Feminists: Opinions on...?

tony blair set up the minister for women thing and she combats all forms of inequality, focusing on gender. women suffer more from sexism, thus i guess they called her minister for women. personally i think minister for equality would be a better name considering thats what she really does and that is actually the aim of feminism - equality.

Also I just want to comment on the differing definitions of a 'feminist'. It seems that most of the people in this thread believe that a feminist is a woman who strives for a female dominated society, and call out men on almost everything they do and labelling it as misogynistic. In my opinion, that is not a feminist. To me, a feminist is anyone, man or woman, who believes that men and women should be equal, and in cases when a woman is truly being undermined, they stick up for them. I am not part of any feminist movement, but by the latter definition I identify as a feminist, and I hope the image of feminists being crazy women with no sense of humour can be eradicated soon.

If there was a men's minister, the feminists would be outraged and they would take it to the media for sure. This double standard is a tell tale sign that the ideology of feminism is no longer (if it was ever) for equality between men and women, but more like a mission for female world dominance. ( this is just how i see it as a non feminist female)

My college has a 'men's rep' and a 'women's rep', and it makes perfect sense, as there are certain gender specific issues. I'm not sure feminists would be outraged about that - they may be outraged if there was a men's one and not a women's one, but personally I think you're wrong on this particular issue.

Why don't we drop this delusional idea of feminism and take up humanitarianism, we are all human after all. (image)

Equality implies a lack of preferential treatment either way. If feminists want true gender equality, that implies that the emotions of males are given every bit as much consideration as that of females, and males shouldn't be expected to just "be strong" or otherwise be at risk of being considered a "pussy", even when that implies receiving empathy and compassion should no longer be a female prerogative, and thus shaming males into being Teflon would no longer be acceptable, even when this would be in the interests of the kind of woman who finds empathy and compassion a burden. If the latter is not a concern, then such "equality" is merely a front for female supremacism.

Equality also implies that sexism against males be treated no better or worse than sexism against females. A woman claiming "all men are pigs" should not be any more or less acceptable than a man claiming "all women are cows". Jokes about chopping off men's penises, or "man flu", should not be any more or less acceptable than jokes about mutilating women's clitorises, or women on their periods. And so forth. Again, if this is not a concern, the supposed "equality" is not that, but a hypocritical front for female supremacism.

Furthermore, equality implies not only equal rights, but equal responsibilities. Blame-shifting and absolving oneself of accountability would therefore not be any more acceptable from females than from males.

Furthermore, equal responsibilities would imply that equal quotas should also apply to the most dangerous and life-threatening jobs which are currently almost exclusively male, and any compulsory military draft to the front line (endangering life and limb) should also be compulsory for females. On lifeboats "women and children first" would also have to go. Since all of these are, by definition, sexist. And not "benevolent" sexism either, just sexism, as it's clear they are to the detriment of males. Real gender equality would thus be passionately concerned about these issues just as much as those which disadvantage women. Otherwise it's clearly not equality which is desired.

I don't see many feminists gung-ho about that. Not only does it contradict their evidently false notion that females are always the oppressed sex via a patriarchy which is in men's interests to the detriment of women, but the only conclusion I can come to is the logical one, that many of today's feminists are more interested in male-bashing female supremacism than true gender equality, despite their protestations to the contrary.

I can't help but completely agree. for example, "feminism" is an awful word for equal from the very beginning because it is about females and not everybody, hence the name "fem"inism. if you thought that men had more problems than women and you desired to make men more equal, you wouldn't call yourself a "feminist", you'd call yourself, by this logic, a "masculinist/menist" - but really, either of these terms has an emphasis of one gender over another, and for equality to be meaningful and not trivial it should put equal emphasis on both genders or at least individuals as a group without a gender - so it would be either "humanist/humanitarian"/"egalitarian" or "legal individualist" (in the equality-based manner of speaking)

but alas (or alad ) women equality-advocates (some genuine, some misandrists) continue to use to term "feminist" and thus I want nothing to do with them until they change their name to actually adopt equality and not gender preferentialism

Oh dear, so wrong. I'm sorry but by that logic;

The "huMAN" race only contains men
"woMAN" and "woMEN" are all about men
to be a "huMANist" you're only concerned about men

Feminism is obviously concerned with issues affecting women but being a feminist does not mean that you aren't also concerned about those affecting men. Many ideologies in feminism tie in with men's equality too.

Parts of Masculinism tie in with different parts of feminism.

Feminism is a term with an awful lot of stigma attached to it. I feel like a parrot on TSR because I constantly have to repeat the same things; feminists do not want preferential treatment for women. Any that say they do aren't feminists.

You can be a humanist and a feminist at the same time. If you feel feminism isn't for you, that's fine, but don't dismiss it on the basis of a NAME.