So Many Thoughts

I always seem to have an opinion about something. Some things get me worked up, and I will tell anyone that will listen my passionate point of view. I rarely lose my temper, I just feel passion. I guess I have to feel that passion about a topic to want to express myself. I write to vent when I need to. Hopefully it won't be all negative stuff, just a place to collect my thoughts at the time. So this is not so much about my life but my personal thoughts about the world around me.

Sunday, 3 June 2007

What is an anti-feminist?

I saw a group online this morning that's focus was anti-feminist. I wonder what exactly that is? Are they anti women getting equal pay? Are they anti women getting equal rights or even the vote? Do they want women to dedicate their lives to their menfolk? Are they pro-rape? Are they pro-male domination? I am very curious to understand where they were coming from because in this day and age, I cannot imagine what an anti-feminist really believes in. I was not curious enough to join their group because I do not have the time nor can I be bothered getting into an argument when I am just curious about their beliefs. I imagine they are a group of men who believe they are superior to women. I imagine they have been hurt or felt they have been wronged by women/woman (plural or singular) in their lives and believe they should exercise both physical and/or psychological control over women. Maybe (I imagine) they have religious beliefs that require that control. I say imagine, because I don't know.

Up until I started studying what some women have been through/ are going through/ what women fought for, I would not have considered myself a feminist, but as my knowledge grew, so did my realisation that I do believe women are entitled to equal pay for the same career choice and men, the right to be free from violence from men and the fear of violence. I do believe that many of women's 'choices' in life have been dictacted by society and culture and consequently women have traditionally been disadvantaged. I do believe it is wrong to use physical or psychological force to coerce, push or abuse women into making choices that they would not have made if they had total freedom. I do not believe all women have the same freedoms all over our world today, and this is why we need to speak out for them, not for the women that do have those freedoms, but for the ones that don't.

To be anti-feminist to me, must mean being anti-women because being feminist to me is just about being pro-women. To be clear, I do not believe women are super beings, better than men, or that I think men have little to offer women or the world. Far from it, I am happily attached to my male partner who is my equal intellectually, and who I raise my traditional nuclear family with - a lifestyle I chose and continue to choose because I love it (and the men in my life). I am not nor will I ever be anti-male and I do not understand those men and women that are anti the other sex. Men and women are different, but they are also the same in some areas.. we are all human and all of us deserve to be treated with respect.

It is for these reasons that I wonder who is anti-feminist and what they mean by that label. I cannot imagine what that label stands for.

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