Quote:As someone who shares his stance (I think), I have to say, you are too quick to take a dismissive tone towards terminology defining stances; after all, that is kind of the point. And me, personally, I use words to describe the positions I take. What a novel concept, right?The defining terminology shouldn't be the number one reason for someone who takes a position, the truth is if feminism worked the same way it does and had a different word to describe it more people would identify as such.
Quote:It was called feminism because it meant to fight gender inequality, and actually, by the name itself, it is dismissive of men's issues and any other issues. By definition, it is about women first, and only women. It is not femitransgenderandronism, it is feminism. FEM. Inism. Femme. Female-ism.(Bold mine) - It still is, the fact you don't realize it doesn't change anything
It's not dismissive of men's issues given that a significant number of rational feminists care about men's stereotypes, problems, issues and inequalities - Rational feminists don't want men to work for an outdated concept of masculinity, or to be circumcised at birth, or to be mocked for being raped - So is that not helping men? Have you actually read feminist literature, or feminist blogs, to understand that inter-sectional feminist, currently popular, cares about issues like gender equality but also homosexuals, transsexuals, men, animals, poor people, people of other races and other groups' equality?
Quote:There IS a distinction nowadays between feminism and egalitarianism, whether you like it or not, whether you wanna admit it or not. There is a reason why such differentiation is becoming a thing. It's not because it's trendy or hip or cool; we didn't become atheists because of those things, we didn't adopt the term because it sounds cool; we became atheists, and we take the term of atheists, because that is what we are. Feminism and egalitarianism are not the same thing, and those who are for actual gender equality are shifting their stance accordingly, because feminism is no longer about gender equality, and by its very name, it never was to begin with. Feminism was necessary and useful in bringing awareness to the issues in question, but now with the awareness achieved, we need to work towards making things equal, and it's not just women who are being discriminated against, and there's no reason nowadays to prioritize women over anyone else; man, woman, transgenderal/transsexual, gender-neutral, all should be equal, and it should no longer be a focus upon just one group when we are now all being made aware of inequalities across ALL regions of the issue.(bold mine) - So what is feminism? An ideology to suppress and oppress men? Give me a break, the definition of feminism is fighting for gender equality.
Not useful? Awareness achieved? From the moment people still think both genders are completely equal just because the law says so, I think awareness doesn't exist to the extent you claim.
Feminists don't think women are the only group being discriminated against, like I said many fight for all kinds of inequalities - You can be an egalitarian, a feminists, a pro-gay marriage, pro-race equality person - Why does one position prevent the other?
Feminism focuses specifically on women's issues more prominently because between both genders (male and female) women are still the ones, worldwide and in the western world, with higher inequality and issues to be solved despite the effort frustrated males in reddit and tumblr make to ignore them. Feminism doesn't need to focus extensively on men's rights because despite what the MRA association says men are not being oppressed by women worldwide and there's no need to create a men's rights movement given that the status and social comfort of men in most places is reasonable and the issues it has are already addressed by both feminists and male activists against stereotypes. However feminism also focuses on other problems like I've stated already so your claim that feminism is gender centred and doesn't give a shit about anything else is a no brainer.
I'm an egalitarian, feminism is a part of my egalitarianism - you can be a feminist and not an egalitarian, since you may not care about other discriminated groups, but you can't be an egalitarian without supporting the feminist definition of gender equality.
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you