Men Should Call Themselves Feminists, But They Shouldn’t Start Fights About It In Other Feminists’ Spaces

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In my opinion it’s okay for men to call themselves feminists. More than okay, I think it’s beneficial. And I call myself a feminist. Feminist men on “Alas” are welcome to call themselves feminists. In my (anecdotal) experience, most feminists welcome men calling ourselves “feminist,” as long as we’re being sincere.

BUT… There are some spaces, mostly radfem spaces, where it’s largely agreed that only women should call themselves “feminist” while men should call themselves “pro-feminist.”

For men to enter such spaces and start arguments about “can’t men be feminists” is harmful. It’s distracting from more important issues, and it confirms the stereotype among some radical feminists that men in feminist spaces insist on being the center of conversation.

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49 Responses to Men Should Call Themselves Feminists, But They Shouldn’t Start Fights About It In Other Feminists’ Spaces

  1. 1
    Navin Kumar says:

    It’s distracting from more important issues

    You could say this about literally anything. “We should stop talking about access to contraceptives – it takes attention away from rape culture.”

    Also, it’s funny how almost no-one ever suggests not discussing a minor female-centered issue lest it take attention away from an important male-centered issue.

    … it confirms the stereotype among some radical feminists that men in feminist spaces insist on being the center of conversation.

    Would you discourage transwomen from asserting that they’re women lest they confirm stereotypes about how transwomen are just men who want to invade female spaces? Would you discourage sex workers from asserting that they’re voluntarily carrying out their work lest they confirm stereotypes about an “elite” group of sex workers who sabotage efforts to rescue all those trapped by traffickers? If not, why not?

    Incidentally, I agree with you, albeit for unrelated reasons. I think fights about “feminism” itself are silly and unproductive, and it’s better to focus on ideas, issues, and activism than get mired in fights about a label.

  2. 2
    mythago says:

    You could say this about literally anything.

    “This” was a discussion about where it is appropriate to have conversations, not what conversations to have. For example, it certainly would be a distraction and pretty rude to drop into a blog meant for male sexual abuse survivors to talk, and start an argument about how women really ought to be able to get Plan B over the counter. That has nothing to do with the importance of access to Plan B.

    I mean, that was the entire point of Amp’s post and was right in the post title. Did you skim, or are you deliberately changing the subject to have an easier argument?

  3. 3
    Navin Kumar says:

    “This” was a discussion about where it is appropriate to have conversations, not what conversations to have.

    A fair point. I misunderstood.

  4. 4
    closetpuritan says:

    Also, it’s funny how almost no-one ever suggests not discussing a minor female-centered issue lest it take attention away from an important male-centered issue.

    Really?

    The issue I’ve usually seen used is “starving children in Africa”, which, granted, is not male- or female-centered, but it certainly gets used on plenty of minor-to-moderate female-centered issues. I can’t think of any male-centered issues it’s been used on, but that’s probably more a function of what conversations I tend to have. Consider the possibility that your perceptions may be influenced by what conversations you happen to have most frequently.

  5. 5
    Copyleft says:

    It’s always viewed as ‘intrusive’ and ‘distracting’ when a group you’ve specifically excluded shows up and tries to participate in the conversation. Odd, isn’t it?

  6. 6
    mythago says:

    and tries to participate in the conversation

    Did Amp edit his post? I also didn’t see him saying “Men should not engage in any discussions on certain websites that do not think men should use the label feminist.”

  7. 7
    Ampersand says:

    It’s always viewed as ‘intrusive’ and ‘distracting’ when a group you’ve specifically excluded shows up and tries to participate in the conversation.

    True, but irrelevant to my post, which wasn’t talking about a woman-only group.

  8. 8
    Ampersand says:

    A fair point. I misunderstood.

    Hey, thanks for acknowledging this. (And thanks, Mythago, for your comment.)

  9. 9
    Tamme says:

    So a man arguing with a woman that he’s feminist when she says he’s not is fine as long as he’s doing it in his own space, or a neutral space?

    I think intruding on people’s spaces is only part of the problem with men branding themselves feminists against women’s objections. The real problem is men believing that they have as much right to define feminism as women do.

    I realise that there are multiple interpretations of what feminism is and that’s healthy, but when one interpretation is coming from a man and one interpretation is coming from a woman, I think it’s fallacious to give them equal weight.

  10. 10
    veronica d says:

    I prefer when men call themselves “feminist allies” than “feminists.” But you know, it’s not something I’m going to fight over. I can live with a man disagreeing with me on this, if he gets the other stuff right.

  11. 11
    closetpuritan says:

    I think intruding on people’s spaces is only part of the problem with men branding themselves feminists against women’s objections. The real problem is men believing that they have as much right to define feminism as women do.

    I realise that there are multiple interpretations of what feminism is and that’s healthy, but when one interpretation is coming from a man and one interpretation is coming from a woman, I think it’s fallacious to give them equal weight.

    I agree with the first paragraph but disagree with the second. Actually, I’m not sure if I’m actually disagreeing with you or just reacting to a phenomenon I’ve seen. I may be taking your second paragraph and the switch from “men/women” to “a man/a woman” overly literally.

    I think you should give women generally more weight when it comes to feminism (POC with anti-racism, etc.) but I’ve seen people discuss stuff in feminist spaces, and there will be an issue where there’s significant disagreement among female feminists and a man will fall on one side and a woman on the other, and the woman will say, “I’m a woman, you need to listen to my experience, you should stop advocating your position” and I’ll be thinking, “I just saw a female feminist advocating that guy’s position last week…”

  12. 12
    Ben Lehman says:

    I find that people telling me I’m not allowed to be feminist is a pretty good indication that this is a conversation I want nothing to do with.

    In feminists, it’s strongly cross-correlated with “male rape victims don’t exist (and were probably asking for it)” and “trans women don’t count as women.” Which are both excellent signs it’s time for me to leave the conversation.

    In non-feminists, it’s strongly cross-correlated with vitriolic rants about the evils of feminism and gender warfare.

    yrs–
    –Ben

  13. 13
    Tamme says:

    @closetpuritan: If a female feminist is advocating for a position that a man is trying to persuade another female feminist of, he should step back and let the female feminist make the case herself.

    It’s true that the best thing a man can do for feminism with his voice is to amplify the words of female feminists, but the fairly obvious caveat to that is, he should amplify them to other men.

    Edit: Having re-read Veronica’s comment, I want to say, I don’t think all men who identify as feminists are doing so because they genuinely want to place themselves at the centre of the feminist movement at the expense of women. I think a lot of them are just naively excited about the possibilities of feminism and want to demonstrate their commitment to it, and in doing so they lose sight of the implications of what they’re saying in connection to their male-ness. Which wouldn’t happen in an ideal world, but we’ve probably all been there to some degree, if not in that particular way.

    It’s when men dig in their heels and make it clear that they are only interested in feminism if they are allowed to brand themselves as feminists that I start to suspect that this “male feminist” label may point to some deeper issues.

  14. 14
    veronica d says:

    If a female feminist is advocating for a position that a man is trying to persuade another female feminist of, he should step back and let the female feminist make the case herself.

    Right, but she might not be in the room at the time, and he is. And perhaps the conversation is nakedly terrible, like the woman is saying that trans women are all agents of patriarchy trying to invade women’s spaces, and the man is saying, nope, that’s hogwash.

    And I guess he can shut up and go away. In fact, that might be best, since a woman who says that is probably not someone you want to waste time with. But on the other hand, he’s right and she’s wrong. Which can happen. Men are capable of saying true things about gender stuff and women are capable of being horribly wrong.

    There is a thing where men center themselves in feminism, and we all recall the mess that was Schwyzer — but your average Facebook spat is something much smaller than that. If he is the only person on scene with the knowledge and insight to counter some terrible stuff, I hope he speaks up.

    On the other hand, if he routinely centers himself in the presence of women, like all the time for every subject — well, that’s a different kind of thing. But note a man can do this while calling himself a “feminist ally.” It is style over substance.

  15. 15
    ScottM says:

    That was the same internal debate I had when Vox had their article about only 18% of Americans wanting to be labeled feminist. If asked in a poll (or elsewhere), my response would probably depend on the preceding questions or conversation.

    I suspect that adding profeminist or feminist ally as labels wouldn’t eke out more than an extra percent or two on the side of good.

  16. I usually say “pro-feminist,” not specifically because I’m a man, but because I don’t have any skin in the game. I’m a fan of feminism, I’m a fan of the Rangers, I can’t skate.

  17. 17
    closetpuritan says:

    The particular conversation I’m thinking of, the female feminist was not present; it was just the 2 people talking about that particular topic in that particular space. It wasn’t something that was obviously terrible like the “trans invaders” thing, either, though. (It was about doxxing people like Violentacrez. The woman was no-doxxing-ever, the man was unsure because it seemed like the only way to stop such people, but still distrustful of Anonymous.) I forget whether it was the woman or the man who started the topic, but the man wasn’t aggressively trying to convince her she was wrong. I think that a man aggressively trying to convince a woman she’s wrong on a feminism-related topic can be icky and easily start feeling mansplainy. (Yes, I know that some people abuse the word “mansplain” and that makes other people not like it. I’m using it right though, so I don’t care.)

  18. 18
    Ampersand says:

    I usually say “pro-feminist,” not specifically because I’m a man, but because I don’t have any skin in the game.

    I believe men do have skin in the game. I recommend reading the entire Noah Berlatsky piece I just linked to, but here’s an excerpt:

    So one thing feminism is about, and has been about, is questioning what it is to be a man, which obviously affects men pretty directly. Women are the main victims of misogyny, because women are inescapably associated with femininity. But other people can suffer, too. Gay men, for example, are stereotypically seen as feminine, weak, frivolous, and helpless: “A pansy has no iron in his bones,” to quote the author Raymond Chandler in one of his more misogynistic and homophobic moments. Similarly, femininity is often seen as fake or inauthentic—a trope that is especially damaging for trans women and men, whose gender identities are often seen as unmanly, false, fake, or performed.

    Nor do straight men escape criticism. Heterosexual guys get many advantages from misogyny; they’re perceived as the least feminine kind of person, and as a result, they are seen as the most valuable and worthy of respect. But that position is always precarious, always threatened by the creeping threat of femininity.[…]

    This is also why misogyny is so devastating for male rape victims. Maite Vermeulen has a painful discussion of the way in which sexual violence against men in wartime is seen as especially shameful—it’s framed as a fall from manliness. Misogyny makes the victims ashamed of the violence done to them; vulnerability, rather than assault, becomes the crime. That’s rape culture, and it protects all perpetrators of sexual violence, from Steubenville to Penn State, no matter whether that violence is targeted at women or men, girls or boys.

    Misogyny, then, is a way to manipulate, shame, and control people, marginalizing not just women, but men, too. And that’s why men should be feminists. It’s true that sometimes male feminists, myself not excluded, imagine we’re brave allies, altruistically saving women by standing up for them. But dreams about men saving women are just another version of misogyny—and, in this case in particular, totally backwards. Misogyny is a cage for everyone. When I call myself a male feminist, I’m not doing it because I think I’m going to save women. I’m doing it because I think it’s important for men to acknowledge that as long as women aren’t free, men won’t be either.

  19. 19
    Copyleft says:

    The real problem is men believing that they have as much right to define feminism as women do.

    Which they do, as long as feminists keep insisting that feminism is about equality for everyone, and not just advocacy for women. As soon as feminism lets go of its notion that it ‘owns’ the concept of equality–that everyone who supports equality is by definition a feminist–then the problem will go away.

    But you can’t have it both ways. You can’t say “feminism is for everyone” and then say “but only women are allowed to say what feminism is.”

  20. 20
    veronica d says:

    It’s a good article, mostly Serano distilled. However, I’m kind of annoyed about the way he mentioned that anti-femininity attitudes affect women, and then says they also affect men, BUT THEN he gives examples including trans women.

    Huh?

    I don’t think he intended to do this. I suspect that, if pressed on the issue, he would realize that, actually, he already covered trans women when he said “women.”

    It’s not that his individual sentences were wrong, but the way he structured his argument was mildly dismissive of trans women. It was othering, even as he probably meant to be supportive.

    This stuff is subtle.

  21. 21
    veronica d says:

    @closetpuritan — I wish more people would just say, “Hey, I don’t want to have this conversation right now,” instead of pulling out the privilege/lived-experience card at every opportunity.

    Which, privilege is very real, and lived experience is critical in shaping our ways of knowing the world. However, they cannot be used as calvinball. That is an unsustainable discourse strategy.

    #####

    All that said, indeed “mansplaining” is a thing, which is a kind of boorishness that happens along one direction of the gender divide far more often than along the other direction. Likewise privileged people seldom want to examine their advantages in the discourse, such as what issues are “questionable” or what topics they can cluelessly pontificate on without paying a price.

    My power to be unfair to cis people (in general) is significantly less than the power of cis people (in general) to be unfair to me. This is true even when we are “just talking.” Thus there is a need for the “privilege” discussion, along with the value of lived experience.

    But still, when we need to talk about these things, let us talk about them. When we are talking about something else, let us talk about that.

  22. Personally, I am a kind of chameleon when it comes to which label to use to describe myself in these terms. Feminist or male feminist feels more natural and is my default because they are the ones I used for the many years before I came into contact with the whole should men call themselves feminists? debate, but I am sensitive to the argument that says we shouldn’t and so, in contexts where people insist the appropriate term is pro-feminist, that’s what I call myself. In general, I just don’t think the stakes are high enough for me to insist that what feels right to me—and I can make all kinds of intellectual and political arguments to support that feeling—should take priority not only over how women feel about the labels male feminist, pro feminist, feminist ally, etc., but also over far more substantive questions and issues that feminism raises relating to men’s lives as men.

    That said, I think Copyleft has a point:

    But you can’t have it both ways. You can’t say “feminism is for everyone” and then say “but only women are allowed to say what feminism is.”

    Which raises the question: Is feminism indeed for men? Which I think is a very different question from whether or not men benefit from feminist analysis and/or activism. By way of personal example, as a survivor of childhood sexual violence, I have benefited tremendously from feminism. As I have written elsewhere, it was in feminism that I first found a language to name my abuse as abuse, and I think the entire community of male survivors owes feminists a similar debt, since the understanding we have of sexual victimization that allows us to recognize men as victims and survivors is rooted in feminist analysis and activism against men’s violence against women.

    That analysis and activism, however, was very specifically not for me. Indeed, as a man, I was more the object of that analysis than its subject, and I think that is still largely the case, perhaps especially when it comes to sexual violence.

    To put this a little differently: what does it mean, from a feminist (by which I mean woman-centered, woman-identified) perspective, to center men’s experience of sexual victimization, especially in a way that includes female perpetrators? How does one even do this?

    To be clear, I ask this question as a matter of observation, not criticism. Valuable and important as I think feminism is, and despite the fact that I call myself a feminist, I am not persuaded that it is best served—or, frankly, that people are best served—by trying to make it a big tent into which all progressive gender-related politics ought to fit.

  23. 23
    Ampersand says:

    Good point – I didn’t catch that, although I remember thinking that he was being a bit all over the place.

    And btw, Veronica, I don’t think I’ve said, welcome to the blog! I’m glad to see your comments here.

  24. 24
    Mandolin says:

    How about: they should fight about it when appropriate in feminist spaces, but not hijack other conversations in order to do so?

    Also, men can be feminists, damn it.

  25. 25
    veronica d says:

    @Ampersand — Thanks :)

  26. 26
    Belobog says:

    Valuable and important as I think feminism is, and despite the fact that I call myself a feminist, I am not persuaded that it is best served—or, frankly, that people are best served—by trying to make it a big tent into which all progressive gender-related politics ought to fit.

    This makes a lot of sense to me, but if feminism concentrates on issues from a woman-centered perspective, it seems to me perfectly legitimate that there should be a corresponding movement to address issues from a man-centered perspective. We can certainly doubt the merits of any mens-rights groups now existing, but I’ve seen arguments that they’re illegitimate even in principle. They claim that a movement to address gendered issues already exists, and that movement is feminism. If we take this claim seriously, men have just as much right to be feminists and define feminisms as women do, and, to build on what Copyleft said, to deny this is just to want to have your cake and eat it, too.
    (I don’t mean to imply that men and women are the only two options here; we may need any number of groups for any number of sexes or genders. I just don’t know enough about such things to comment on them meaningfully.)

  27. Belobog:

    But if feminism concentrates on issues from a woman-centered perspective, it seems to me perfectly legitimate that there should be a corresponding movement to address issues from a man-centered perspective. (Emphasis added)

    This is a clarification, not an argument: My point was not to call for a “men’s movement” of any sort. First of all, in terms of men working collectively towards gender equality, Rob Okun’s anthology, Voice Male: The Untold Story of the Pro-Feminist Men’s Movement, makes what I think is a persuasive case that such a movement already exists. This movement was well-represented at The International Conference on Masculinities, the full program for which can be seen here.

    My point was simply that I am not sure every single progressive manifestation of gender politics needs to be called feminist per se, though I think you would be hard-pressed to find one that doesn’t somehow have its roots in feminist theory, analysis, and activism.

  28. 28
    Patrick says:

    Hard to see how someone could coherently argue that radfem spaces don’t exclude men without giving up an awful lot of ground on other issues of social exclusion.

  29. 29
    closetpuritan says:

    Patrick, is anyone actually arguing that?

  30. 30
    closetpuritan says:

    @veronica d: I agree with all of your response comment.

    @RJN: I think you raise some good points, and I think a lot of it depends on whether you define some of the male-specific issues as “feminist issues” or something else. I’m don’t have a strong opinion on that. But it makes me think of an important caveat to my earlier comment: if the “feminism-related topic” is one where the man has more relevant lived experience than the woman (e.g. the man is a sexual violence survivor and the woman is not, and sexual violence is the topic), the icky ‘splainy dynamics would apply to a woman aggressively trying to convince a man that he’s wrong.

  31. 31
    Patrick says:

    Well, kinda looks like it.

  32. Why are you being coy, Patrick? If you think someone is arguing that and you have a critique, make it.

  33. 33
    Patrick says:

    What? Ampersand said some stuff about spaces, mostly including radfem spaces. Copyleft said something about groups excluding people, presumably referring to said spaces. Ampersand replied, quoted it, and said that he wasn’t talking about a woman-only group.

    Well, yeah, radfems aren’t woman-only. But does that really mean they don’t exclude men?

    The current social justice debate in the primary areas I socialize is over whether gaming excludes women when it plasters sexy women on every flat surface in sight. I rather thought that counted as excluding women. It certainly counts as making the space feel unwelcoming to people who don’t enjoy that, and that disproportionately includes women.

    I’d put serious money on gaming having more women in it than radfem spaces have men. And that women in general feel less excluded by gaming spaces than men feel excluded by radfem spaces, person by person.

    I dunno, maybe I completely misread the conversation and he was talking about something else? But I’m looking at it right now and it doesn’t look like I did.

    Seems like this standard would have some pretty significant implications for how we think about exclusion. Like, when someone claims that Space X excludes women, and some guy pops up to say “I know this one girl who totally loves hanging out there!” I guess we’d have to concede the issue because of that one guy who knows a girl?

  34. Okay, I don’t have time right now to read back through the whole thread, so I am going or now to set aside the specific claims you make about what Amp and Copyleft said. I do want make sure I understand you, though: Are you suggesting that “plaster[ing] sexy women on every flat surface in sight” and all it stands for is fundamentally the same kind of group dynamic as what happens when a radical feminist group tries to create a space free of interference from people, who are usually men, who either can’t or won’t respect the terms of the discussion the group wants to have?

  35. 35
    Patrick says:

    Do you think that radfem groups exclude trans people when they try to create a space free of interference from people, who are usually trans, who either can’t or won’t respect the terms of the discussion the group wants to have about trans people?

    Wonderful way you’ve phrased that.

    No. I don’t think the dynamic is exactly the same. And for the record, I’m ok with a bit of exclusion. I’m happy to stay out of places where I’m not wanted, and to encourage others to do the same.

    But I don’t think that “create a space free of interference from people, who are usually men, who either can’t or won’t respect the terms of the discussion the group wants to have” is a remotely fair way of summarizing the ways in which radfem spaces exclude men.

    I think there’s some pretty serious hypocrisy going on if radfem spaces aren’t going to be considered to exclude men on the grounds that the number of men there are non-zero, but, I dunno, conservative evangelical christian churches are going to be considered to exclude gay people. Number of gay conservative evangelicals? Also non zero. Personally, I think they both exclude in fairly straight forward ways.

  36. 36
    Ampersand says:

    Speaking only for myself, I’m not against “exclusion” generally. Exclusion is a tool, and like most tools it’s not the tool itself which is just or unjust, it’s how and in what context the tool is used. (That seems very obvious, and my bet is that virtually everyone here substantively agrees with that principle, even if they might phrase it differently.)

    I note that I never used the word “exclusion” at all. You were the one who brought it up in this thread, on a thin pretext, which you then spun into an extended response to stuff I never actually wrote.

    I did say the original post wasn’t referring to woman-only spaces. And it wasn’t. You’re inferring stuff I didn’t write and didn’t intend.

  37. 37
    Patrick says:

    I wasn’t the one who brought it up.

    I’m fine with a degree of exclusion as well. There’s a reasonable chance that I’m more fine with it than you are.

    I just think its selling out an awful lot of discourse about “exclusion” to declare that radfem spaces don’t exclude men because there are some men in them.

  38. 38
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    You can claim your group is aimed at gender equality (instead of gender superiority.) This is a good claim, and usually part of feminism.

    You can claim that your group is aimed at broad social improvement which will benefit everyone, not just your group. This is also a good claim, and usually part of feminism.

    You can claim that people of one sex should be able to opine on matters relating to the other sex. This is also a good claim–especially w/r/t process, i.e. the question of how to accomplish a particular goal. It is part of some–but by no means all–feminism.

    Taken together, those things work just fine.

    But the last one tends to change. When it does, it becomes the source of imbalance, and therefore the source of the fallout.

    If radfems used the same discussion rules for themselves as they insist on for everyone else, they wouldn’t be able to opine on a ton of stuff which affects men, and/or they would be obliged to defer to men’s opinions on many issues.

    Obviously they aren’t going to do that. But it is much more difficult to maintain the first two (good) claims while changing the third one.

  39. 39
    Ampersand says:

    Patrick:

    Okay, rereading the thread, I can now see where your argument is coming from. (I had missed/forgotten that Copyleft used the term “excluded.”)

    “Excluded” has more than one meaning – it can refer to the way, in my youth, some “exclusive” clubs excluded Jews from membership – i.e., Jews were 100% banned from being members. It can refer to a social event in which people of a particular description are not physically allowed to be present, for example a “women-only” meeting. It can also refer to the way an environment can be implicitly excluding a class of people from feeling membership or acceptance or necessary comfort levels, such as the example you brought up of a workplace covered with nude pin-up photos.

    (And it has other meanings, as well, but those are the ones that I can think of which are relevant here).

    When I responded to Copyleft, I only considered the “woman-only meeting” meaning, and the other meanings didn’t occur to me. I’d call it a brain fart.

    So yes, I now see what you’re saying. You’re correct to say that “excluded” has a wider meaning than “woman-only spaces,” and I messed up by missing that in my response to Copyleft.

  40. Patrick:

    Do you think that radfem groups exclude trans people when they try to create a space free of interference from people, who are usually trans, who either can’t or won’t respect the terms of the discussion the group wants to have about trans people?

    Wonderful way you’ve phrased that.

    I also think there is a difference between radical feminists’ transphobic exclusion of trans women—trans men would be excluded as men, no?—because radical feminists think they are not really women (which is a pretty overt kind of oppressive bigotry) and the radical feminist exclusion of men because we represent for them precisely the oppression they are fighting against.

    You may disagree that men are oppressors; you may find that designation insulting; but, unless you are going to argue that there is no such thing as male dominance/male privilege/patriarchy, to say “this should be a woman-only space” where we can minimize the presence of male dominance is not the same thing as saying “you, who claim to be a woman, are not really a woman.”

    You are right that both are exclusionary, but the reasons for the exclusion matter.

  41. 41
    Ampersand says:

    I don’t think anyone here would disagree, but I think it’s worth pointing out, if only for the sake of lurkers, that #notallradicalfeminists deny the sex of trans people. See, for example, the TransAdvocate interview with Catharine A. MacKinnon. A sample quote from the interview:

    I always thought I don’t care how someone becomes a woman or a man; it does not matter to me. It is just part of their specificity, their uniqueness, like everyone else’s. Anybody who identifies as a woman, wants to be a woman, is going around being a woman, as far as I’m concerned, is a woman.

  42. 42
    Patrick says:

    Ampersand- fair enough. I tried to post earlier to say that but my internet flaked out on me.

    RJN- Radfem spaces don’t exclude trans women only by calling them men. They also exclude trans women by talking all kinds of shit about them in their comment threads, and ascribing to them nasty personal characteristics they feel they hold as men.

  43. 43
    closetpuritan says:

    Amp–I don’t know if this went through your head, too (sometime’s it’s hard to remember exactly what my thought process was when I wrote something a couple days ago), but I think I read Copyleft’s “specifically excluded” as synonymous with “explicitly excluded”.

  44. Patrick:

    They also exclude trans women by talking all kinds of shit about them in their comment threads, and ascribing to them nasty personal characteristics they feel they hold as men.

    Ok, but since this is also pretty clearly rooted in transphobic bigotry, I am not sure if you are just offering this information or using it to counter something I said.

  45. 45
    desipis says:

    It’s distracting from more important issues

    I tend to think that any argument over rules about who’s allowed to apply labels to themselves, or use certain words, is going to be distracting from more important issues where ever it takes place. I really don’t see why people care so much. Is there some Feminist ™ card that I don’t know about which gets you discount groceries and VIP access at all the night clubs?

  46. 46
    Patrick says:

    I’m pointing out that the means by which radfem spaces exclude men don’t just involve intellectualized philosophical debates about the nature of patriarchy. It also includes the normalization and social acceptance of run of the mill, not at all intellectual verbal abuse directed at men both in particular and in general.

  47. 47
    Ampersand says:

    I haven’t found that to be true of all radfems I’ve encountered, but certainly it’s true of some.

  48. 48
    slack says:

    Copyleft:

    But you can’t have it both ways. You can’t say “feminism is for everyone” and then say “but only women are allowed to say what feminism is.”

    This. Feminism’s goal is to change the culture.

    Men should have a say in it because it will affect them.

    As far as I can tell, there isn’t really a credible alternative gender equality movement to Feminism. Feminism has laid claim to it all. But, favors one half of the population over the other.

    Also, I find it a bit ironic that Feminism is for all genders and sexes but, refuses to change the name from anything other than Feminism yet, expects words like ‘mankind’, ‘guys’, ‘men’ (in the universal sense) not to be used in common language. Granted, a bit of a minor point but, always struck me as odd.

    There is alot of Critical Feminist Theory but, very little criticism of the movement from outside itself that I can see.

  49. 49
    Lee1 says:

    There is alot of Critical Feminist Theory but, very little criticism of the movement from outside itself that I can see.

    Could you clarify this? Are you talking about within academia? The blogosphere? Some other context?