Boys & Feminism

More men should support feminist ideas because its just one part of the fight to create equality for all. Equal rights for women (which is great in its own right) will mean that we are a step closer to achieving class equality where there is equality of opportunity which in turn would lead to a reduction in racism (as race is linked to class). Men who are right wing and want to keep the status quo probably don't like feminism but imo some form of feminism is necessary.

The world is basically run by straight, Christian, white guys. Those of us who belong to that group have the responsibility to care about issues that effect people who don't -- There are LGBT issues we should care about, women's issues we should care about, issues effecting ethnic/racial/religious minorities we should care about. It doesn't make us any 'worse off' to care about others, nor does it make issues that effect straight, Christian, white men any less important, so why the stink about it?

I'm a male feminist -partially for reasons for self-interest though - if feminism means that women are required to participate fully in the labour market like we do then it means society is more productive and we no longer have to support them financially like in the past. That means we have more disposable income to spend on ourselves and more to devote to our hobbies. Also, everyone regardless of gender can then be autonomous - they don't interfere in our lives, we don't interfere in theirs.

I used to be a feminist and im a female, quit because I've first hand experienced on social networks sites such as twitter and tumblr how racist mainstream (white) feminism is. For example in my home country somalia, FGM and rape as war punishments is very common and right now there are many rape crisis centres and hospitals for women and children established by somali women. HOWEVER, white feminists still go on "self exploration" trips to my home country with their saviour complex believing that their western experience of equality can free a bunch of "oppressed" african women. Completely ignoring the work somali diaspora are doing themselves to reverse the atrocities happening. This isn't just my home country this is every third world country and yes it is very patronising.

Feminism seems to be about "oh look at me I'm saving these poor brown and black women"
And ignoring the fact that many of these african countries where matriarchal and EQUAL societies before colonisation of the British empire and other European countries.
I still believe in feminist values but I feel comfortable labelling myself as a womanist (if you don't know what womanism is search Angela davis)

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Feminism attracts too many idiots, who in turn attract too much attention.

Gender equality however I do agree with; as do reasonable feminists? That's why they should ditch the feminism label.

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My complaint isn't labeled at feminists as such. (...)

Just replace feminism with gender equality ism and focus on problems that face men as well as women (even if there are more problems facing women than their are men) and you would save a lot of time and arguing.

I'm more than happy to support gender equality for both men and women.

I disagree. Feminism is a movement, it is not the belief in itself.
Same with religion. If I believed in god but didn't follow a particular religion, I would not be religious.

I personally know a few 'tumblr feminists', and I would not describe them as radical or stupid, yet they seem to represent the feminist movement as a whole pretty well.

I don't believe that modern feminism is helping anyone, so how can I call myself a feminist?

Men will never like feminism, (...)
The rise of feminism has been detrimental to families and society in general, the order of things has now overturned - this would be okay if both parties had the same attributes and the same weaknesses. However this is not the case.
Men and women are equal; but they are not the same.
Therefore they have equal worth in and of themselves, but different roles. The issue is that patriarchy is now seen as the enemy of a 'good' 'developed' 'modern' society however those living under patriarchy would've probably disagreed.

It is true that modern feminism is poisonous, it is also contagious, it makes women think they are empowered and free. But they are not. (...)

It is important to note that I am saying women are unable to be successful in their careers; in fact, the issue isn't in ability; in the rise of modernism one can see that women are more than able to be successful in a working environment, however just because someone can do something doesn't mean they should.

I am a woman, by the way

I believe in equal rights but I'm not strictly a feminist. Feminism is about solving gender equality through focusing on one genders problems. I don't believe we can achieve complete equality if we only focus on one gender! Males have plenty of problems, perhaps not as much but they're still serious (such as treatment in family court or the inequality when it comes to stop and searches/ harsh sentencing of boys compared to girls). I can find feminists really rude too and sometimes it seems they're just looking for things to complain about.

If you want equality, there shouldn't be a "feminist" and a "menist". Maybe an "equalist" group would be better.

I would never belittle problems faced by anyone because I don't have the same problems firstly. And I understand that the name can lead to men feeling left out but do you think changing the name will change much in the minds of men. As I have heard this loads of times in the thread, and I'm wondering if changing the name is just an escape comment.

Well, preventing extreme feminists from attacking men would be a start, but that seems unlikely to work out.

Alternatively, you could alter the movement to directly help men. That would be an alteration of the movement, though, regardless of what many feminists seem to believe. It is, and always has been, about the advocacy of women's rights in pursuit of gender equality. At this point, that idea is becoming increasingly murky.

To be honest, I think that feminism really needs to sort out its PR. It's a term that's in danger of becoming synonymous with sensationalism, especially after the recent scientist shirt fiasco.

Why would you change the name feminism to egalitarianism, it would still be the same. Egalitarianism is a separate movement in itself.

Okay I think you misunderstood basically everything I said so I will explain it more clearly. Let me give you the definition of feminism according to oxford dictionaries:

"The advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes."

Advocacy means public support. Hence this definition means literally the support of gender equality.

And yet another definition:

"advocating social, political, legal, and economic rights for women equal to those of men." Again, literally saying the support of gender equality.

Yes feminism can also refer to the movement, but being a feminist does not mean you are carrying on a movement. It means that you believe in the equal rights of each gender.

Same with religion:
"the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods." so basically, if you believe in god you can count as someone who is, to an extent, religious, even if you don't belong to a particular religion. Just like feminism, I believe that if you agree in gender equality, then you are a feminist, even if you don't agree with what everyone else who calls themself a feminist says.

Maybe religion was not a good example. I don't know much about religion so sorry about that. And I was also not trying to say that all feminists on tumblr are wrong. I am on tumblr, and I am a feminist, but not a radical feminist. I know lots of people on tumblr who are feminists without being ridiculously ignorant and extreme. I was trying to say that just because you see some posts on tumblr that are wrong and don't actually represent good ideals of feminism, and just because there are some others that identify as "feminist" that do not have good ideals, does not mean that you shouldn't identify as feminist.

What I'm trying to say is that feminism has gotten a bad stigma attached to it and because of that people aren't willing to identify as so; even if they are actually feminists.

Also, I think we do still need feminism. I've said it on this post already but there are incredibly sexist and horrible things happening in places other than the western world; even if we cannot change it directly, feminism is still needed in those kinds of places. The example I mentioned earlier was Malala Yousafzai who was shot because she spoke out against people in Pakistan for banning girls from going to school (she survived and has since won a nobel peace prize at the age of 17). Girls are forced into marriaged, raped, abused, murdered by husbands and it is considered acceptable in many countries. Yes, maybe things as extreme as that hardly ever happen in Western societies, but feminism is still needed.

I think the issue with feminism is that's there are many branches and ideologies of feminism depending on people's backgrounds and ethnicity. Feminist definition is not universal and that's when it gets ****ty. Especially the fact the white women dominate narratives and women of colour are silenced or a pawns in their saviour complex. Feminism is flawed and as a female who does have feminist opinions any other woman who isn't white shouldn't bother with it

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Have you heard of Malala Yousafzai? She is a Pakistani teenager who was shot because she spoke out against the Taliban stopping females from attending school.

"Yes they were treated worse but not anymore" Okay I have a few things to say about this.

In consideration to what I said about Malala, I think it's easy to say that there is still extreme gender inequality in the world. Maybe not nearly this extreme in Western society, but the rest of the world still exists and feminism is most certainly needed in cultures such as this.

Secondly, let me give a few examples in modern western society. Elliot Rodger is an example of a boy who killed people because one girl rejected him. Within this case itself, he says incredibly sexist things in a video he recorded before he shot people. Not only that, but much of the response to this by men was that "she shouldn't have lead him on". Also, in reference to rape culture as a whole, many videos on youtube for example this one also show how people accuse the victim as the reason for the incidents happening. Even if not explicit, asking a victim of harassment or rape "what were you wearing?" is sexism in western society at it's finest. And, if you flip the coin, if it's a male that has been raped, I have seen (I can't find but may be able to later on) many men replying to such news articles/etc that "he should have enjoyed it" or "lucky bastard". No. Again, that is a perfect example of rape culture and how any man that gets laid or raped is lucky and any woman who gets laid is a slut or any woman who gets raped was asking for it.

It may not be incredibly explicit sexism, and perhaps not everyone supports such things, but examples such as those are very much within Western society.

Although I do agree that gender equality has gotten better, we are still a long way from it - not just for females, but for males too.

EDIT: It might also be worthwhile to point out that I have experiences sexism first hand and that this is not all just from reading stuff on the internet. Although I can't provide sources, last year one boy in my sixth form literally said that "boys are cleverer than girls" (he was being completely serious), and my maths teacher only a few weeks ago was making jokes about how girls can't play sports and watching a girl play sports is boring (he said that the reason the person in the math question didn't have a high probability of hitting the ball was because the person was a girl). If those aren't examples of western sexism then idrk what to say anymore.

I was suggesting a name change because you said you didn't like the term and what it stood for. But back to your question are you saying ditch feminism altogether?