I had an interesting conversation with my neighbour. He is a typical lad and in his head, feminists were hairy, fat, ugly women who wanted to demasculinize all men. I told him I’m a feminist, which made him feel uncomfortable. But then we talked a bit about work, and how it should be paid. About voting and if someone wants to vote or go to University, they should have the right to do so. I asked him if it should make a difference what gender you were to be allowed to earn the same, have the right to vote, or to get an education. I also asked him if his daughter (providing he had one, and she was an only child) should be allowed to inherit his money and his house, or should it be taken from her because she was a girl. He seemed a bit confused and upset. Of course she should get everything that belonged to him, she would be his only descendant!
So I told him he was a feminist because he demanded same rights for women as men had for decades. That left him gobsmacked.
Tomorrow I’m going to shake his world by inviting him to dinner and introducing him to veganism….
dazedbymoon 
Indeed, so many folks out there are feminists without knowing it. I’d love to know more about the history of how the word came to be so odious in our culture.
Great post!
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thank you, Feminism somehow became an ugly word
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Before men were allowed to have the vote they had to agree to fight wars for the state. Five minutes later (historically speaking) women demanded the vote and got it without any obligations at all.
Now let’s swap the genders. Women got the vote but had to agree to fight wars in return. Then men got the vote without any obligations at all. After a century of war with literally millions of dead women filling up the graveyards (many of them still teenagers when they were slaughtered) men are STILL going around saying this somehow represents a victory for ‘gender equality’.
As a woman, would you agree with that claim? Or would you point out that it was not gender equality at all, but an example of male privilege to not be forced to fight wars for the state?
As for getting paid for work, women earn the same (or even slightly more) than men provided they both have the same experience, qualification, work history etc. However this is often not the case because women often CHOOSE to take more time off, work less hours, or work in less demanding sectors where pay is less (but job satisfaction, job security, job flexibility etc is greater). Not all pay is money. Many jobs pay in other ways such as more flexible hours, more interesting and rewarding work, less stress and so on.
Again, if you think it’s unfair just swap the genders. Imagine men demanding to be paid the same as women even when they have less experience, less qualifications and a less consistent work history. Is that fair?
Even today men do the majority of manual labour and dangerous jobs. This is why 95% of workplace deaths are men. Why aren’t feminists fighting to address this gender inequality in the workplace?
What if 95% of workplace deaths were women – do you think feminists might call that oppression? I think they would – after all feminists think being called ‘bossy’ at work is oppression and being killed at work is much worse than being called ‘bossy’. So why is it not oppression when it’s men who are being killed?
Are you starting to see why so many people think feminism is a destructive and hateful ideology? It has nothing to do with hairy legs or being ugly. It is to do with the way feminists act and the claims they make, which are so often the exact opposite of reality.
Imagine a world where it was socially acceptable for men to be financially supported by women – either in part or totally – in return for them doing the shopping, pushing a hoover around and cooking dinner. Imagine a world where men received the majority of state welfare – which was taken mostly from the earnings of women because women were the most economically productive sex.
So in this world women EARNED the most money because they worked the most hours, and they worked in the most demanding jobs ….. while men received the most UNEARNED money in the form of welfare and financial support from their wives and girlfriends. Women were still generally expected to pay for a man’s meal or theatre tickets when dating. And male students could often be heard saying they were studying for a career as backup, but that they were on the lookout for a decent woman to marry who would have a high flying career and would be willing to support him (and cherish him for who he is) because he was a ‘traditional man’ at heart who wanted to be a househusband.
Would you call that world female privilege? Would you say those men were being oppressed?
If we lived in that would do you think you might get sick and tired of men going around claiming to be oppressed, victimised and claiming women were privileged for working longer hours in more demanding jobs and paying for men to live less stressful, less demanding lives?
Would you roll your eyes when these men said women had always oppressed men by forcing men to stay at home ‘chained to the sink’ while the women enjoyed the privilege of working down the mine, ploughing the fields, fishing the open seas for weeks at a time, building the infrastructure mostly by hand, putting food on the table for their families and going off to fight wars?
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