Might help also to describe what you think feminism is, since it’s one of those terms that is overloaded.
I once had a physical therapist tell me she wasn’t a feminist because she thought women couldn’t be as physically capable as men when serving as soldiers, and seemed to believe feminism requires treating women exactly like men.
I told her I was a feminist because I believe in equal rights for men and women, an idea she did not seem so opposed to.
Feminist as fuck!
Feminism is the fight for equality, with a particular focus on the needs of women and folk perceived as women. Men are included in feminism, but indirectly, in that improving equality for women necessarily requires addressing systems, norms and issues that negatively impact men as well.
Sure, it’s easy to say that you’re “egalitarian” or believe in “equality for all”, but those sound bites, whilst heading off the anti feminist folk, completely fail to address the fact that inequality is not equally spread between men and women. When everything else is equal, women still deal with more inequality than men, and feminism is exists because of that fact
this is such a succinct and eloquent point about why “feminism” is focused on women at all … this point seems lost on so many men, who seem to think “equality” demands we ignore the way inequality and power is distributed, as if the only approach to the situation is a kind of gender-blindness, and anything else is hypocrisy
Can you explain how women deal with more inequality than men?
Until 1972, birth control pills were not accessible to unmarried women.
Until 1973, women in most states could not serve on juries in the U.S.
Until 1974, women were unable to obtain a credit card or open a bank account without their husband as co-signer (and unmarried women were entirely unable to have a bank account or credit card).
Until the 1970s, women were not permitted at most Ivy Leagues (e.g. Harvard did not allow women until 1977).
Until 1978, women could be fired for becoming pregnant.
Until 1980, sexual harassment was not considered a form of sex discrimination, and the first legal case where a court agreed a woman was sexually harassed in the workplace was in 1977.
Until 1993, husbands could legally rape their wives in the many states of the U.S.
Until 2010 health insurance companies were permitted to discriminate against women and charge them higher prices than men for the same coverage.
Until 2013, women were not permitted to serve in combat roles in the U.S. military.
One in three women have experienced physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner (compared to 1 in 14 for men).
Women still earn 82 cents to the dollar compared to men, and in 1982 that was 65 cents to the dollar (the situation has not improved since the 90s).
Women experience greater job gaps and unemployment than men.
Only 10% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women.
In 2022, only 33% of university presidents were women.
Women currently make up less than 30% of the U.S. House of Representatives, and 25% of the Senate.
For more: https://www.un.org/en/un75/women_girls_closing_gender_gap
For each of those examples women were disadvantaged and men were advantaged. So they both experienced inequality.