Why does one thing have to be more important than the other? They are not mutually exclusive. Just like one can be a feminist and a humanist, right? Cosmo has lots articles about beauty care products. Is that bad? It seems to me that is what their target market wants to read about. Now, if I was a female, I might not want to read about that high priced crapola, to be completely honest. I might want to feel loved and beautiful without having to dress myself up.
But Cosmo isn’t just beauty care articles, actually they are mostly beauty care advertisements and photo spreads, not so much articles. The articles tend to be about health, fitness, sex, relationships, work and family life balance, all relevant and seemingly nonthreatening topics. Even for a guy. I am reading an article right now about a woman who lives in NYC who describes herself as a NYC 6 or 7. The article is about her date with a male model. A guy she describes as a 10. She says, in the article, she knows she’s going to sleep with him and then brag to her friends about it later.
The article isn’t about sex, if I want erotica, I’ll shop on Ebay for it or go to Barnes & Nobles, the article is about the authors lack of self esteem leading her to believe that having sex with her rude date will elevate her social status. I won’t ruin the ending, the point is Cosmo has interesting articles in it, while hawking all those over priced beauty products.
Here’s what I think: “feminist” is not a very good term, PR-wise. Its definition is generally “person who believes in equal rights for women.” But the word itself has a flavor that suggests something else–and also makes it seem weird for males to be feminists, in a way that it doesn’t seem weird to be, say, a “civil rights advocate.” It has “-ist” on the end, which it shares with a lot of words that have negative connotations.
Early women’s rights groups should have hired the PR people used by gay rights folks, who (in my opinion) came up with two of the most effective PR terms ever: “homophobia” and “marriage equality.” I would also give credit to the folks on the other end of the political spectrum who came up with “death tax.”
I suspect that there are plenty of people who would not call themselves feminists–but who essentially adhere to all the tenets of feminism.
I think one can be a feminist and be devoutly religious, which is one definition of “not a humanist” although many religious people - i.e., priests, rabbis I know - would describe themselves as humanists who happen to be religiously observant (or some other words to that effect). But in general I think the definition of humanist can be encompassing: it’s like the class and feminist is the object, sort of like “I like baseball” versus “I’m a Royals fan”. Feminist is an instance, an object (which is also a class because there are categories of feminist) specified in the conceptual class of “humanist”.
Personally, as the father of daughters, I’m an ardent feminist, which to me is a set of specified objects: equal to men in every way, not to be abused, not to be denied their female attributes, etc. These could fit into the larger class of humanist but you see how definitional problems arise: at the humanist level, female and male attributes tend to get mushed together and that leads to expectations that men and women should be treated exactly the same always because they’re fundamentally not differentiated at that class level.
(Sorry, just realized I’ve been dealing with data paradigms all morning and am still talking like that.)
Good post #24. Connotations are important and how you “brand” your movement is critical. Calling something a death tax upsets people. Billing it as a way to make sure the super wealthy don’t get too powerful is a lot easier to sell. So, let me ask the board this.
Did the feminist movement also get hurt by the idea that to be a feminist meant that one had negative issues about men? Because if it is about equality that is one thing but when it crosses over the line to hating an entire gender it is a whole different thing. I ask that without any intention to bait. I am having a spectacular week, full of great news, I like this board because of the intelligence of the crowd here, I don’t get my jollies by offending people.
I don’t think feminism ever meant hating men. But I think the choice of term may have helped the opponents of feminism to attack it with that insinuation.
I remember back in the '70s when men would ask women if they were a feminist. It was asked with a sneer and a wink and as if the word were in quotes. Back then, a feminist was someone to put down, probably because men didn’t get it yet and were threatened by it. So men ascribed nasty motives to feminists – like, they hate men.
Or maybe some of the more vocal representatives of feminism were anti-male? I know it works better to blame everything on men, but sometimes there is a reason for stereotyping.
If you read Betty Friedan’s book, it is not at all anti-men. Nor was/is Gloria Steinem. There were and are some very angry women out there, but that wasn’t the point of feminism. Women were upsetting the status quo by taking themselves seriously and not paying attention to what men thought. Every revolution requires changing the status quo. Asking if you were a feminist, with a sneer, was a way to denigrate the woman you were talking to and keep her in her place. Feminism was threatening to most men, and continues to be threatening to some.
To many in power, any threat to their complete and total domination is a personal attack. We see it in all sorts of supremacy- (for the West) male supremacy, white supremacy, Christian supremacy, etc. Any threat to their position on the pecking order = hatred from the other side. Asking for inclusion of other religions? Attack on Christianity. Equal rights for minorities? Must hate white people. Equality for women? Must hate men.
Of course there are feminists who hate men just as there are people of ANY category who hate people of another category. To even imply that they’re the norm though is just laughable.
As is the case with all social movements there were/are some radical outliers in the feminist movement. I remember hearing Mary Daly speak, and even as a committed feminist I disagreed with much of what she had to say. I think people uncomfortable with the concept of women speaking out against gender equality have always pointed to the outliers as evidence that feminism is all about man hating, the same way people pointed to the Black Panthers or the Weather underground as evidence of the dangers of the civil rights or peace movements, or the way you currently hear people opposed to gay marriage using flamboyant men in drag at festivals as evidence that gay families are outside the norm. It’s easier to latch on to a stereotype than look at the variety of positions encompassed in a movement.
BTW, opening jars is one of those things I use to show my kids the advantage of brains over brawn. Smack that jar lid with the back side of a knife and it will break the seal, allowing you to easily open a formerly tough to open jar. I used to open jars for my (quite strong) husband until I showed him the trick.
I agree with Romani’s definition. FWIW, I’m both a feminist and humanist. I’m pretty sure all the men in my life are also feminists.
I don’t blame everything on men, but I’m still pretty shocked that we never passed the ERA. I was at the Mall demonstration in 1978 - it was a sea of white, but like most demonstrations, didn’t really accomplish much.
I took a women’s history seminar as a tiny class offered by my house at Harvard, the (male) tutor was shocked that none of us had read Betty Friedan and made us read her. It was pretty eye-opening and certainly made me understand my mother better.
