The only thing that hinders extreme factions are moderate factions. Like me. If you think a generic “gender equity” movement wouldn’t generate extreme factions, you either are very naive, or haven’t been reading very widely.

I can easily find you one appallingly misogynistic MRA article for every radfem article you cared to list. There are plenty of extremists on both sides. So if you want to believe the extremist MRAs don’t represent all MRAs, you will have to concede extremist feminists don’t represent all feminists, either. And just as there are extremist feminists and MRAs, so there would be extremist gender equity advocates even in your hypothetical world where the terms “feminism” and “MRA” no longer exist.

It’s basic Golden Rule: if you don’t want to be straw manned by your opponents, don’t straw man your opponents.

The labels of “black/gay/women’s rights advocate” do not ever need to be abolished. Even when all equity is achieved, one does not then cease to be an advocate of the rights achieved. We still support them and seek to maintain them. Likewise the word feminism.

There is also no sense in which women’s equity has been achieved. So even your implied premise (that it’s time to retire the label “feminism”) is false. But your conclusion, that when that time is reached we should retire the word, is also false. As the very second sentence of the article I am referring to in the article you are replying to says: “I would be a feminist even if women all the world over were treated as fairly as men and there was nothing more to be done.” Why? As the very next sentence says: “Because feminism is the view that that is the way things should be, and thus the way we should endeavor to keep things going.”

In addition to feminism, we should be in favor of all other aspects of social justice (by race, class, sexuality, and so on), and in that broad category are several issues of disfavor toward men, too (in measured respect: hence what this gal says, especially in light of her further thoughts, and again what this guy says, both self-described feminists, and both advocates for male gender equity as well).

Why are you opposed to the clearly *more accurate* label “humanist”?

Why are animal rights activists opposed to the clearly *more accurate* label “complex living thing rights activists”?

Why are black rights activists opposed to the clearly *more accurate* label “human rights activists”?

Why are gay rights activists opposed to the clearly *more accurate* label “sexuality rights activists”?

…

Now that you realize the flaw in your form of argument, maybe we can talk like reasonable people?

You are welcome to be both a feminist and a gay rights activist and a racial equality activist and a men’s rights activist (like this guy). None of these terms are exclusive of the others. And each signals where you agree there are problems to address and that you want to address them, or keep them from arising again.

Thus, I am not aware of any feminist (but for extremely rare radicals) who are not gender equity advocates. It’s just not a very efficient word (I’m a gender equityist?) nor does it capture what we want to add to the conversation (if you aren’t already a feminist, you should be; just as if we aren’t already in favor of making men equitably treated in certain domains as well, we should be, but most of us already are).

The real problem is if you are scared of the word feminist, then there is something you need to deal with in yourself. We are already past that. And moving on.

What is not “irrelevant” is that the superior label “gender equality” doesn’t allow for the extreme factions to propagate within the movement like the label “feminism” does. We should correct our labels if they truly do intend to promote equality. This is something everyone can get behind. It’s a way to heal this rift in the movement now. The “strawfeminist” argument falls flat under this crucial pragmatic modification. IMO, any attempt to undermine a more incluse and accurate label such as “gender equality” in favor of “feminism” really does show one’s true colors.

When you institutionalize a polemical label, then you eventually lose the ability to abolish it when it becomes inappropriate. In this one, people are seen as ‘women haters’ if they do not want to adopt a label that is both semantically inaccurate and unproductive. It’s just a fact that the label ‘feminism’ is less effective at preventing extreme factions who DO have a more unbalanced evaluative position from pushing their agenda. The banner ‘gender equality’ is much more likely to prevent the fringe positions of both men and women from actually taking over and/or from being perceived to be taking over.

Do you disagree with this? That would blow my mind. It would be like saying that members of the ‘purplism’ movement actually really have as much of a propensity to be for all the colors in the rainbow as a group called “rainbowism,” rather than a higher propensity for members who favor a more purple agenda. Get it?

The accuracy of labels matters, because, as professional technical writers will tell you, a title/label is the promise of what’s inside. Accuracy is critical here. THIS is what upsets me: the willingness of professional academics to compromise their integrity when there’s no good reason why they should have to do that. If ‘feminism’ truly does mean ‘gender equality’ at its heart, then we are still one step away from semantic accuracy. And it matters. Why does it matter? Because ‘gender equality,’ as a concept, is ETHICALLY BETTER than ‘feminism’ simpliciter.

Are a minority of feminists worldwide and therefore wholly irrelevant to this discussion.

WOW. I love how you just utterly and completely disregard a whole lot of women in your “yay-feminism” rant. DKendall is right about the position of Radfem and Marxist feminism in the sense that they think collectively because women are oppressed as a class. Some women, especially white middle-class women, have much more agency and autonomy that they can think and fight individually for their own benefit–but that hardly makes them invulnerable. Indeed, Richards idea of making feminism into whatever it means to you is something I’d classify as fun-fem.

The point of equality is not something this culture is built for. The archetype of masculinity is the point of normal. This “normal” is an insane ideology and one that oppresses men by other men and oppresses women wholly. For one to be successful or “equal” in this culture is to be measured as with masculine ideas of success. To be considered equal this way is not equal–man or woman.

I’m a radical feminist and I don’t don’t fight to be equal in a society destroying itself with masculine ideas of control and power. While I don’t agree with DKendell’s stance, I have to say they seem to have some minimal dabbling in feminist philosophy. Before debating for feminism and then wholly dismissing feminism, may I suggest you understand it, especially before dismissing it so casually and easily as you do. That is not advocacy, it’s ignorance.

Apologies for the rather belated response. It’s always annoying when real life gets in the way of chatting on the internet.

DKendall: You were right, your last post somehow got flagged as spam. I found it in the spam folder and approved it. Your second attempt was not flagged as spam. Did it contain any different content? I have kept it in the queue, but if it’s redundant, let me know so I can delete it.

As to your point, I agree with most of it. It just isn’t relevant. That there are feminists you disagree with has no relevance at all to whether you are a feminist or can defend your feminism against that of others. Like the rest of us are doing.

Otherwise, you are acting like someone who won’t call themselves an advocate of democracy because they don’t like what the Tory/Republican party thinks democracy is (or Labor/Democratic party, as the case may be). That there are sides we think are totally wrong about what it takes to maintain a healthy democracy has nothing to do with what a democracy is or what principles we defend in common that can be called democratic. So, too, feminism.

Apologies for the rather belated response. It’s always annoying when real life gets in the way of chatting on the internet.

Are a minority of feminists worldwide and therefore wholly irrelevant to this discussion.

While they may be a minority that doesn’t make them irrelevant, not when you’ve presented your definition of feminism as one that’s inclusive of feminism as a whole.

They’re certainly not a powerless lunatic fringe to be dismissed so easily. Some of the most extreme radical feminists are women’s/gender studies professors, politicians, or in charge of major NGOs. Even if they don’t represent mainstream feminism, they certainly have a significant mainstream influence.

If that wasn’t the case, how could their ideas be so influential in politics, academia and the mainstream media? Why would their research and theory so often show up in reports from major political groups and human rights organisations? Why would elements of radical feminist ideology be written the into law in a number of European countries? Why would they be hired as speakers at major conferences, not just of feminists, but also those of large NGOs and political parties?

Your original “Why I Am a Feminist” piece was posted on a radical feminist’s blog and radical feminist Gloria Steinem was the 2012 Humanist of the Year, yet you’re saying that they’re a complete irrelevance to be ignored?

This is like dismissing evangelical Christianity as utterly unimportant, despite its influence on American politics. The fundamentalists trying to ban abortion or force creationism into the classroom represent a minority of Christians, but that doesn’t make them irrelevant when discussing the religion.

That they fail to live up to their own principles has exactly nothing to do with what those principles are.

The problem with this argument is that they wouldn’t see themselves as failing to live up to their own principles. They may fall short when it comes to your definition of feminism, but that would only be relevant if they accepted that definition.

In reality, if you actually read what those feminists say or listen to their lectures, it’s the liberal feminists who they view as letting feminism down. In particular, “choice” feminism is consistently dismissed as incompatible with basic feminist concepts like “the personal is political”.

When they attack the kind of individualistic liberal feminism that your definition describes, they aren’t failing to live up to their principles, they’re actually demonstrating what their principles really are.

What defines those things is not what some isolated org or person says.

You yourself are just an individual person. I’m not sure why I should accept that feminism is simply what you say it is, while ignoring most of the major feminist groups active on my continent.

This is a well-known fallacy called The No True Scotsman fallacy. Only you are using it to arrive at the even more absurd conclusion that no Scotsmen exist (not even in Scotland), simply because some Scotsmen use the The No True Scotsman fallacy (!).

That’s a rather bizarre interpretation of what I’ve said. In no way am I saying that no true feminists exist. In fact, I’m quite happy to accept that all those different feminists factions are indeed feminist, since that’s how they define themselves.

The point I was trying to make is that there isn’t a single accepted definition of feminism; at least not one more specific and detailed than the idea of working for women’s rights. I think quite a few feminists acknowledge that when they talk about “feminisms” rather than “feminism”. While some feminists follow a definition of feminism that’s compatible with yours, many others do not, and some wouldn’t view it as feminism at all.

I find it ironic that you’d bring up the No True Scotsman fallacy. To me that seems to be the argument you’re using to dismiss feminists who don’t meet your definition of feminism. In particular, by comparing radical/Marxist feminists to skeptics who defend anti-skeptical ideas, you’re effectively saying that their ideology is anti-feminist. To me that seems absurd when their ideas are part of the spectrum of accepted feminist theory that’s taught in just about every gender studies classroom.

It’s not small. It’s huge. In fact, it’s a best selling mainstream in the U.S.

I’ll take your word for that, but obviously as a Brit/European, it’s local feminism is what’s relevant to me, and it definitely doesn’t resemble the American feminism you’ve described.

Yet even your country has them (Feminists Against Censorship, Backlash, and UK affiliates of SWAAY).

I’m afraid this makes my case regarding the state of feminism in the UK better than anything I’ve written myself.

Feminists Against Censorship are a relatively tiny organisation with few active members, and stand in opposition to pretty much every other feminist organisation in the country. Even small local chapters of feminist groups like the Feminist Network almost certainly have many more active members (and definitely have much more influence) than FAC does nationwide. While local feminist groups can organise hundreds of women to protest outside of Hooters restaurants and shops that sell Playboy (generating numerous articles in the mainstream press), FAC don’t even have much of an online presence.

Backlash, a coalition primarily formed to fight against the criminalisation of “extreme porn”, are not a feminist group. While they include Feminists Against Censorship, the majority of their membership are anti-censorship libertarians or pro-BDSM activists. Even with that coalition, they still received almost no media attention, and failed miserably in preventing the ban on “extreme porn” from becoming law.

Most feminist groups actively supported that law and contributed to the moral panic that went with it. Maybe some changed their minds when the law was used to prosecute men like Simon Walsh for possessing pictures of consenting sex, but at the time articles like this typified the feminist response. In fact, the only article I could find opposing the law in the mainstream press was from Symon Hill, of the Christian thinktank Ekklesia.

As for the UK affiliates of SWAAY, as far as I can see, none of them explicitly identify as feminist organisations. Of course sex worker rights groups include women who identify as feminists, but that doesn’t make them feminist organisations, any more than the presence of religious members makes them religious organisations. In my experience, the hostile reaction they receive from mainstream feminism often leads sex workers to reject the feminist label. That’s certainly true of the founder of SWAAY, and also former sex worker Dr Brooke Magnanti.

You’re effectively arguing that I’m wrong about feminism in the UK because of one small feminist group that couldn’t be much further from the mainstream. I’m afraid you can’t have it both ways: you can’t dismiss radical feminism as irrelevant, then bring up a much smaller and less influential group as a counter argument.

Except the “large” groups you are talking about only have memberships in the thousands. In a nation with thirty million women. See a problem with your math there?

I think you’re moving the goalposts here. We were specifically discussing feminist groups and the feminist movement, rather than women as a whole.

If I recall correctly, something like 30% of British women identify as feminists, so obviously that’s a far larger group of people than are active within feminist organisations. While I think it’s quite possibly true that there’s a difference between the beliefs of the average casual feminist and the ideology typical within organised feminism, that wouldn’t change the fact that it’s the feminist organisations that have political influence and represent feminism in the media. Even if most non-activist feminists disagree ideologically with those feminist groups, there’s little sign of them doing anything about it.

Perhaps you just don’t get how dominant authoritarian radical feminist ideology is within the European feminist movement?

For example, have a look at the planned legislation to further criminalise prostitution in both Scotland and Northern Ireland. In NI various socialist and feminist groups have allied with conservative Christians (including Catholic orders that used to run Magdalene asylums), while in Scotland it primarily seems to be a feminist campaign, with support from left-wing organisations like Amnesty International and various trade unions. All of them, including the Christian groups, are using arguments and statistics from the same radical feminist sources like Gunilla Ekberg and Melissa Farley.

Looking at the feminist response to this proposed legislation, the only problem they tend to have with it is that it isn’t restrictive enough. For example, Labour Women, among others, have called for authorities to be given the power to disable the websites, internet connections, and mobile phones of sex workers. This kind of authoritarianism, justified for “the greater good”, is typical of the mainstream feminism I’m familiar with.

Of course sex workers themselves are protesting, but where’s the liberal sex-positive feminist opposition to this? If they’re a significant movement, let alone a majority, then surely there’d be more of a response than a handful of critical posts from a few individuals?

I look at previous campaigns and it’s a similar story. For example, when the implementation of a “nil policy” threatened the closure of strip clubs, sex shops and adult cinemas, workers in those establishments marched in protest. They had the support of a local vicar, but sex-positive feminists were nowhere to be seen. Instead the major feminist groups were campaigning for the ban, picketing and chanting outside the clubs and sex shops, producing garbage statistics claiming that strip clubs cause rape, and viciously attacking and shaming the women who work in them.

It may be different in America, but to me that’s the face of mainstream feminism.

Feminism can only be what is in common among almost all feminists. And that’s what I said feminism is.

If you had kept your definition of feminism more generic, not mentioning choice and treating people as individuals, then I probably wouldn’t quibble about it. However, I definitely don’t agree that almost all feminists hold your liberal and individualistic form of feminism in common. In my experience, within organised feminism in Europe, your kind of feminism is a minority belief.

Who cares? You don’t have to “enter their space.” You are part of a public that has plenty of its own, very public spaces for dialogue and expressed dissent.

That’s true enough, but I don’t need to identify as a feminist to do that. With the exception of Feminists Against Censorship, I can’t think of any UK feminist organisations I’d be either welcome within or interested in supporting. While feminist groups might expect me to use the feminist label, none of the organisations or campaigns that I do currently support make feminism a requirement for participation.

In fact, even when it comes to the specific feminist campaigns that I do agree with, I’ve never exactly been asked for a feminist membership card when offering support. For example, I’ve supported pro-choice activism, even though the feminist organisers would consider me the worst kind of degenerate scum if they knew my views on other issues. Whether I identify as a feminist or not doesn’t change anything of significance.

As an aside, I’ve always felt that pro-choice arguments regarding bodily autonomy also apply to things like voluntary sex work. It always confuses me that so few of those feminists using the slogan “my body, my choice” see it that way.

There are numerous sex-positive feminist organizations to join and support.

Not in the UK or Europe from what I can see. While I suppose I could join an American sex-positive feminist organisation, they aren’t involved in the activism that’s having an impact over here.

You have no valid argument not to be.

I’ve already given you my main reason for not wanting to use the feminist label:

In my experience, when someone says they’re a feminist it’s generally assumed that they share the beliefs and support the campaigns of the major feminist organisations. This isn’t surprising when one particular perspective is pretty consistently presented in the media as the feminist point of view. Since I disagree with so much mainstream feminist policy and ideology, I think it’s misleading to use the label. Unless I have the opportunity to explain my views in detail, I risk being seen as a mainstream feminist, giving tacit support to an ideology that I generally oppose.

Apart from that, using the feminist label while belonging to a tiny fringe of the feminist movement (at least locally) would result in tedious arguments about whether or not I’m a real feminist. I’ve seen this happen to other people and it’s a distraction from what’s being discussed. Not using the feminist label at all derails the “faux-feminism” debate when making an argument that’s opposed by the vast majority of feminists present.

Along with the fact that I just don’t want to be associated with the overwhelmingly authoritarian and collectivist feminist movement in my country, to me those seem like valid reasons not to call myself a feminist.

It says “anti-sexWORK activist”, not “anti-sexworker” activist. You do seem to be in favor of abolishing sexwork (even if only voluntarily, i.e. not purchasing what sexworkers are selling). But if I am wrong, i.e. you are okay with a morally and fairly run sexwork industry, then let me know. Because I definitely do not get that impression from your writing.