I’m anti-circumcision/MGM as much as I am anti-FGM, but I really don’t see how the existence of male circumcision proves that feminism is unnecessary or untrue. That’s simply a non sequitur.

By the way, I didn’t read Heather’s post as hateful at all. It’s very hard to read tone on the internet, and I have a funny feeling you’re reading it that way just because she disagreed with you in a forthright way. It’s quite possible to be confident and upfront without being ‘hateful’ — even for a feminist. I also think you’re guilty of holding others to a higher standard than you do yourself. Your understanding of feminism is very lacking and misinformed, yet you come onto a feminist blog to “educate” the feminists on what we’re “really” about. Um, okay. And then you accuse Alex of being insulting when all s/he did was reiterate your own words back at you. If you thought they were so hurtful, maybe you shouldn’t have said them. Seriously, read some of the things you’ve written. Do you really believe that groups like the IAW can be compared to the KKK? We never hid behind masks or killed people and we weren’t members of a socially-stronger group (whites) picking on the oppressed (blacks). If anyone is the KKK in this situation, it is male supremacists who try to tarnish feminism to keep women from demanding the respect and rights that should be accorded to any human being.

Firstly, I’d like to say that in many respects, I agree with what you’re saying about the word feminism. Yes, to many people it is seen as a throwback to a previous era – however, I would actually say that we should only work harder to reclaim it. Feminism isn’t as loaded as you claim it to be.

Secondly, might I refer you to several articles from the Guardian?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/jul/05/circumcicision-health-children

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/05/hiv-circumcision-africa-who-un

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/jul/10/mothers-wages-fawcett-society

I choose articles from the Guardian because it’s the paper that I usually read and I find their website easiest to use – in case you decide to argue that this is simply the Guardian being biased, the articles in question are all based off reports from other agencies (such as the Fawcett society in the last one) or primary research (the first two) which is backed up by other studies and organisations, such as the WHO. In case you don’t want to spend your time reading, let me summarise them:

Article one: Circumcision saves lives. It reduces the chances of HIV transmission by up to 60%.

Article two: WHO admits that circumcision can save lives.

Article three: Women with children are paid up to 21.6% less than men. I quote, too, “Partnered women without dependent children earn 9% less than men on average”. The pay gap continues after the women go back to work and when the children are grown up.

I hope that you read these articles and find them interesting. If you do, then have a look around – you will find a ton of writing on feminist thoughts and issues across the internet, whether it’s from a womanist, feminist or simply egalitarian point of view.

I would also like to say that I agree with you on the issue of men being “redundant” due to sperm being created from cells and the media taking this as a cue to “bash” men. I personally think that this could have been a good opportunity to have an intelligent, rational and fascinating discussion on reproductive rights, the role that new technology can play in allowing same-sex couples to have children and the way that we treat infertility and related diseases. Instead, it turned into a bit of farce. However, it should be pointed out that, in the article you linked to, there was only one commenter who seemed keen to get rid of men (or rather, keep them for “menial tasks”), and even her article seemed firmly tongue in cheek.

I’m sorry to hear that you were the victim of an assault in high school. However, I just want to ask a couple of things: were you afraid to be alone with girls after that? Did your parents/friends/acquaintances blame you? Were you brought up to accept that this kind of violence is going to happen to you because of your gender? Are you told to be afraid of walking alone at night in case it happens again? This isn’t me downplaying what happened to you, but this is my way of saying that violence against women is treated very differently to violence against men, and that is inherently sexist, as you yourself discovered. Women are either weak passive victims, or to blame for their own misfortune, even at the hands of someone else (male or female). Advice on avoiding violence focuses on women avoiding dark alleyways and the like, when in reality it should be more about creating a culture of respect and pacifism. Men, who are more likely to be involved in fights and assaults on a typical night out (I have no statistics on this to hand but Germaine Greer writes about in her book, The Whole Woman) but are rarely lectured to, patronised or expected to submit to curfews and limitations in order to be “safe”. I hate writing about this, because I feel that it simply encourages the stereotypes of feminists being victims of abuse, but that is because until people take the issue of “violence” as a whole seriously, and stop patronising women when it comes to their own safety, it will remain important for feminists. In London, where there was what the media called a “spate” of shootings of teenage boys last year, the focus was not on their gender, but on the way that they died. If it had been fifteen women killed, you can imagine that there would have been a completely different response.

Finally, I’ve had men tell me that if they were a woman, they’d rather be murdered than raped. I find this outrageous: I think it shows that, according to some people, a woman’s sexuality is the most important part of her, and that violating her sexually means that she can never recover and be truly a woman, so death would be preferable. This is not to diminish the impact that rape can have on a woman’s life, rather, this is to say that prefering death to rape is a horrific notion, showing how violence against women is treated differently to violence against men.

Male Rights Activists have invaded the fbomb (

….Somebody fetch my Axe

Check it out: http://www.alexawesome.com/forum

I’ve posted my full response there, and I would love it if others wanted to get involved and start talking about these issues.

What if a group of white men adopted the name Klu Klux Klan and attempted to turn it into a group that fights for equality among races? I’m not calling feminism the KKK and I see the obvious differences. However, can you imagine how hard it is to “clean” a name that is so strongly tainted?

Take the swastika. It was widely used before Hitler. Now, if it accidentally pops up, people freak. It’s that tainted. Imagine trying to alter public perception.

Extreme feminism has insulted, and in some cases, injured a lot of men.

Feminism didn’t start out to bring equality to all people – it began to bring equal rights to women, who were being terribly under served. Even many Native American tribes allowed women to vote. It empowered women who really needed empowerment.

Maybe Feminism is trying to redefine itself… I believe it to be much harder to redefine feminism than to establish a new mentality behind a new word… one that doesn’t carry so much stigma.

And, finally.. there’s the obvious root of the term. “All men are created equal” was coined in a time when “men” meant all people, not just males… but even now, many are offended by the gender bias of the language (there was a recent piece on this on Change.org).

There’s no modern perception that “female” refers to all people. To rally under a term who’s very root has gender bias… you’re beginning your struggle at a severe disadvantage.

Just my $0.02.

This has been a good discussion. Thanks to Julie Z for letting us have it here.

I’m convinced this was a communication problem moreso than trying to pick on people. That said, I would like to respond to a few things you said:

“Feminist, in my mind, is a dirty word – and this is, indeed, my point. Modern feminism expresses the notion of equality, but it also focuses an enormous amount of energy to paint women as victims and men as oppressors. I truly and deeply believe that this will only serve to widen the gap.”

The point of this website is to reclaim that word and redefine it. As modern women, we are obligated to evolve in our roles in society and redefine how we fit into our culture. It is natural for us to reclaim the word that got us to this point and allow its meaning to grow and evolve with us.

You are absolutely right that creating an “us vs. them” mentality is divisive and harmful. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about these issues recently, and I understand why you’re offended and bothered at a lot of the hypocrisy you’ve uncovered. Please believe me when I say plenty of women who call themselves feminists also feel the same way.

It seems unproductive to try to adopt a new word, (egalitarian), over a word that SHOULD define what we’re about when we talk about women’s rights and women’s equality. If we’re concerned with those issues and those issues are still relevant today (they are), we should be able to use the word “feminist” to describe ourselves. It should not have the dirty, ugly connotations and stereotypes people associate with it, but more critically, no one should feel ashamed of being concerned about the welfare and rights of women.

By making feminism a dirty word, that’s precisely what we’ve done. It’s very important that this generation of women pick that word up, dust it off, and set it upright again, instead of pretending we don’t know it and aren’t associated with it.

I did set an offensive tone with Heather, only making it more difficult to actually have an open conversation. Heather, I apologize for this.

Feminist, in my mind, is a dirty word – and this is, indeed, my point. Modern feminism expresses the notion of equality, but it also focuses an enormous amount of energy to paint women as victims and men as oppressors. I truly and deeply believe that this will only serve to widen the gap.

If you’re interested in equality, be an egalitarian. If women do, indeed, need more support to reach equality, then supporting equality will naturally take us there. I believe that, considering all things, men and women in the United States are fairly equally oppressed and liberated. Still, under the intent of egalitarianism, it doesn’t matter what I *think*.

I completely understand that women have had a very difficult past, but I’m trying to focus on today. I’m trying to focus on a mindset that won’t de-evolve into a pattern of hatred and victimization in the future.

I’ve been struggling to get to where I am… but I’m feeling strong and confident about placing my heart on equality and tuning feminism out of my life.

And this, ultimately, was my personal comment to the topic at hand. I know a a few feminist friends who have grown frustrated with dating, saing they feel men do not understand them. It took me a while, some time of really getting to know them, to realize that they weren’t trying to understand the men who were not interested in them.

Feminism appeals to a core set of concerns that women have… concerns that are justified… and I by no means intend to diminish the value of those concerns. But the popular feminist dialog has gone far beyond this and is, in my mind & heart, is beginning to cause more damage and a deepening rift between men and women.

Thank you for taking the time to clarify the point you were trying to make. Clever or not, your original comment did not communicate the message to me… You follow up, although extremely condescending, managed to communicate a lot of important things. Thank you for this.

You seem to be under the delusion that you’re actually engaging in legitimate discourse, and simply having a conversation in which you share ideas and facts. When you make a statement like, “You’re the reason why I wouldn’t date a feminist,” you completely undermine any credibility you may have had.

See, my post was clever because I didn’t marginalize you based on your gender or views. I said I wouldn’t date you specifically because of the views and opinions you’ve expressed. Get it?

What’s hilarious is you treat “feminist” as a dirty word, saying you won’t date anyone who calls themselves one, while posting on a site that is so savvy, it calls itself “fbomb,” suggesting that feminism is treated as a dirty word in our culture when it shouldn’t be. Really, this has to be explained to you?

Worst of all (are you still reading, Zaskoda?), you act as if your statement that you wouldn’t date a feminist is actually insulting or relevant. Sure, the article talks about dating and identifying as a feminist, but you did a good job of missing that point, too.

Re: “Also emphasis on EDUCATED — because only a small group of privileged women can afford to obtain an education.”

In recent years, girls in the United States are performing much better than boys in the same age group, in most schools and colleges. In the United States, 57% of college students are women, and the number is growing.

Re: “Because black men, hispanic men, etc., make a lot less money than you do”

You just specifically made an assumption about me based on your assumptions about white men in general. This is racism and sexism and you are now guilty of the crimes of which you are so deeply offended.

You’re full of anger… a lot of anger, and it’s clear in your post. I’m sorry you’re so angry and I honestly wish you could see past it and accept people.. accept me.. as an individual and not judge me by my skin color or chromosomes.

I won’t apologize for my race or my gender. I didn’t choose to be a white male. I have nothing to do with the oppression that has happened in the past, I wasn’t born yet.

However, I have and will continue to do my best to treat every person I meet equally and fairly, which is more than the world has done for me.

It is a shame I’m not female or a person of color.. or even perhaps gay… as then I might be heard by those such as yourself.

I do hope, very deeply, that some day you can stop being angry.