History of Feminism
In reply to the discussion: If I Admit That ‘Hating Men’ Is a Thing, Will You Stop Turning It Into a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy? [View all]caseymoz
(5,763 posts)and frustrated that what should be easy to resolve isn't going anywhere. This article doesn't hurt, but it doesn't help.
I don't see myself as imposing any system on women. If anything, I'm as far out of power as you can get. Even if I see unfairness in the system, it's not a system I strengthen or enforce. I'm frequently disgusted at how women are treated by other men (and sometimes by women). I'm disgusted by biases against women incorporated into the system. Many men feel the same way I do.
I'll give two examples: rape in the military. I think it's a shocking scandal; I think it's an atrocity. It transcends any issue I have about "misandry." However, I'm not in the military. I'm a civilian on disability. The military does absolutely nothing I want it to do. I want its budget cut; I want it to stay out of foreign countries. If my voice isn't heard about that, I definitely have no power over rape among service members. I try to stay neutral when I'm told that men "support a rape culture." It's not like I can detach my penis to avoid collateral damage from that remark.
Another example is the Steubenville rape case. Laci Green was right when she said that the case was just one horror story after another. That was the one case where I could see the "rape culture" in action. How the boys involved called the girl a whore and slut, how the girls who were at those parties concurred, and then how the adults closed ranks around those boys. Then, when the light sentence on just two of the rapists was pronounced, how the news agencies showed sympathy toward these guys.
I was shocked and disgusted, and again, uninvolved except for blogging and posting. Yet, I'm told by feminists that men are behind this. I look between my legs and find that presence of my penis has convicted me again. As a point of fact, two of Jane Doe's female ex-friends got up on the stand and witnessed against her character, implying that she was a liar and a slut. The original prosecutor in the case, a female, tried to sabotage it.
I try not to take collateral damage from the rhetoric and outrage, and I remember that whatever feelings I have that are microscopic in comparison to rape and the tolerance of it. However, sometimes feminist rhetoric and anger gets too broad.
Maybe the limits of our language is at fault; I don't know. It's hard to listen to the discussion made in generalities about males without suddenly hearing one you have to take personally.
BTW, I'd never think of saying that feminists should instead emphasize "humanism." For one, I think humanism is an assumption of feminism. I don't even call myself feminist anymore because the term is absurd for a male. I call myself pro-feminist.