The war on Feminism: continued

Andrew Kenway
Team Member

ne of the most popular arguments
Onveinst feminism is that it's a massive,
money-making machine designed to deliver
unto women unbridled superiority. Some
believe that while feminism began as a
movement entirely about equality, it has
since become a dangerous overreach that
aims to crush all men in its mighty iron
claws. One argument remains strangely
prevalent: "If feminism is really about
equality, why does it start with fem? You
know, as in female?"

This point of view not only seeks to erase
and undermine the hard-won victories of
one of the most progressive movements
of the last century, but also shows a
fundamental inability to understand how
words work. The prefix of a word does
not create the word's entire meaning.
Under this logic, homo milk should be
undrinkable by straight people. It's not,

if you were wondering, because that's not
how words work. Still, many men aim to
free themselves from the oppressive word
that's held them back for far too long now.

Yes, there is a massive and long-standing
call that feminism should have to change
its name if it is to have any chance of
standing for real equality. Many options
have been thrown out there, most of them
ridiculous and ill-conceived. Some enjoy
the term “equalists”, though to watchers
of the hit cartoon Avatar: the Legend of
Korra, it might just sound like they're
stealing the name from cartoon bad guys.

“Humanist” is another popular revision,
many suggest, but they always seem to
forget to specify what kind. Since even a
five-second Wikipedia search reveals that
there are secular humanists, religious
humanists, or--if they were really aiming for
hipster points--Renaissance Humanist, the
fact that the term is rarely expounded upon
shows how little thought goes into these

classifications. As Feminspire blogger Sherrie

Silman says on the subject, "Feminism
isn’t called Humanism or Egalitarianism
because Egalitarianism and Humanism
pre-existed the idea that ‘women could or

all

even should be recognized as persons.

This leads to the second common argument:
"Men are more oppressed than women
now." This is one of those arguments

that's difficult to argue against, because

it just seems so obviously incorrect. Even
with false statistics that make the wage
gap appear dissolved, it's hard to believe
that people believe this so vehemently.

Feminism is seen as an Emperor-Palpatine
or Jafar-like power-grab, in which the
dangerous women plotting behind closed
doors seek to destabilize society as a whole.
The people who make this argument
generally disregard wage gap, rape culture,
and literally anything else that disproves

this agenda as complete fiction.

Finally, the king of all terrible arguments is
that of tone: when a feminist becomes loud or
angry, and someone says "Hey now, no one's
going to listen to you when you sound so
mean about it." They don't mind the equality
thing as long as it doesn't affect how they feel
as a human being. People in power generally

aren't too fond of giving it up. There are not
many historical instances of someone politely
requesting social rights or independence.
Some people are fine with feminism as long
as they don't have to hear about it, which
sort of defeats the purpose. Social Justice
doesn't generally progress when ignored

by society, and a recent influx of feminist
ideals being injected into the North American
conciousness via the internet leaves some
people quite chafed. When somebody is
unfairly discriminated again, becoming
angry is a relatively normal reaction.

In recent years there's been greater

Osinions

considerable backlash than ever against
the feminist movement, but the movement
has always had backlash. Just because
people don't like social justice or equality
affecting their lives, doesn't mean that
rights aren't going to be fought for.

As for all of the Men's Rights Activists, gender
equalists, and humanists out there, well, the
second anyone under those banners does
half as much to lift oppression as feminism
has in its modern incarnation we'd all be

glad to hear it. Until then, these equality
movements that have never actually done
anything for equality, but try to de-construct
feminism, can just keep wasting everyone's
time with these three defunct arguments.

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