139
Are you a feminist? (If so why, if not why not?)
(self.asklemmy)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2025
139 points (100.0% liked)
Asklemmy
49975 readers
376 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy ๐
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
Modern feminism does exactly that.
I get that people get hung up on the label, but other demographics' issues are absolutely part of it. It's called intersectionality.
The label is important, though, because as long as we call it all feminism, any conversation that does not explicitly target women audience may be maliciously hijacked. I've seen this happening in the wild a lot - people arguing that we steal feminism when talking about issues from another perspective.
Also, speaking of intersectionality, isn't it weird for it to be a subsection of feminism again? Intersectionality commonly includes issues of race, disabilities, transgender individuals, and so on, and as such, men along with nonbinaries who struggle on each of the axis may not get adequate attention and representation under the umbrella of feminism, as again, it's "about women" (it kinda is).
To me, antisexism should cover feminism, masculism (a term recently hijacked by bad actors, but initially coming from the same place as feminism - equality for all, focus on instances of male discrimination), a movement of nonbinary people.
Intersectionality should go above feminism, and above antisexism for that matter. It is about all struggles of all groups of people, and ultimately stands to cover it all - antisexism, anti-racism, trans inclusion, inclusion of people with disabilities, etc. etc.
I don't think that's necessarily malicious. Sounds like those people may have a thing to learn about feminism as well.
It's not about being a "subsection". It's not a competition who's on top. It's about recognizing how these issues share a common core and many negative effects, and need to be addressed together rather than competing for attention. That's exactly what intersectionality addresses.
As far as I'm aware, the inclusive movement that focuses on male issues in a way that regards itself in cooperation rather than competition with feminism (after men's rights was successfully taken over by the right-wing) labels itself men's liberation.
Fair enough - but malicious or not, it does cause issues and builds barriers to inclusion.
Talking about subsections is not about competition. It's about unhealthy arrangement that, again, can easily be used to exclude people. It just doesn't make sense to divide it this way.
Intersectionality talks about many issues, and one of them, part of it, is sexism. So, putting it under umbrella of feminism is like putting animals under the umbrella of bees.
My experience interacting with men's liberation is mostly just men going 100% into misandric narrative that men are to blame for anything and everything. As one person underscored it under one such post, "if a woman struggles - it's society's fault. If a man struggles - it's a man's fault". There's no room there for not blaming men for the discrimination they receive.