By Henry Laasanen

I have seen lately lot of articles with the question: what is feminism? I am referring to articles like… (1) Who are the real feminists?; (2) “I’m Not a Feminist, But . . . I’m Taking This Class.”; (3) What No One Else Will Tell You About Feminism; (4) Not A Feminist? Caitlin Moran Asks, Why Not?

Many of the articles present very naive (and stupid) definitions of feminism and feminists.

Lindy West (Jezebel) defines feminism and feminists in following fashion:

To identify as a feminist is to acknowledge that women are people, and, as such, women deserve the same social, economic, and political rights and opportunities as other styles of people (i.e., men-people).

Gina Barreca defines feminism same kind of way:

Feminism is the belief that women are actually human beings.

Defining feminism by the phrase “women are people”, doesn’t say much, because them nearly all people (masculists included) would therefore be feminists. A superficial definition of feminism doesn’t tell us what separates feminism from other ideologies.

What is feminism?

There are two or three core theses of feminism, which are articulated in multiple sources. ["By feminism we mean both an awareness of women's position in society as well as the disadvantage or inequality compared with that of men, and also a desire to remove those disadvantages." (Bristol Women's Studies Group "Half the Sky: An Introduction to Women's Studies,"1979, p. 3]

  1. The core belief of feminism: women are somehow a disadvantaged group in society compared to men.
  2. Desire to do something about the inequalities women face in the society.
  3. Women’s experiences should be heard as a true representation of the world.

How do we know that women are a disadvantaged group compared to men? Well, there are no comparative studies on the subject. As a masculist I would say that if we compare different areas of life, men have 80-90 % more equality problems (conscription, custody problems, life expectancy and so on) than women.

Women’s disadvantaged position is the core belief in feminism that can’t be questioned. It’s like the belief in god. If you don’t have blind faith in the oppression of women, you are not a feminist.

Nearly all the feminists believe in some sort of Marxist version of gender power relationships, where men are “the capitalists” and women are the “proletariat”. And we all know that it is impossible for “proletariat” to oppress “the capitalists”. Lindy West puts it loud and clear:

“Feminism is simple. The “patriarchy” does “exist.”

Some sort of patriarchy is necessary for feminism, because without patriarchy it’s hard to claim that men have privileges in the society. In the beginning of 1970’s we had the gender role theory, but when masculists pointed out that the masculine role is more harmful and restrictive for men than feminine role for women, radical feminist and profeminists abandoned the gender role theory and hopped on the patriarchy bandwagon.

Mainstream feminism

The ugly, hairy and angry feminist stereotype is not the most common form of feminism today. Instead, we have “mainstream feminism.” Mainstream feminism is some sort of opportunistic compromise between liberal, radical, gynocentric and other types of feminisms.

Mainstream feminism advances the politically correct and widely accepted ideas of different feminisms.

Typical ideas in mainstream feminism:

  1. Violence against women is a bigger sin than other kind of violence.
  2. The gender pay gap is one of biggest equality problems.
  3. Workplace segregation is an equality problem.
  4. We should have more women in leadership positions.

In the Nordic countries mainstream feminism has morphed into state-enforced feminism, where the state promotes feminist ideas of equality. The only accepted men’s equality problem is the lack of paternity leave for dads, which has the hidden feminist agenda of promoting women’s position in the workplace.

Why I am not a feminist

There are several reasons why I am not a feminist:

  1. I don’t talk enough about women’s problems. I am a masculist and I talk about men’s problems.
  2. I don’t believe in patriarchy or men’s privileges in the society. Actually, I think that men have 80-90 % more equality problems than women.
  3. I believe many men’s equality problems exist that the majority of feminists don’t even acknowledge as problems. Equality in reproductive rights, equality in custody cases, equality in welfare state benefits (women get much more money from the government than men) etc.
  4. I would like to see a comparative study on the subject: which gender has it worse? A feminist would be scared as hell of such a study that might undermine the core belief of feminism.

Yes, I believe that women are people and that women should have the same possibilities in life as men, but that doesn’t make me a feminist. It doesn’t make anyone a feminist.

The way Peter Zohrab puts it, a feminist has a “women are the oppressed group” attitude toward equality. Not all feminists think oppression of women is the fault of men. Men also could be oppressed through gender roles. Anyway, being a feminist means more weight is given to women’s problems of than men’s, and if women’s and men’s issues are in conflict, it’s clear, whose side the feminist will take.