r/AskFeminists

I don't think there's anything wrong with a movement that focuses on women (as long as they do not aim to harm men). Kinda like how animal rights activists focus on helping animals, but they don't (typically) believe that that should happen at the expense of human rights/lives. The individuals involved care about both, but the *movement* is focused on just one. I think the "feminism is about helping men,too" thing turns every conversation about women's rights into a "which gender has it worse" war. Once you say you're prioritizing both, it invites the comparisons about which gender's issue is more pressing.

It also makes it easier to de-center women. We've seen a million "How does feminism help men" posts. People never ask the MRAs how they help women. That's because no one is expecting them to focus on helping us. We used to be called the "women's liberation movement", and that was fine with us. It kinda feels like we "all lives matter"-ed ourselves. FWIW, most feminists I know disagree with me on this. I understand their reasons ("we need to work together", "it gets more men on board with the cause", etc). But I still feel how I feel. Does anyone else have any perspective on this?

I’m not trying to be combative, I’m just trying to do the right thing. I try to listen to what women are saying and adjust my behavior accordingly because as I man I know I have blind spots in how some of my behaviors and actions can affect women in a patriarchy.

One of the things I’ve been most confused on recently is the idea of protecting women. I feel like in my adolescence, the common messaging was that men should not seek to be the protectors of women. That its infanilizing, demeaning and that women don’t want and/or need men to protect them.

So I haven’t. Of course growing up in a family that wanted to uphold gender norms, I was always told I need to be willing to fight to defend women because they were weaker, so I had to go against my programming.

But it feels like every time something egregious happens to women publicly (for example the Cornell SA), the response contains stuff along the lines of “and men call themselves protectors, yet none of them stepped in”. Or even when it’s just like a video of a man and a woman fighting, it’s “why are the men doing nothing, they’re supposed to be protectors”.

Again, I’m not trying to be argumantive and I’m not asking in bad faith. I’m on the spectrum and I do at times have issues picking up on subtext so this might be one of those cases, I’m just looking for clarity on what I should be doing if I want to be a good man who doesn’t contribute to the harm women face.

7 privileged men drugged, then repeatedly gang raped a girl for seven hours, SEVEN HOURS, at a frat house at an Ivy League university and only two got expelled and the rest got made to write essays. ESSAYS.

How do these white men keep getting away with it, and how do the institutions that cover for them keep get away with it?

Online, there seems to be growing concern about declining birth rates. I've seen plenty of anti-feminist and misogynistic arguments about the cause and solutions to this problem, as I'm sure many people have encountered. Anecdotally, I have not really seen a feminist perspective outlining the causes and solutions. This feels like a serious blind spot, and one I would like to remedy. Any recommendations for essays, books, thinkers, or even just perspectives would be helpful!

To get ahead of it, I'm broadly aware of feminist critiques about the "fertility crisis", which, to overgeneralize seem to argue that there is no real crisis. This is a valid and important part of the discourse on the subject, but not really what I'm looking for, given that it is already well represented in my information bubble. That said it is possible that the consensus is that all pro-natalist policies are inherently anti-feminist, so anything to that effect would also help inform me!

Thank you all so much!

Edit: holy shit can none of you read?

I know that Margaret Thatcher is not considered a feminist or a feminist icon, in fact, its quite the opposite. Thatcher herself once said: "The feminists hate me, don't they? And I don't blame them. For I hate feminism. It is poison."

Considering that people still discuss the negative aspects of Thatcher's legacy to this day, what would you say is a particularly negative aspect of her legacy that has had a harmful impact on feminism?

For example, I know that many people in the LGBT community would point to Section 28, while critics of capitalism would likely point to the privatization of state-owned companies. But from a feminist perspective, what exactly is considered the most damaging part of Margaret Thatcher's legacy?

While I disagree with the second wave feminist view on trans people and bio/gender-essentialism at large, I do find their arguments about power dynamics and consent compelling.

If consent cannot exist within a sufficiently extreme power dynamic, does patriarchy not cause such a dynamic in every straight relationship? And by that logic, can there ever be consensual heterosexual intercourse in patriarchal society?

If the answer is no, then celibacy is clearly the only path for cis-het men (I exclude trans men from this because the issue is not with gender, but rather power dynamics which trans folks do not experience in the same way).

With the Cornell case we have seen how systematic these issues with Greek Life are. Fraternities have always have had problems with sexual assault, but they also have issues with racism, hazing, and substance abuse. While sororities aren't as problematic, they still very much have issues too with hazing, racism and discrimination.

I don't think there's anything necessarily unique about the individuals in Greek life. However I think the power, exclusivity, and social stigma makes these issues so much worse. It's structural at this point. What do you all think?

Not to share my whole life story, but I’m 5’8 and a Neurodivergent incel, so I’ve recently started to become blackpilled (not that i agree with everything they say)

I’ve considered myself a feminist ever since I was in middle school, and that hasn’t changed. On my campus I go to rallies and help with my schools consent education team, i donate to causes whenever I’m able to, I support freedom to choose and women’s rights. I’m not outwardly misogynistic (internally i may have some things to work on), i’m just more nihilistic than I used to be.

I am convinced that Twitter/TikTok buzzword statements like "men should start in jail and work their way out" or "KAM" is the greatest psyop ever thought. Unfortunately, a teenage boy is not going to have that level of critical thinking. I am a trans woman, but used to be that teenage boy. I used to hate feminism because I seriously thought a random blue checkmark Twitter account saying "I hate men" was equivalent to the movement that fights for women and girls called 'feminism".

This subject has been on my mind. I've seen this idea on Facebook that if a man hasn't heard any stories from women about sexual assault that they've faced, then it means they don't see him as safe. I'll go ahead and tell on myself here: I don't think I've ever heard a first-hand account from a woman who was assaulted, sexually or otherwise.

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EDIT- I realize now that I rushed the post and probably should have provided more details. Firstly, I'm not saying that anyone is entitled to hearing about someone else's trauma. No one has accused me of saying that, but I still feel it's important to say. Something else I'd like to add is that my view is what I've seen others say- that this is a deeply personal topic that a lot of people keep private due to its nature and how traumatic it can be to talk about over and over again. In fact, the reason I posted this is because I wanted more perspective than just what I've heard on Facebook.

EDIT 2- I actually remembered after posting this that a woman I used to be friends with did actually open up to me about her ex SAing her. Also, while it's not the same thing, I've had women tell me stories about creepy behavior that they experienced, so it's not like I'm seen as some completely unsafe person to be around.

I decided to remove the "I'm probably gonna regret this" line from the opening of my post because in retrospect, it felt a bit asshole-y. I made this post because I wanted some perspective on this idea, and I don't want to come across as a dismissive douchebag.

On that note, I want to make two very important statements.

1. If I didn't want to educate myself, I wouldn't have made this post. I don't deserve a pat on the back for that.

2. An internet personality I follow has recently been accused of being abusive to women, and even though it seems no one is talking about the situation, I've made it a point to step away from said content creator. I don't deserve a pat on the back for that either.

I'm 4B and I see so many crazy things on the internet that men do, so I'm wondering why more women aren't 4B, it seemed like the most natural progression considering everything. Any thoughts on this?

This is a good faith question not looking to be vilified.

Edit: okay so thanks for the responses. I see the common theme in the comments is because you like men too much to do that. Perfectly understandable as per the post insights most of you are from the United States, maybe things are different and safer over there and the rate of femicide, pedophilia, rape and sex based violence in general isn't high? Where I'm from people who have had the opportunity to access a bit of education and are feminists don't really like men? Will sent this to my class group and see their thoughts as well.

The youtuber had sexually assaulted someone ten years ago as was leaked by an unknown third party (not the victim). He and the victim both agreed it happened within the first day after and he admitted it was true and spend the last 10 years "working to be different".

Some people online say they won't watch his videos ever again anymore.

Hey all,

I’m a trans masculine person and I’m wondering what everyone thinks about language surrounding news stories and conversations about “women’s issues” in the wake of recent news. From within the Trans community I’m hearing a lot of push to include trans women and trans fem people when we talk about “women’s issues,” and I’m also hearing that a lot of trans macs and trans men who were raised as girls are feeling left out of the conversation entirely. I’m curious what people outside the community are thinking/doing to bridge these gaps, and when you talk about “women” and “violence against women,” who do you mean? I don’t mean to debate anyone’s identity, I’m just truly curious about what most people mean when they address these topics/use these phrases.

Since classic olden days chivalry operated on the premise that females needed to be treated with care and special attention because they were less than men, and radical feminism heavily pushes against the idea of gender dependency, would expecting chivalry as a female be deemed self misogyny by a radical feminist? This is pure critical thinking by a male who just discovered feminism and Philisophy and should not be taken as a jab at any party. Am I making sense or do I need a reeducation on feminism?

I've read some theory that suggests gender is nothing more than an aesthetic social practice, which if true, could persist...

Radical feminists seem to believe that gender is in itself a byproduct of patriarchy. Some think that gender is essential and even in a world without patriarchy, men and women will still have common characteristics due to biology (gender-essentialism as it were.)

What does gender look like in a world which doesn't seek to keep men in a place of higher power and privilege?

I want to do a "dead men dont rape" with Medusa's face. I am not personally a survivor of SA. Would it be wrong to wear a Medusa patch in this manner?

If so, what would that happy medium be?

Well, to start, I assume it would vary based on the individual child's tendencies and needs. But I ask because there's a lot of talk these days about how boys are undersocialized in terms of personal upkeep and emotional intelligence; but on the other hand I don't want to go to the extreme that girls are more likely to get, where they're taught to feel insecure about their appearance (with the implication that their appearance is their main source of worth and thus extensive primping and dieting are socially obligatory) and to be "polite" to the point of people-pleasing and conformism.

Hello, I'm a guy who's had this on my mind for quite a while and I wanted to ask this to get some opinions on it.

I've seen women and feminist say that more often than not anytime there's nudity and explicit sex in a movie or TV show it's usually from a women and is usually framed in a way that objectifies and reduces her to an object for the male gaze and I've seen people say this about men who go nude too.

On the other hand I've seen people say that not all nudity and explicit sex is used this way and that sometimes it can be done in a way that doesn't objectify the people in those scenes and can add characters and be plot relevant.

I recently read a thread about a similar topic and one comment mentioned that it might be difficult to be able to completely divorce female nudity from exploitation and objectification and I kind of understand them in terms of the nudity seen in movies and TV.

Now my question is can nudity and sex ever truly be done in a non objectifying and degrading way that if that is the intention, or does a director or creators bias often lead them to either consciously or unconsciously objectify women and men regardless of the intent not to objectify.

What do you think? Do you think on a societal level that it's impossible to separate nudity from objectification, exploitation and sexualization and can those type of scenes ever been done right?

For me, I sort of feel like whenever there's an explicit nude scene involving either women or men that, regardless of the directors intent, might be feeding into objectification and exploitation, and I honestly think someone's unconscious bias might lead to frame nudity in a male gaze-y way

Feel free to discuss and share your opinions with me and give examples.