Feminism is a spectrum

SpicyMarshmellow · 2025-03-12T20:21:47+00:00

I kinda think the modern form of feminism is the natural conclusion of a philosophy based on patriarchy theory, which is the common feature that strings all varieties of feminism together, at least since 2nd wave. By patriarchy theory, I'm referring to the type that believes that the last 10,000 years of human history are characterized by men conspiring to oppress women for the benefit of men. I don't think it's possible for a belief like this to achieve prevalence in a culture, without that culture turning against men.

AskingToFeminists · 2025-03-12T20:48:38+00:00

Our enemy is not feminists. Think of it as it's own nation in a civil war. A negative revolution is happening in feminism, and we need to support and preserve the original ideals.

Keep telling yourself that, if you want, but you won't fool me.

We see what a civil war inside of feminism looks like. It is visible for all to see with the "TERF" question, and the willingness by some to purge transphobia out of the movement.

Now, please show me anything remotely comparable having to do with purging the omnipresent misandry out of the movement. I will wait.

Until you can do that, I will stand by the fact that misandry is an inherent part of feminism, and one feminists are perfectly fine accommodating.

So, sure, feminism might be a spectrum. So are gamma rays. And while gamma rays are a spectrum, all of them are still harmful to humans.

In the same manner, Christianity is a spectrum, that doesn't mean it doesn't have some very specific characteristics, and that there aren't some ideological commonalities between the variations. That is why it can still be put under a single umbrella.

"It is a spectrum" is an absurd defense used by people who have no idea what a spectrum is, and who falsely believes that it therefore defies classification. As a physicist, it annoys me to no end.

SaltSpecialistSalt · 2025-03-13T01:58:10+00:00

feminism was always a racist, sexist, classist movement based on misinterpretations of history and flat out lies from the beginning. there is nothing to support in feminism. not for women not for men. i dont know where do some people get these ideas of romanticized early good feminism

vegetables-10000 · 2025-03-12T22:37:11+00:00

What Feminism is the one that is pro male gender roles? Cakism Feminism?

StorkReturns · 2025-03-13T20:48:09+00:00

Every sufficiently large movement is a spectrum. Even a pretty centralized ideology of Nazism had factions. Their views also evolved over time. Jews were supposed to be just deported to Madagascar, then turned into slave work, and only finally put in death camps.

Now, imagine you are a poor Jew that is not fond of those store- and factory-owning rich Jews. You may even be better if deported to Madagascar. You talk to your equally-poor Jew and convince him that "we should support those moderate Nazis, they could help in our struggle. Nazis are getting corrupted by those extremists, we should try to move them to become moderate".

I'm not saying that feminism is even 10% as bad as Nazism but that the best of a bad movement are still bad.

gratis_eekhoorn · 2025-03-12T21:18:46+00:00

The misandry problem in feminism is not a recent phenomenon though, second wave and before is full of misandry and transphobia.

TheRealMasonMac · 2025-03-12T22:23:56+00:00

I don't think I can agree with this sentiment. From what I can tell, the roots of feminism is based in the perception that men are a privileged class who are incapable/opposed to advocating for and understanding/empathizing with women -- as to do so would be to eliminate the privilege they get from oppressing women as a whole. There might be an extreme feminist bloc, sure, but I think feminism as a whole encourages extremist thinking and this is evident even in the typical feminist. When feminists push back on radical feminists--they're not pushing back on the idea that men are oppressors and that misandry is acceptable, but on some other thing they find disagreeable like how to treat people who are trans.

dependency_injector · 2025-03-13T06:35:06+00:00

"I want men and women to be equal"

That's not exactly the phrase feminists say. Instead they say "I want men and women to be equal, BUT..."

addition · 2025-03-12T20:32:30+00:00

The rise of extreme feminism is just another leftist purity spiral, and I say this as a leftist.

BandageBandolier · 2025-03-12T22:13:33+00:00

I mean fascism is a spectrum too, doesn't mean we can't judge broad ideologies for their overall impact. Very few ideologies stay monolithic, only the most brutal suppression of heterodoxy can keep an ideology from divergence.

Do we really want to be so hand wringing that we won't call out an ideological spectrum that ranges from intensely harmful to just relatively benign? Adding up both sides still averages out to making the world worse overall.

Why not chose an ideology that ranges from relatively benign to actually positive and helpful, like egalitarianism? If all forms of feminism became universally shameful and ostracized and egalitarianism became respectable, nothing of value would be lost because all the good feminists would be just as happy with egalitarianism anyway.

griii2 · 2025-03-13T07:14:14+00:00

Wikipedia defines feminism as a RANGE of movements and ideologies.

The problem is no high profile feminists ever, from whatever part of the spectrum, condemned feminist hate against men.

This is the only example in the history of feminism

Pro-pedophile feminist Camille Paglia criticized chronic anti-male feminist rhetoric https://np.reddit.com/r/ToxicFeminismIsToxic/s/67K81ndxjB

Far-Bee-4909 · 2025-03-14T07:16:46+00:00

Unite with feminism, when it is basically a hate movement?

No thanks.

marchingrunjump · 2025-03-12T20:49:45+00:00

Very often feminism is at least two things: motte-feminism and bailey-feminism

Former_Range_1730 · 2025-03-12T21:57:03+00:00

You're confusing Feminism, with Feminist Ideology.

Most people who identify as Feminists, follow Feminist Ideology. They may claim they follow the dictionary's definition of Feminism, but they absolutely don't.

RewRose · 2025-03-14T11:04:19+00:00

I want men and women to be equal

Egalitarianism has been around since 1700s no ? Call a spade a spade - Feminism is just bad.

AbysmalDescent · 2025-03-13T18:52:26+00:00

The idea that feminism was ever about equal rights is, in of itself, a feminist lie. Feminism did not start off with good intentions, it was always fueled by misandry. Even when seeking the right to vote for women, it was clear that the motivation there was riddled with hatred or resentment for men. Nothing has really changed about that in the last hundred years.

The reality was that women still had a great deal of power/control in the home, and who their husbands voted for as well as what kind of political affiliation their future husbands could hold. Women wanted the right to vote, without military service and without marriage(i.e. having to attach themselves to man, who would be subject to military service), and received it in a very short amount of time(basically as soon as enough women decided they wanted it) and without having the universal right to vote in the first place(which clearly demonstrates that women held enough power over the men in their lives to decide the outcome of a vote and that society, or patriarchy, ultimately seeks to serve women).

The pursuit for equality under a lie of female oppression, or that frames every social issue or inequality as a woman's issue, is not actually a pursuit for equality. Every not on this "feminist spectrum" relies on these false narratives.

CeleryMan20 · 2025-03-13T17:38:58+00:00

Is there a good summary of the different feminist flavours somewhere? A kind of taxonomy we could refer to without reading twenty novel-sized books?

I’d be tempted to pose that question to AskFeminists, but I know the mods and denizens would just answer with “read the sidebar” and “go away and do your homework, it’s not our job to educate you”.

captainhornheart · 2025-03-15T15:12:14+00:00

Some feminists have always hated men and spread nonsense about women being oppressed or slaves. This goes right back to the beginning of feminism. It's ALWAYS been there. There's a great video about this on YouTube.

No-Knowledge-8867 · 2025-03-16T13:39:15+00:00

"I want men and women to be equal"

I think most, if not all, men and certainly MRA's can distinguish between what feminists say and what they believe/how they act. Even the most milquetoast feminist is more extreme and more anti-male than what they admit because the world and our cultures are more anti-male than what society admits. They may claim they "only want men and women to be equal," but in reality they don't think fathers are as important as mothers, or they don't think men should be preschool teachers/early educators, or they're more disgusted by bisexual men than bisexual women. The world is full of anti-male bias that society doesn't like to talk about, and it's perpetuated in the thoughts of those who don't like to admit it.

Hour_Zero · 2025-03-16T12:02:01+00:00

I agree that feminism (and thus practitioners and believers of it as well) come in a spectrum. The problem is the majority of them seem to be ok with hand waving or sweeping the extreme radfem problematic ideologies under the rug using the "no true Scotsman fallacy", they claim that true feminists just want equality, and therefore vocally proud misandrist radfems can't be considered actual feminists and their actions don't count as they are only an extreme outlier and "every group has those." And like you said, the ideas of radical feminism are also becoming more increasingly popular and accepted these days, especially after the recent election victory of Trump in America. We went from a society that started out with simply encouraging victims to call out problematic men in power who had abused their positions to one that now eagerly shits on men and blames all of society's ills on the male gender, and then acts surprised when the younger generations of men aren't happy about this undeserved treatment.

YourNonExistentGirl · 2025-03-13T03:35:05+00:00

You’re fighting what is essentially a lost cause, bruv.

SulkTv999 · 2025-03-17T22:26:39+00:00

Nope. I have to assert that I strongly disagree. You just used they very common feminist fallacy called the "No true Scotsman fallacy" And you did it your own way here. Yes, there so many needless feminists denominations that contradict each other. I know that feminism in general is the most anti-male thing ever.

An analogy I would like to use is like I reach in to a barrel of apples thats 99% rotten. And then I pull out the only one healthy apple. And then I say "this barrel has the best apples."

Or "Not all nazis during ww2 where bad. Because they made Fanta, anti-smoking campaigns, shoe brands and better cars."

And I promise you Feminism was Always anti-male. Julie Bindel, a feminist advocated that men should be tortured and be out in concentration camps and basically said that sons male loved ones are like subhuman. A feminist writer known as Susan Brownmiller, overexaggerated the amount of rapes from women using their strings of anecdotes, and feminist used this to make men look bad. Sally Miller Gearheart, said in 1981, that men must be reduced to less than 10% of the population." She's a feminist leader. In 1973, Robin Morgan who is a lesbian feminist, said that "manhating is honorable." There are o.g feminsit who actually never mentioned anything about a "patriarchy". There are also some forms of white feminists that actually came from the kkk.

And saying that the MRA movement also has an extremist side, I dunno. Warren farrel who was a feminist at the time had a wife who even warned him about how there were obvious distain, sexism, and hate for men. This was somewhere in the 1960s. now he's a Men's rights activist.

austin101123 · 2025-03-18T19:37:17+00:00

Feminism is not "anything that is pro women"

All men should kill themselves is not pro women

Lets_Remain_Logical · 2025-03-13T00:22:26+00:00

I pushed this discussion with a very feminist queer ex of mine. It was really a good discussion. Till we have reached the last point: why don't reasonable feminists call out the most extremists. I can't find any debate on YouTube (it was 2020). Her last answer was: yeah but it won't look good to see feminists debating each other :/

Minimum_Guitar4305 · 2025-03-12T23:46:49+00:00

In my experience 50% of feminists are egalitarian, and 50% are misandrists.

Take that as you will.

BhryaenDagger · 2025-03-12T22:18:22+00:00

Being anti-men isn’t feminist. It’s just misandry. But the feminist movement has indeed adopted it as more of a central platform. Terms like “feminism” don’t arise from nature in the sense of being able to simply consult the biochemistry of the plantus feminismi flower to see if it’s genuinely part of the same phylum. The movement determines what it is from its demonstrable focus and efforts- regardless of the label it bears or even necessarily the rhetoric it employs. Modern feminists are largely misandrists seeking careers in trashing “toxic masculinity”, in antagonizing men in mostly male “environments” (video games, nerd cultures, etc), and in advancing the entitlements of women to higher paying jobs in management and administration without necessarily qualifying. There’s no reason for any man or any non-misandrist or non-rich woman to support feminism as it stands today. Their goals to piss off men and make a Kathleen Kennedy richer were completely successful… while working class women are in worse shape and abortion was abandoned with a shrug. Fuck em.

That said, yes, the earlier goals of feminists were reasonable and meaningful. I just doubt a “feminist” movement will ever again be the means to that end. Only a humanist movement can take up those causes effectively at this point- something that doesn’t break them down into special interests but frames them as part of an overarching social agenda.

king_rootin_tootin · 2025-03-12T23:50:29+00:00

Honestly, I don't even like to call the stuff I have issues with feminism at all. I prefer to call it "Patriarchy theorism."

Baby_Arrow · 2025-03-14T20:34:46+00:00

Feminism is a cancer.

Phuxsea · 2025-03-12T21:50:02+00:00

I like this post. I joined this sub because I noticed a major rise in misandry, particularly to disabled and working class men. I am no longer part of any other "anti-feminist" communities because they get repetitive and care more about hating on feminists than actually advocating. Unfortunately I see that on this sub a bit too much where people downvote me because I do not agree with being anti-feminist.

ANIKAHirsch · 2025-03-14T04:31:32+00:00

Thank you! I am a Liberal Feminist who opposes all forms of radicalism in the movement.

AGoodFaceForRadio · 2025-03-12T22:10:05+00:00

*Yawns in profound indifference.

PaleolithicRegency33 · 2025-03-12T20:53:39+00:00

A huge problem with feminism is that there's no intellectual barrier of entry. Anyone can call themselves a feminist. This dilutes the intellectual rigor within the feminist population, leading to severely uneducated pseudofeminist ideas to spread. The "extreme feminism" you describe is right wing in tendency, which is a direct result of barrierless entry.

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