StarOcean said:
That’s literally all there is to being a feminist. If you think there’s more to it than that, you have problems, bud. And of course I’m a mens right activist. You know that spreading your legs in New York subways can get you fined or even pulled off a train? That law only applies to men. That’s an unfair law. I’m also very much pro-fair social system. And being for a fair social system hardly qualifies anyone as a Democrat.
So you’re essentially saying it is a political view that women get equal rights to men? That’s not a political stance, that’s called being a sexist, still. If you are among the people who think feminist means dying your hair blue and cutting it short while advocating for the “some are more equal than others” approach -I had better not ever see any hypocrisy over how you feel about gun owners, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc that all have bad and extremists among them. Feminism and feminists are different things. Ones a concept which I highly doubt you don’t support. Feminists are people, many of them flawed and have warped ideas of what feminism truly is.
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Well, so we basically agree but argue over semantics then? That's fine with me. I still wouldn't call myself a feminist because modern day feminism goes way beyond arguing for equal rights, as you pointed out in your manspreading example. It's not people like me who dragged the word "feminism" through the mud, it's the radical people who will define feminism as equality between the sexes and then say we can only reach equality by making laws against manspreading (happened in Madrid and Berlin, too) and banning grid girls in Formula 1 (thus, taking away women's right to choose their job, based on a political opinion).
I get what you are saying about real feminism but when those radical people make the laws (and at least in Germany, are among the heads of three major political parties which constitute 40% of the parliament seats), maybe the dictionary needs to change its definition then. Or we should politely ask the radicals not to identify as feminists, but that won't be happening I think.
And I absolutely think that "women should have the right to vote in a democracy" is a political view. It may be a well-established view that doesn't get debated anymore, but sure it is - it answers the question how our political system should work, after all. It also stems from the traditions of liberalism and social democracy (in Europe), which are two of the big political ideologies of the past few hundred years (besides conservatism). Of course, I was actually talking about radical feminism and if you want I can change my argument to this: "Radical, third wave feminism is a political view and shouldn't be treated as gospel or taught in schools, just as we shouldn't teach social democracy or communism or nationalism as being 'correct' in schools." But again, now we are arguing over semantics and definitions. It's a fun discussion, nonetheless!