40niyr:
There is absolutely nothing wrong with a group of activists focusing on a particular demographic and its problems. For example if I’m particularly sympathetic towards the problems of black Americans, that doesn’t mean I hate black non-Americans or people of different colours and ethnicities and…
There is this problem that a lot of MRAs do have a problem with feminism being mostly about women, and some feminists feels the need to accommodate to these people, which is indeed not necessary.
But I do think that feminism is, or should be, about racism, LGBT rights, and partly about men as well. The “partly about men” thing is automatically covered by the idea that men and women should be treated equally: that way men will suffer less from negative consequences that are connected to strict compliance to male gender roles. Racism is important to keep in mind, because the struggles of white women are different form the struggles of women of colour. Take racism out of the equation, and you’re lead to believe that all women face the same problems: but for women of colour, racism and sexism are forms of oppression that are interconnected, so I think it’s logical that feminism addressed both those issues, at least from a women’s rights point of view. LGBT rights are also connected to women’s rights! Especially when it comes to the T: trans women face more and different oppression than cis women, so that’s also important for feminists to take into account.
As for “even if feminist groups, policies, papers, and overall advocacy deals primarily with the sex-related issues of white, liberal women”, I think you’ve got the difference between second and third wave feminism, there. Lots of people don’t take the paradigma change that feminism went through not too long ago into account, but you’ll notice that these feminist groups/papers/teaching you’re thinking of all find their roots in second wave feminism, which was indeed mostly about white cis women. The whole point of third wave feminism is gaining conciousness of the fact that not all women are white, cis and middle class and incorporating more diversity into the movement. The wikipedia article on third-wave feminism does a pretty good job at explaining the difference between the two waves!
I do indeed think that a lot of feminists have knee-jerk reaction to the MRM, but you have to admit that that is slightly understandable if you consider that a considerable amount of the MRM’s energy is put into opposing and demonizing anyone and anything that is associated with the label “feminism”. Look at the latest drama with the redhead feminist: here’s a woman arguing with a couple of MRAs, obviously someone who’s a bit short-tempered, driven to frustration, reacts in a less than ideal manner, and BAM. At least three A Voice for Men articles on the woman. Youtube videos with hundreds of comments, violent comments directed at the woman, and also violent comments directed at feminism as a whole. The mainstream of the MRM is good at that: ignoring any of the good points many feminists all over the web bring forward and instead using an incident with one individual as “prove” that the entire feminist movement should be rejected.
So I think it’s interesting that you put the blame of the MRM utilizing such tactics on the shoulders of feminism as a whole. I think the reason why these groups are gaining numbers is because people want to believe that everyone is equal and that feminism is just this stupid, unnecessary thing, so they latch on to the dumb things they see individual people who identify as feminist do or say and use that as an excuse to believe that a women’s rights movement as a whole is no longer needed. These people are no less ridiculous than the individual feminists they base their opinions on.
Your assumption that feminists aren’t outraged by drone strikes, the definition of rape or circumcision is, quite frankly, incorrect. Here I am, a feminist outraged by all three of them. But it would be very nice if there were specific movements tackling these problems: are there, though? When has the MRM ever organized protests against infant circumcision? Did the MRM launch a campaign to change the definition of rape to include men (the FBI did change the definition of rape not too long ago, by the way, which was a great improvement. Men can be legally raped in the US and UK now. A lot of feminist activism was involved in that, with the Rape is Rape campaign)? What movement that apparently gets flack from the feminist movement is specifically focussing on being against Obama’s drone policy?
You see, I’m not offended when people aren’t part of my movement. I’m not offended when someone doesn’t call themselves a feminist. I am offended when people make crazy assumptions about me based on the fact that I call myself a feminist. When people wrongly equate feminism with sexism. The dismissal of the entire feminist movement. The denial of the oppression of women throughout history. That makes my blood boil. And while not everyone who goes out of their way to announce to the world that they don’t identify as a feminist does all or any of these things, many of them do. That’s what I have a problem with, and I think that you can find a lot of feminists who feel the same way. Who don’t wish to be seen as “superior”, but simply to be taken seriously.
(haha wow, sorry, this post got out of control. Tl;dr: I think it’s actually very good and important that the feminist movement takes the diversity of its movement into account and thus overlaps other human rights movements, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with people of these other human rights movements not identifying as feminists, I do think there’s something wrong with people of these other human rights movements actively demonizing feminism and all feminists and thus undermining women’s rights. Which, unfortunately, happens a lot in the men’s rights movement).
