| Nymeria said: When discussing the sexes the challenge I see these days is to convey that we're in this together and gains are not zero sum in nature. Feminism was about, and should be, promoting equality and seeing areas where our male counterparts are suffering. We've had a long history of struggle through discrimination, we should seek to be better than the model of the past. If we're fighting, we will all fail. If we cooperate, we can make society better for everyone. |
I feel that the formulation above loses something important, indeed defining, about feminism: women!
Feminism, as the term suggests, is about liberating women from patriarchal social relations. It's not about making men feel better or apologizing for having won some reforms and agreeing to compromise them away. It's not a men's movement for women. It isn't #NotYourShield or #NotAllMen. I just think we need to remember that.
The onus of preventing misogynistic violence such as we are discussing here is not on us as women. It is on those who commit it and on a culture that promotes the corresponding mindset that led thereto. I think there are ways in which men can benefit from the changing of such a culture, yes. In the long run. In secondary ways that cost many special privileges. But I just think we need to remember who the women's movement is primarily for, not just who it may benefit eventually by proxy effect.
Last edited by Jaicee - on 24 May 2018
