Epic win

Because in a male dominated society (albeit with some small areas where women have the upper hand) greater women's rights equals greater equality to all intents and purposes.

It seems to me very clear that a feminist is someone who seeks equality for women. For women to have equality men must have equality. Someone who is pro-woman at the expense of men is misguided and not a feminist, albeit fighting for women to have the upper hand in a male-dominated world is hardly a big problem as even if the end goal is too far in the direction of power for women the direction of movement is right.

I hope that your sister reads and learns and becomes a more educated and rounded person with more logical and productive world-views.

You mean a world where feminism has acheived its goals?

How the fuck does identifying yourself as someone who wants equality between the sexes undermine your acheivements? If anything its the reverse... if you don't believe in equality then it very much looks like you are an arsehole so your acheivements look like they might be as a result of you behaving like an arsehole not some more admirable reason like intelligence or hard work or innovation/

I have no problem with people who say "Hi, I'm Jackie and I am a teacher", not "Hi, I'm Jackie and I am a feminist". There is no moral compulsion to introduce yourself as a feminist or define yourself as such. But if you are pro equality you are by definition a feminist therefore you should admit it (maybe "I am pro equality so I am obviously by definition a feminist, but I am not keen on some of the connotations of the word so I don't like to describe myself as such"). If you deny being a feminist then you are an arsehole, either because you don't believe in equality or because you are too thick to understand a pretty simple definition.

Feminism is about equality for women. For women to be equal they must be equal to men, therefore men are equal to women, therefore if you are a feminist you believe in equality. Therefore if you believe in equality you are a feminist. I really don't see the issue.

You might not wish to describe yourself as a feminist. You mght not be an active feminist. You might even be a misguided feminist who detracts from the pro-women feminist agenda by interupting and saying 'but what about this [insert relatively minor example] case where women are in a privileged position above men?' But you are still a feminist.

That flow chart at the bottom. I'm sorry, but anyone who does that and does not reach the bottom and say 'i'm a feminist' is an arsehole [possible exception, a handful of very good men who have decided to focus their lives on the few areas where men are disadvantaged compared to women. ]

I am not telling people how to identify themselves. I am telling them that it is fine to not wish to call yourself a feminist if you don't want to - but that does not alter the fact that you are, by definition. I might not like to identify myself as middle-class, but that does not make me working class or nobility.

I believe that it is perfectly possible to distinguish feminists who do little other than believe the sort of things that we need to believe to make the world a better place, and a small sub-set of feminists who are active campaigning, risking their wellbeing etc etc to make the world a better place. I don't think that calling myself a graduate undermines the acheivements of those who get first class degrees from oxbridge. We are all graduates, its just that they have acheived much more academically by virtue of where they studied and the result they acheived.

I'm not sure that I understand your final bullet point.

It is not illogical. I hope and believe that if one day we wake up in a world and find that feminists have acheived all of their goals and indeed somehow the world has become matriarchal, feminists will fight for the rights of men, not least because I don't think that most women will be happiest if they are able to dominate men, any more than I believe that men can live as happy and fulfilling life as possible by dominating women. Equality is good for all.

I missed this bit.

So you are saying that in the current world to be feminist is be egalitarian - because by fighting for women you are fighting for equality?

Or to put it another way in the current world to be egalitarian you need to be feminist because to fight for equality you are fighting for women?

If so then we agree completely.

I genuinely hope and believe that if we get to a point where men and women are pretty much equal then significant numbers of female feminists would start spending as much time fighting for men's rights in those few areas where men were disadvantaged as they would fighting in those few areas where women were still underprivileged.

Obviously "all feminists believe in equality" is not logically equivalent to "all those who believe in equality are feminists"... unless -

(1) By equality we are talking about equality between the sexes.
and
(2) We accept that feminism is a movement that demands equality for women.

This appears to be a debate about definitions.

As all threads of this type end up being sooner or later. Essentially if you accept "egalitarian" as a description of a principle and "feminist" as a description of a belief about how that principle should be achieved right now (as in that Guardian article) then everything's fine.

I get the feeling that one of us should just call the other a Nazi and let this return to being the Epic (God)win thread.

In my opinion, it is detrimental to dumb the issue down by oversimplifying the proposition feminism to a binary of equality. It sweeps a wealth of debate and history under the rug, which is then likely skipped by anyone that decides to identify with it. I think I would prefer that the gravitas of the word, afforded to it through years of hard work, was maintained.

"I believe in equality, I am a feminist. I love Beyonce, twirk it girl"

NO! Let us not get distracted by other aspects of equality. As stated above I assumed that we were talking about equality between the sexes and not different types of equality.

Strictly speaking you are right - it is possible to fight for men's rights and also be fighting for equality between the sexes. However -

(1) To keep things simple, in a patriarchy equality between the sexes is about giving women more rights. Anything else is at best a distraction and a relatively minor detail. Therefore to all intents and purposes equality equals fighting for women's rights, albeit not to every nth detail.

yet, somewhat contradictoraly

(2) Given that feminism is about equality (what is equal right for women if it is not equality?) it has to be about fighting for men's rights too (albeit it is entirely reasonable to dedicate only a tiny percentage of feminist energy to fighting for men's rights. It is entirely reasonable of a feminist to say "I have not got the time or the energy to fight for men's rights with regards their children post-break-up" It is entirely unreasonable of a feminist to say "I don't give a fuck about the plight of men with regards their children post-break-up - all I care about is women". I would argue that to say such a thing is to prove that you are not a feminist rather you are a pro-women bigot or just a woman after revenge (understandably) for years of male white corporate oppression).

I really will shut up soon. We do pretty much agree I am sure.

FWIW - in case I did not make this clear earlier - I do not call myself a feminist because it feels wrong to me as a man to do so, not least because I am not out there on the streets fighting for women's rights every day. But despite not calling myself one, and not wanting to be called one I believe in equality of women therefore I am one. I am a feminist, as is every single decent person on this planet, just not in the same way that women who are actively fighting the fight day in day out are, and not in such a way that I feel it right to go around proclaiming that I am.

Most of the planet are alright, or they would be had they been brought up properly. I am perfectly prepared to say that the people who run the USA and the UK are backward fucktard evil scum and they're a shit-load better than most of the rest of the world's leaders.

I believe that a significant proportion of liberals are distinctly cowardly in their failure to condemn backward and downright evil practices (usually cultural and religious and all about maintaining power for men) all across the world. As someone who does not wish to travel to backward countries I am not at all well travelled outside western europe.

Backward countries are ones that are undemocratic and / or have racist/ homophobic/sexist/ religiously intolerant laws and / or do not realise that the state needs to do its best to support the poorest and most vulnerable and / or teaches religion as fact. (We are - obviously slightly backward too, just not properly backward in the way the the US, most of the arab world, china, most of africa etc etc are)

Evil scum are people who fight to keep backwards countries backward.

Brought up properly means people who have been brought up in such a way that they understand my definition of a backward country.

My righteousness goes a lot fucking further then the self thank you very much, it is universal. Where exactly am I wrong? (On anything, ever?)

PM me so as not to bore anyone on here.