Hacker News Reader

Comment by zethraeus | Hacker News Reader

Not identifying as a feminist or not being a feminist?

You can identify however you want, but if you're truly not sexist, you're a feminist as far as I can tell.

The word "feminist" is more commonly understood to mean a supporter of the modern women's advocacy movement, rather than anyone who believes in equality of the sexes.

Imagine a Republican telling you that "Republican" is defined as someone who supports natural human rights, and therefore anyone who truly supports natural human rights is a Republican.

The feminist definition of "feminism" is inaccurate for the same reason.

I think a closer analogy would be a Republican telling you that "Republican" is defined as someone who supports small government—and therefore libertarians are Republican (and most Republicans are, in fact, not Republican.)

There's an older version of this debate, regarding whether people who don't know or care about a given religion—but happen to follow all its tenets by coincidence—will get into the "good afterlife" of that religion. There are a lot of Christians who argue that to be "Christian" isn't a matter of faith, but rather a matter of acting the way Jesus would have one act. (And thus, in this model, there are atheist Christians.)

I believe the correct term is humanist. A humanist wants equal rights for all human beings and not just certain groups based on certain characteristics. Does not claim one group is superior to another.

Feminism used to be different, it used to be like humanism, now I see it as a tool to tear down white straight men and claim women are superior and deserve special treatment. I didn't always have that view, but after seeing a lot of Feminist groups attacking Hacker News using hoaxes and untrue statements I eventually came to that conclusion. I have never seen Hacker News or YC discriminate against women, and anyone who posts a sexist statement gets downvoted.

I think on 4Chan and Reddit a lot of these sexist men are really boys under 18 who are not mature yet and hide behind an anonymous name to lobby death and rape threats at women. I just don't see that in Hacker News or YC, when men are mature they don't do those sorts of things.

So yes sexism does exist and there are issues, but not everywhere. The word Feminism in itself is sexist because it only mentions the female gender and there are more than male and female genders out there. Hence Humanism would be a better name or Equalism because it does not mention gender.

I want to state that equal rights is different from special rights and entitlements. If anyone wants a career in IT, they have to study hard at math and science, they have to work for years to become an expert sometimes as many as 15 years. You can't just avoid studying hard, blow off math and science, and then study arts instead and then claim you are owned a job in IT because of your gender. If you want a job in IT, study math and science instead of art, keep learning and gaining experience over the years to become better so you can get a job. Communication is a key, and about 80% of the job. If you cannot communicate with others effectively and keep using the terms mansplaining when something is over your head and you need help with, it isn't going to help the team and make you look bad.

Admiral Grace Hopper, Ada Augusta Lovelace, Sister Mary Kenneth Keller, and many others studied hard, worked hard, developed the experience and skills they needed and didn't have anything handed to them, or were entitled to anything, or required special treatment. They just studied math and science, studied hard, worked hard, and reached their potential to develop the experience and skills they needed to do what they did.

I hate it when people give this definition of feminism. Feminism supports gender equality and there are ways that benefits everyone, but that's obviously not the whole of it, and I dislike the idea that men can only be sold on feminism if they think there's something in it for them.

    > Feminism supports gender equality

There are enough highly vocal people calling themselves feminists who seem more interested in manufacturing outrage, scolding men, and pursuing self-promotional agendas that it's hard to make any generalisations that will ring true about what feminism is and isn't.

    > I dislike the idea that men can only be sold on feminism
    > if they think there's something in it for them

Try convincing a nerdy, overweight white male high-school student who's never kissed a girl that he occupies a position of privilege compared to the popular girls at school.

You'll do better if you wait ten years, and then try to explain to the software engineer he became that he has relative privilege compared to the sophisticated VP of Sales who dresses to kill, or girls he meets in bars, but still, you're going to have a bit of a struggle.

You and I can reel off 50 ways in which he's privileged, and the inherent advantages he has by being white, male, smart, etc, but what he knows is that he has a daily grind, and that he has a lot of relationships in his life with women where they hold /all/ the cards.

While people continue to be blind to their own privilege, and only see the highlight reels of other people's privilege (eg: forever), you're only going to be able to sell it on gender equality, rather than "women's rights need to increase beyond where they are now".

I dislike the idea that men can only be sold on feminism if they think there's something in it for them.

Dislike it all you want, doesn't change the reality that if you have one self-interested faction whose interests appear to conflict with a different self-interested faction, then the interests will need to be "sold" or else forced on the other faction.

Hence: appeals to shared principles like "equality." Even when the positions are demonstrably not about equality at all.

The point is only that "gender equality" is a belief while "feminism" (usually) means the activist movement. Why is that objectionable? What does it have to do with "selling men on feminism"?

I should have known better than to turn down a road that would inevitably lead to semantics.

Suffice to say, to me a feminist is a person who is actively part of the movement. I've never heard "feminist" used to mean "believes in gender equality".

It would seem that entirely depends on your definition of feminism. Considering what types of people call themselves feminist, it could mean anything from sane person to misandrist.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com