Feminism: Still Considered Man-Hating

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Feminism: Still Considered Man-Hating
Brent Bozell | May 23, 2014


Shailene Woodley is fast-rising movie star, and at age 22, she's already thrown the country's most uptight feminists into a tizzy.

Time magazine asked Woodley: "Do you consider yourself a feminist?" To say she didn't give the Hollywood answer would be an understatement.

"No, because I love men, and I think the idea of 'raise women to power, take the men away from the power' is never going to work out because you need balance."

Many women continue to reject "feminism" because it evokes an ideological rigidity grounded in the hostility toward men. That, in turn, drives feminists around a bend.

The New York Times took up the outrage over the Time interview with Woodley. Novelist Jennifer Weiner, 44, went to Twitter to deliver her lecture, "Dear Young Actresses: Before you sound off on feminists and how you're not one, please figure out what feminism is." MSNBC contributor Zerlina Maxwell complained, "Here's another actress rejecting a feminist label she can't define properly."

This sputtering is a bit amusing. Feminists insist you support their entire agenda or you're guilty of waging a "war on women." Apparently a woman who isn't a feminist is anti-woman.

Feminists insist they care only for equality between the sexes, but if that were so, why would so many women balk? Because they hate themselves? Or because after 40 years of screaming, it is pretty apparent that activist feminists in academia, the media, and politics will never stop complaining. Forty years from now they will still be waging a war on intolerable "patriarchy."

It's becoming faddish again to mentally bra-burn. The Times found twenty-something feminist actresses who are perpetually outraged at people's failure to bow to feminism. HBO star Lena Dunham said her "greatest pet peeve" is women spurning the term feminist. Last summer in The Guardian newspaper, openly lesbian Ellen Page lamented: "I don't know why people are so reluctant to say they're feminists. Maybe some women just don't care. But how could it be any more obvious that we still live in a patriarchal world when feminism is a bad word?"

Actress Martha Plimpton closed out the Times article by insisting the stigma of the F-word simply must be removed, and that failing to support the word was a form of bigotry.

More.

The problem is that 'feminism' means two different things to two different groups of women. Academics, feminist writers, elite taste-makers, and women involved in the industry of feminism take it to mean that women should hold a collective set of beliefs about identity politics. This identity not only changes every few years, it has been co-opted by men who use gender identity to appropriate female space in various ways.

The vast majority of women think feminism promotes and identifies equal opportunities and equal pay for equal work. They also believe that feminism should fight for the rights of women in cultures where women are chattel.

Since the first group is far more vocal and gets far more publicity, the term itself has been tarnished for a lot of women. This doesn't make women stupid or wrong, it just makes us tired of explaining so it's easier to reject the label.

Townhall

[Novaheart]

I'd say that most of the women I know consider themselves feminist. I'd say that they define that as being sensitive to or aware of gross and subtle efforts to subordinate them by the men they interact with. Some of them are bitches and some aren't. Some are man-haters and some aren't. I don't see that as a function of feminism, as literature is replete with female characters who are submissive, pushy, timid, bitchy, accepting, and demanding. Kind of like men. The only real difference is that the law used to support the culture of men controlling women and now it doesn't.

Also, a lot of the less pleasant personality expressions attributed to feminism are actually not sex specific and are the outgrowth of the human potential movement's Deliberately Obnoxious department often traveling under the banner of Assertiveness Training.

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Also, a lot of the less pleasant personality expressions attributed to feminism are actually not sex specific and are the outgrowth of the human potential movement's Deliberately Obnoxious department often traveling under the banner of Assertiveness Training.

That's probably true but most of the women I know object to the identity politics, not to the delivery. Obnoxious women (like obnoxious men) are everywhere. It's the content and the insistence that there's only one "correct" way to be a feminist that's so galling.

[Celeste Chalfonte]

I'd say that most of the women I know consider themselves feminist. I'd say that they define that as being sensitive to or aware of gross and subtle efforts to subordinate them by the men they interact with. Some of them are bitches and some aren't. Some are man-haters and some aren't. I don't see that as a function of feminism, as literature is replete with female characters who are submissive, pushy, timid, bitchy, accepting, and demanding. Kind of like men. The only real difference is that the law used to support the culture of men controlling women and now it doesn't.

Also, a lot of the less pleasant personality expressions attributed to feminism are actually not sex specific and are the outgrowth of the human potential movement's Deliberately Obnoxious department often traveling under the banner of Assertiveness Training.

Amen to that! All of it, in fact, but the bolded is something I run into a lot. Any time someone starts a conversation with "I used to be a doormat" or "I used to let people take advantage of me," I know I'm about to deal with someone who has gone completely the other way and become a demanding, obnoxious entitlement junkie.

[Lanie]

More.

The problem is that 'feminism' means two different things to two different groups of women. Academics, feminist writers, elite taste-makers, and women involved in the industry of feminism take it to mean that women should hold a collective set of beliefs about identity politics. This identity not only changes every few years, it has been co-opted by men who use gender identity to appropriate female space in various ways.

The vast majority of women think feminism promotes and identifies equal opportunities and equal pay for equal work. They also believe that feminism should fight for the rights of women in cultures where women are chattel.

Since the first group is far more vocal and gets far more publicity, the term itself has been tarnished for a lot of women. This doesn't make women stupid or wrong, it just makes us tired of explaining so it's easier to reject the label.

Townhall

In theory, feminism is about equality between man and woman. I agree with that. We should all have the same opportunities to become whatever we want to be. I'll gladly say I'm a feminist if that's what it is.

The problem comes in when we discuss how to get there. Most declared feminists think you need to be pro-choice. Some feminists think you need to be a socialist. Some say you have to be against porn and other forms of entertainment (note: I do not endorse porn). Some would say you have to be for the Obamacare mandate. It's not enough to support a right to birth control in their eyes. There are a whole lot of feminist theories out there.