You can be traditional and a feminist. Saying you're not a feminist is saying you don't think men and women should be treated equally.
This isn't how anybody uses the word today. What you're talking about has a word: it's call egalitarianism. Feminism was a movement for women's suffrage, equality under the law, etc.
After the original wave died, a bunch of disparate groups--many of them nutty as hell--co-opted it and played the semantics game you're playing: "YOU BETTER BE A FEMINIST OR YOU'RE AGAINST GENDER EQUALITY. Blah blah blah..."
Whatever. It's time the word be retired--it serves to purpose other than to confuse the issue because crazy people--crazy women, largely, but some men too--run around calling themselves feminists who don't believe in equality under the law: They believe in misandry, that women are superior to men.
Feminism has been used to mean so many things, that it is now a vacant concept. If you're a feminist does it mean you support equality before the law for women, or equality of outcome, or equality of opportunity, equal treatment, a combination, or perhaps you're a femme-nazi. The end result of the uncertainty over what it means to actually be a feminist is being abused for not being feminist, whatever the hell it means.
As for this your, statement is too vague if you were talking about equality in general; equality before the law and equality of outcome are contradictory ideologies for example. If you meant actions towards women, what about this.
What about if men treat women in general equally or better than they do other men, or vice versa. Is this acceptable?
Sadly, people forget the distinction between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome. And when people run around calling themselves "feminists," they aren't helping.
@xier0
Nuh uh. If racism magically disappeared over night would *hypothetical you* stop supporting movements that stand for equality in races? Whether oppression is or is not a reality is a separate debate/topic. ((Plus it is very much a reality. Middle eastern women in some cases aren't allowed to go to school and be educated.))
And American feminists spend time advocating for the rights of middle eastern women? They spend most of their time fighting imagined battles over imagined issues. When you call yourself a feminist, you associate yourself with a radical group of feminazis today who have co-opted the word: And this does nothing to promote gender equality in religiously extremist societies outside of the West.
@malaka
No. Lol? That's not equal. Equal in the sense that someone doesn't make a judgement BASED ON gender or sex.
And it's your job or the government's job to force people how to think "properly"? What is this, the Soviet Union? You're promoting a totalitarian religious ideology the same as the misogynists in Islamist states.
@Ghast
It does. And most feminists I know or whose activism I support widely acknowledge and post about male stereotypes and forced societal gender roles/oppression. You just hear about all these crazy viewpoints being slapped with the "this is what feminism is" label. It gets headlines and arguments and ultimately, money for the media organisation spreading it around.
"Gender stereotypes." Stop speaking in feigned absolutes--there is no "society" that forces "gender stereotypes" on "little girls."
There are only individuals who--to a lesser or greater degree--believe in different conceptions of gender and sexuality. Some of these people have beliefs that you might label as "stereotypical" and they might teach them to their children. Others don't.
What is your suggested method of changing the way an entire population thinks? And is there any evidence it works--that it has ever worked? And do you really think its worth whatever freedom you're necessarily giving up? And do the people whose freedom you're taking agree with you?
@Hamouze
You don't need to advocate to be a feminist. You can choose to say you are not one but ultimately you pretty much are just without the label. Advocating doesn't make you any more of X, Y, Z.
Again, word games. A waste of time.
Lol that sentence is so sexist, you're saying a woman, because she is a woman, would get overwhelmed with emotions because of responsibility?
You were doing so well before you said this, All those things you mention are Maternal instincts rather than being 'female' - However you're missing the point of equality - its the point that it should be any humans choice to do whatever they want and not be challenged for it based on things out of their control, such as being female and therefore must be maternal/motherly.
And uh, Look at Margaret Thatcher.
Women do tend to be more emotional than men. And men do tend to be more sociopathic--and therefore hard-hitting--than women.
At least in my experience. Is yours really that different? Do you really mean to claim that the only difference between men and women is their genitals--even when their brain structures and chromosomal compositions are completely different?
