Thread: Why don't more women call themselves feminist?

I found this in a porn discussion on feministing and it was just to good to ignore. Kudos to the writer, known as Steve:

I am going to try and answer the question "Why don't more women call themselves feminist? for you as best I can. It might be off topic, but so has much of the conversation on this thread. The following is based off of conversations with and observations of female feminist and female's who believe much the same as feminist, but decline the label.

The reason so many women decline to call themselves feminist is because so many feminist are dogmatic, sexist petty and hypocritical. petty. Non-feminst women do not see themselves as dogmatic, sexist, petty, and hypocritical so they decline the title.

Lets take each in turn.

KSM appears to be the embodiment of a dogmatic feminist. She has decided that all porn is uniformly bad, and any attempts at discussion or to articulate one's point is met with more impenetrable dogma. Dogmatic thinkers like KSM see the world in black and white terms, and igmore gray, yellow, orange or anything more complex. I think it is becuase they lack the ability to think any other way.

And the groupthink in feminist circles is suffocating, sometimes even for moderate feminist. And feminist actually seek out groupthink. And despite many feminist being college educated, and presumably intelligent, they lack the perspective to see that they engage and thrive on group think.

Many of you would do yourselves a great service if you read Irving L. Janis' Groupthink: The Desperate Drive for Consensus at Any Cost, published first in Psychology Today 5 (November 1971). One story therein relates how a meeting with the president Johnson's staff during the Vietnam was was planning to use bombing to soften up the North Vietnamese. They thought that six weeks would be enough to break the North Vietnamese spirits. When someone asked what they would do if the bombing did not work they were met with the reply that another four weeks would certainly do the trick.

That kind of groupthink has found its home in feminism, and it gets to the point that you cannot see why so many people don't agree with your propositions. You are just continuing the bombing campaign.

Feminist are constantly confronted with the claim that they themselves are sexist. As it has been discussed on other threads, there is being sexist, and acting sexist. Absolutely I think many feminist act sexist. When KSM goes off on one of her sarcastic rants, she shows that she has prejudiced views of just about every man. She does not respect their opinions enough to have an actual conversation. When you eat up her hateful rhetoric you show your sexism.

When at least five women post a comment about returning the conversation to civility and you imply the one male who also says there should be a return to civility gets his shit jumped then you show how sexist you are.

When the voting and comments on this site shows that when a man and a women have the same view but the males responses are attacked, or the women's comments are receive more votes for the same thought you show how sexist you are.

And many of you are so suffocated in group-think and dogmatic thinking that you completely lack the self awareness of how sexist you are. And you still have the gall to say that "men just need to be made aware that some of their actions are sexist." The lack of self-awareness is staggering, and it is one reason I swing by here from time to time.

Next up is the pettiness, which once again can be displayed in the sarcastic dismissiveness of anything that does not coincide with your dogma, or when men point out what they think is an injustice you say "TEH PORRR MHENZ!!!!!!!!!!.

Most people don't undertand the pettiness of feminst. Most women would understand how a parent, a father would feel hurt that the mother of his child refuses to let him see his children. And many feminist mock that man, and others that think the system can be unjust.

That is disgusting behavior on the behalf of those feminst, and it is no wonder that other women do not want to stand shoulder to shoulder with them. Absolutely disgusting.

Once again dogmatic group-think and sexism has reared its head. Many feminist spend so much time 'othering' men and self identifying with feminist (and don't forget many feminist don't believe a man can truly be a feminist, even if he believes the exact same dogma) that they think that behavior is acceptable.

The combination of the dogmatic thinking, sexism and pettiness is the general hypocrisy of many feminist. They argue for equality but whenever someone makes a valid arguement that women have a some benefit or privilege the common response is a refusal to correct the inequity. Either it is not their problem to fix, or they are not going to give anything for equality.

So, by all means, enjoy KSM sarcasm. Just don't wonder "Why don't more women consider themselves feminist" or wonder "why more men are involved in feminism". Don't wonder why you cannot convince the main stream to go along with you when you cannot even convince your target audience to take the same title as you.

Peace out.

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