Can a person seek gender equality, but not be a feminist?

After reading and posting on some threads last week, this is a question I came up with over the weekend.

It seems to me that many of the conflicts that arise on this board are related more to a difference in opinion regarding feminism rather than a difference in opinion of whether people are generally constricted by gender roles.

So I guess I'd like some opinions on this.

working for justice for anybody who is female, the wingers are gonna call you a feminist for it. Makes me wonder if they think women are someless or different from humans.

.... I've talked about on other threads.

In many ways, there are so many different types of feminism that it can mean myriad of things -- I mean, you've got everything from radical feminists to eco-feminists to Christian feminists. All very different, but still ultimately containing the monikker of "feminist."

So the conclusion I've come to -- right or wrong -- is that when you distill it all down, the one most basic commonality to all things "feminist" is a paradigm wherein a model of class distinction and class struggle is imposed on gender relations.

I say that because through many discussions with feminists and comparing the role constraints that both men and women experience, it ultimately comes down to being told something like, "You don't understand. Men as a class oppress women as a class."

So is that the difference people see as a humanist vs feminist -- that feminism views men and women as distinct social classes, whereas humanism doesn't?

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Exactly, Shoeempress, exactly . . . how very true:

"The word feminist has gotten the same connotation as Liberal."

Merely because your foe, your opponent, paints you with bad word meanings, one should never adopt that meaning, that definition. The radical rightwingnuts have painted the word "liberal" in a very negative light. And it works! Liberals don't want to be called "liberals" any longer. How sad. After all, the dictionary meaning of the word "liberal" is positive. Very positive:

"(1) Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry.
(2) Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded." http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=67&q=liberal

The same can be said of the word "feminism" and "feminist." But, again, why adopt your opponents twisted hypocritical meanings? After all and simply put, the word "feminism" means this:

"Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex." (the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution)http://www.equalrightsamendment.org/

.

everyone seems to be redefining terms lately. Progressive, feminist, liberal, conservative, etc..all seem to have several different definitions or rules associated with them. The whole country is going through a political identity crisis these last 10 years. Only the apathetic are happy.

i'm not sure we are having an identity crisis born of our own identities -- it's b/c people of one stripe want to define the contours of identity for people of other stripes.

i think. i could be wrong.

"separate but equal" is not equal, at all. If "feminism" means the total, "un-separated", equality of all women with all men, then, no you cannot seek gender equality and not be a feminist. "Feminism" is not a dirty word. It is a movement that has struggled (and still does) with thousands of years of oppression and degradation. Feminists are heroes and should be held up as such - just my opinion...

fem·i·nism ( P ) Pronunciation Key (fm-nzm)n.

Belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.
The movement organized around this belief.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=feminism

But there again, I'd say that definition is so generic that it doesn't really distinguish feminism from humanism.

That definition has also changed somewhat over time in that if you look at a dictionary from 40 years ago, the defintion is different from that one.

Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.

Feminism/humanism.

The constitution reads "all men are created equal" and people will say, "oh yeah - but it was talking about women also". Well - it wasn't. Women didn't vote - there weren't property rights for women, etc.

http://womenshistory.about.com/library/ency/blwh_property.htm

So part of it is - there is a need to overcome all of this bad history. And even history - or especially history (books, classes, etc.) perpetuates the lack of feminism as part of humanism. When you hear nearly totally about what the men did.

Which is why there was outrage about a thread that dissed "Women's Studies" on a supposedly progressive board. If all of the history classes covered what women did as much as they do what men did - it wouldn't be an issue.

And actually - I would like to know a lot more than I do.

.."The Chalice & The Blade" by Riane Eisler. Definately on topic.

It shows clearly how this oppression of women is systemic and age-old and unnatural. It reinforced my support and admiration for the women's movement. It also made me more fully realize how much better off we would be now if the women haters had not risen to supremacy several thousand years ago...

Also a really good work of fiction dealing with the issue of cultural oppression of women in ancient times is "The Red Tent". I can't remember the author's name, but it is an excellent read.

But wasn't that book pretty much discredited in peer review by archaeologists?

of the Humanities, a heated backlash to a book of this type is not surprising. Very often when an author sets out to gore numerous "sacred cows" of the established (i.e. patriarchal) consensus, he or she can expect to be attacked or shunned or vilified. But her central thesis is sound and her research and methodology are "top drawer". I don't pay too much attention to "peer review"; I've discovered that too much of it is guided by politics and status and the reviews must be sifted as arduously as the subject work, itself.

dead-end doctrines. read also Evelyn Fox Keller's Reflections on Gender and Science for insight into how we might have inherited the biases that Eisler disrupts. good stuff.

that oppression of women is actually classism, don't be surprised at our reaction to your "difference in opinion".

....that the oppression of women is classism. I merely pointed out that based on my personal observation that imposing a class distinction on gender relations seems to be at the heart of feminism.

My advice: Forget about the most obvious - what's the meaning below the surface? Remember, a feminist (women being as equal as (not more than) any others on a society) by any other name would still be as Annoying to the status quo...and that alternate word and its various declared 'meanings' would get endlessly criticized/debated as well.

So...many...distractions....


-B

....not in a patriarchal society. In a matriarchal society, a person seeking gender equality would be called a masculinist.

The problem is that hierarchical societies think that egalitarian societies are not possible. So when people are humanists or egalitarians in our patriarchal society, they are labelled feminists, and then feminists are further labelled man-haters, because patriarchy assumes that if males were not dominant, females would be dominant. It is like Commander Cuckoobananas saying that if you don't support the war in Iraq, you support the terrorists. The idea of conscientious objection to an unjust war is simply not comprehensible to someone without a conscience. Similarly, the concept of equality is not comprehensible to people who think that there is no such a thing as a person, that there are only men and women. It has even been a long hard struggle to get a Constitution with a preamble that begins, "We the people..." to be interpreted as meaning both males and females, since, at the time it was written, it was assumed to refer only to males. And quite a few would rather destroy the Constitution than have it interpreted in an inclusive, egalitarian manner.

However, since we DO live in a patriarchal society, the answer to your question is no, a person in our society cannnot seek gender equality without being a feminist.

First off, as many others have said, a feminist IS a person who works for gender equality. It is a word that has largely been co-opted by the reich wing and and people tend shy away from it because they have drunk the reich wing Koolaid. I find this is especially true with women my age (20s). It's infuriating, but I see it so often: women who preface statements supporting gender equality with, "I don't consider myself a feminist, but..."

"Feminism" has become a dirty word because the reich wing thinks women have gotten too uppity and need to be put back in our place. So they use words like "feminazi", "man-hater" and of course the dreaded "dyke" to cow us into submission. I'm a bisexual feminist and I am proud of this.

The other problem I have with this "I'm not a feminist, I'm a humanist" idea is that, to my ears, it sounds suspiciously similar to what I like to call the privilege cop-out. That is, when people with privilege refuse to acknowledge the specific challenges faced by an oppressed people by saying things like "there's no race but the human race", "I don't see <insert race/gender/sexual orientation>, I see people", etc. Well, that's a fine thing for you, but as a queer black woman in America there is not a day that goes by when I am not reminded of my Otherness. People who have privilege, whether it's male privilege, white privilege, etc simply don't realize this. They might mean well, but it sounds patronizing to me. When you are part of a group that has historically been discriminated against, you don't have the luxury of choosing to ignore Otherness. It is constantly shoved in your face (being followed in a store, being harrassed by fundies, having to beg for medication, etc.). There is nothing wrong with humanism, I also consider myself a humanist simply by virtue of being a human being, but at the same time I specifically believe in feminism because women have been fucked over for thousands of years. I think some people like to hide behind all-encompassing terms because they don't want to get their hands dirty with all the gory details.

Does this make sense?

What an excellent post, you explained from the oppressed point of view as opposed to the privileged.
Bravo.

I asked her what she wanted for her son that she didn't want for her daughter. She was stumped.

I suppose if you wanted to wrap the subject in men's rights way, which I notice you often do, Highlonesome, you could rephrase the question, what do you want for your daughter that you don't want for your son. Either way, most will answer that they want a world where their child can reach their highest potential unhindered, supported and with nurturance, with love and respect for their gender, and not conditional upon the posession of a particular genitalia.

That is feminism. I believe that to answer the OP's question, No, in our patriarchial society, saying you're a humanist without regard to gender is in it's own way a disrespect of gender, and anti-feminist.

And you're very observant.

In one sense, you are calling someone privileged simply because they are not oppressed, or not as oppressed as another group. That hardly seems like a "privilege" if, in some ways, white males are treated as human beings whereas other types are disciminated against.

In another sense, it sounds like you are making me part of the oppressing class, instead of another victim.

So am I one of those "people with privilege refuse to acknowledge the specific challenges faced by an oppressed people"? To me, every member of the working class or lower class is an oppressed person. I do not see some of them as privileged just because they are white males.

sit down and shut up. it gets the person off the hook from having to deal with reforming their behavior, language, etc.

i love your "privilege cop-out" term! it says it all. as long as everyone keeps fighting the fight of the privilaged, they will welcome you. as soon as you need some help with your fight they run away saying, "you're undermining OUR solidarity with your dang issues."

Groups like fathers4justice here in the UK certainly *claim* to be working for gender equality, and I suspect many of their members are not feminist (although to be fair I don't know all that much about them).

I'm not sure that I buy that claim, but from the phrasing of the question they probably qualify even if it's not true.

You can claim to seek gender equality and not be a feminist. But what is equality then?