feminist" is an okay label because you don't care about etymology of words? Good.

and don't take pc to the point it makes me want to strangle you.

Sure thing honky.

 

[Zoltea]

This is why language is a part of philosophy, every word has so many different ways of being defined. If I can get a concrete definition I'll know whether or not my answer needs to be changed. I myself believe in equal rights and opportunity for all intelligent creatures with complex emotions (humans and pokémon alike, yes, I really did go there.).

 

[Eloi]

This is why language is a part of philosophy, every word has so many different ways of being defined. If I can get a concrete definition I'll know whether or not my answer needs to be changed.

What is a concrete definition?