Feminism
Shall we start as we mean to go on? Especially for the manbabies and misled ladies...Why using 'Feminist' as an insult is dumb and why everyone should be one.
We've all seen it, strewn across social media platforms - 'feminist/s' being used as an insult to women by insecure manbabies and younger women who have, apparently, lost their way and ended up knee-deep in the mire of misogyny too.
Dumb
Such young women (they do tend to be younger women) and men who think 'feminist' is an insult or has some inherent derogatory association, don't even appear to like women, let alone want to be or be with one. It's entirely possible to predict which comment sections will contain uneducated and often illogical criticisms of women - increasingly, it seems, by women and not just men.
Even videos of world-class and world champion female gymnasts and athletes in the appropriate sportswear for their field are now attracting the self-titled 'Men Of Culture' and their usual banal, unintelligent cries of misogynistic bollocks.
There's an apparent growing wave of creators who have nothing better, more intelligent or substantial to base their broadcasts upon other than the idea that Feminism is wrong. Indeed it is all that is wrong in society today.
They like to sit bleating into microphones using the word 'Feminist' as an insult. I believe younger women picked it up and ran with it, to the extent where many of them now also do the same.
The entire thing is an unintelligent shitstorm brewing in social media's teacup, and here's why...
Using 'Feminist' as an insult, thinking it is a name you can call a woman and it somehow means something negative, is dumb on too many levels for me to cover in this piece. Ultimately, though, for it to be insulting relies on one thing - which we'll explore using an an analogy, because people who use 'feminist' as an insult are dumb enough to need need it to be explained in this way...
If I were to look you in the face and call you dumb, it's an insult. 'Dumb' in this context means 'stupid'. Unintelligent. Not clever. Everybody knows this is not a compliment.
My very usage of the word 'dumb' also implies that I am cleverer than you and I know it, because I am looking down at you, metaphorically speaking, and judging you to be dumb. Stupid. Not as intelligent as I am.
If you care what another person thinks of you, this will insult you. It'll wind you up, at least, and maybe have you mouthing-off about it a bit later when I'm not around.
Likewise, calling someone a feminist in this social media setting is meant to be an insult. It is included in critical comments online. There is one huge
flaw in this, though, which those who use it as an attempted insult are too stupid to grasp - otherwise they wouldn't try.
For the word 'feminist' to be an insult, it must convey more negative connotations than positive ones.
It's truly that simple.
The same goes for any and every word and term used as an insult.
In this context, its history, though, its very evolution and reason for being, is anything but negative in terms of what feminism has brought about and achieved...
...Unless, that is, you agree with and support all the sociological things that feminism fought, combatted and changed for the better over the years.
And if you do support those things, in that mix is the idea that a husband has the right to rape his wife.
To disagree with feminism is to agree with that.
And if you do agree with that, there is something very wrong with you.
Also included is the idea that any man your daughter or any woman you care about may become involved with has the right to beat the shit out of her if he wants to for whatever reason.
It includes the idea that your daughters don't have a right to the same level of education as males and that when she is out earning, your daughter doesn't deserve the same pay as a male doing exactly the same job.
It covers the concept that females should not have the right to vote.
I could keep going.
I could write another hundred words on the inequalities that Feminism and feminists have quashed. I'm not going to, because even the first statement should be enough to make any decent person, regardless of their gender, appreciate and support the positive things Feminism has created - because it had to.
Females were not going to be given equalities or protections without a fight - without dying for it.
No person with any ounce of intelligence and self-confidence would ever see you calling them a
'feminist' as an insult.
Suffragettes
If you haven't heard of The Suffragettes, educate yourself with that link once you've read this. As I just said, to claim 'feminist' as an insult, you're conveying with its use that you support all the abuses feminism either criminalised or stopped, while admitting you have no historical knowledge of or respect for the Suffragettes.
Very dumb.
Very dumb indeed.
You're basically just insulting yourself, because, to repeat myself again, no person with any ounce of intelligence and self-confidence would ever see you calling them a 'feminist' as an insult.
It simply shows us what stupidity and insecurity lies between your ears.
It tells us you don't like women, so we need to leave you alone, just like those self-proclaimed 'Nice Guys' who always finish last.
All of this makes it even sadder to see young women now also mistakenly seeing being a feminist as an insult. It implies they don't like women very much either.
Them being women, what does it say about the way they see themselves?
This isn't, though, me saying feminism is perfect. Far from it...
I have an Honours degree in Journalism, Film and Broadcasting. 'Honours' mean it's harder to get, apparently.
When I started it, all I knew about it was where it was and what it was called. I hated it. Only two modules throughout the entire three years were practical and actually involved any writing.
I wanted to study Media Production with Visual Arts, but as is the case for most areas of my life, my body got to make the decision for me and I knew I would struggle to lug kit around and be on my feet all day filming.
It was hardcore theories all the way and made me not go into News Journalism because it's so rotten and dangerous in terms of the influence it has on millions of people's attitudes and opinions.
I spent one year of my life at the UK's first and most prestigious School For Journalism studying feminism. It was like repeatedly punching myself in the face.
I did not enjoy it whatsoever, although some bits of it were very interesting. I'd been unaware of how many types of Feminist Theory there are, and I think many, if not most, of them have fundamentally valuable points. Never, however, shall I ever agree with, like, support of even grasp Radical Feminism.
To call someone a Radical Feminist is an insult, because Radical Feminism is nothing but man-hate, misandry.
No mother of any son could do him well and be a Radical Feminist. No female partner of, or real friend to any, man could ever be a healthy companion if she is a Radical Feminist. This school of thought depends upon actively disliking men. It's horrible.
Postmodernist Feminism was my bag.
It says I can enjoy males and our differences, enjoy being feminine in
contrast to the masculinity of men.
Postmodernist
Postmodernist Feminist Theory says I can wear whatever I want, work if I'm able to and control my own cash, have the vote, get an education, drive, own property, have sex with whomever I wish, have a career, not have a carer and focus on motherhood, have a career and kids, not get married, get married - but be entitled to say no to sex if I do marry.
I says I can still enjoy males and our differences, still appreciate it when a man holds a door open for me or carries something heavy because he's stronger than I, still enjoy being feminine in contrast to the masculinity of men.
Isn't that what female/male is all about?
Enjoying not only the traits of our own gender, but also relishing the differences of the opposite one, and how they interact and play with each other?
Surely you can argue that in a straight setting, the masculinity of men is what evokes the strongest sense of feminine feeling within women simply because of the very nature of 'female v male' and how animals are 'designed'?
Vice versa, of course, with femininity escalating the feeling of masculinity within men who actually like women and the feminine.
Again, the beauty of Binary Opposition, as covered in Nice Guys...
I'm speaking from the perspective of a female who enjoys men sexually and platonically. Maybe if I were gay, I wouldn't see it quite the same way?
Point is, I'm not just waffling 'from a woman's point-of-view', as misogynists say when trying to be derogatory towards us, though that should be enough.
This comes from an academically educated and qualified standpoint, making it harder for those not educated in this specific area to criticise or debate my words with any real level of logic.
Yes, I'm pulling intellectual rank again.
Facts are facts, and the number one most basic feminist fact of all is:
You don't have to be female to be a feminist, because feminism is a group of theories, and theories do not depend upon gender in order to be agreed with.
That this fact is so often ignored by those stupid enough to think 'feminist' is insulting contributes to the dumb part of all this. There are a couple of other key facts too:
- If you are or hope to be a father in the future, you should be a Feminist. You may already have a daughter or one might come along, and you should believe in Feminism in general. Otherwise, you're supporting the opposite...
...Which is you signalling that you don't want your daughter to have basic rights and freedoms.
If you have a son or have one in the future, he may take a woman as a partner who will mother your grandchildren - who may be female...Not that we should have to barter for basic respect in this arena.
Unfortunately, some men still need the benefits of feminism to apply to their direct genetic relative. Fact.
- If you like women sexually and would like to have or have a female partner, you should be a feminist. Otherwise, you're the opposite.
Which is a misogynist - a person who doesn't think females should have the freedoms Western women have and who doesn't like women because they're women. A recipe for an abusive relationship, and society, in other words.
If you have a female friend or relative who you love and who matters in your life, you should be a feminist.
Hopefully I don't have to repeat why again at this point.
This is still bartering, though.
Obviously, no confident, self-assured, healthy-minded, secure male needs to be told any of this, because he won't be the one behaving like a big manbaby online.
He'll be too busy sifting through the females contacting him hoping to pull him or too busy with the woman/women he has.
Rarely are the men using 'feminist' as an attempted insult the ones in healthy and happy connections or relationships.
What of the young women doing it, though?
Where they're concerned, their use of 'feminist' in attempts to insult other women likely stem from a lack in real self-confidence. They have likely experienced some abusive men (be they family or partners) and they are now only using the word as an insult to try to appear appealing to other men.
They're 'nOt LiKe oTHeR gIRLs'.
Without feminism, they couldn't even be talking and posting their opinions online.
Oh, the irony!
Different
They are not feminists, they'll proudly pronounce online. Thus they do not believe that they have any rights to own property, work, vote, be educated, have custody of their children, to give sexual consent within marriage, to control cash they earn, earn cash in the first place...
It's bullshit, showing they don't understand feminism.
Without feminism, they couldn't even be talking and posting their opinions online. Oh, the irony!
They think that's what all healthy-minded, secure men want. They think that by being openly against Feminism, they'll be more attractive to men - something they would, of course, deny.
But the men who think 'feminist' is an insult and that Feminism is a bad thing are the ones to avoid.
Those men don't even like women and many of them may need to introspectively examine their sexuality. Perhaps they're harbouring a closest homosexuality that is manifesting in their misogyny.
How can you want to healthily engage in sexual behaviours with the opposite sex if you don't like them simply because they are the opposite sex?
Obviously, that's rhetorical - you
can't.
Thus, in many respects, this new immature and unintelligent trend for using 'feminist' as an attempted insult is as handy as it is sad, ignorant, dumb and dangerous.
It shows us which females will not be decent friends based on them not even liking or supporting their own femininity, and which males either need to deal with some closeted, toxic view of their own homosexuality, or simply don't like the feminine whatsoever, on any level other than as a set of holes.
Either way, these red flags tell us who
to avoid in life - and who to focus on.
