Feminism Is Not Synonymous With Morality, Goodness or Rightness

Latest Supporter Submission:

To begin, its important that my readers know that I am anti-feminism. Being anti-feminism does not define me as a human being. I am also many other things. I am not particularly fond of being considered an “anti-feminist”. I’d rather be considered “pro equality”. Feminists are people (many of whom are good friends of mine) who I believe mean well but have bought into a deeply flawed and harmful ideology. They believe that they are doing good things for women and our world as a whole. I cannot agree with that, but I am not trying to villainize individual people who follow this movement. I am working to deconstruct, disassemble and replace feminism with an egalitarian, gender neutral campaign to help all people, regardless of gender, race or sexual orientation.

But, you might say… feminism IS pro equality already. Feminism already has whats best for both men and women in mind when it funds ad campaigns and charity events, creates social media content and when it heavily influences public policy. Feminism MEANS equality.

I strongly disagree and I’ll tell you why.Feminism spreads negative press about men and harms women by telling them that they are under constant threat of victimization from male sexist oppressors, objectifyers and rapists every single day (Everyday Sexism, #yesallwomen). Feminism uses slanted, incomplete statistical data (like the CDC study on sexual assault that conflates drunk sex with rape and does not include the definition of the rape of a man by a woman “forced to penetrate”) to spread false claims about female victimization by men that also exclude many male victims. Feminism by its very core definition tells the world that every man since the dawn of time has “oppressed” every beloved mother, daughter, sister, aunt and grandmother in their lives through patriarchal control. Women are powerless and victimized under feminism’s ideology. And men are oppressive, violent and sexually predatious.

And yes, feminism has drawn some much needed attention to the problems women face through awareness campaigns surrounding female victims of domestic violence, rape, FGM (female genital mutilation), sexual harassment on the job etc. But it ignores, downplays or often actively works to shut down matching advocacy for male victims of many of these crimes. Feminism wants to maintain a monopoly on money and sympathy for women only. Not for men.

And yet men in our culture suffer equally (if at times from different issues) than women. Men are much more likely than women to commit suicide, many times times more likely to die on the job. They are almost as likely to be violently abused by an intimate partner or to be sexually assaulted or raped. There are strict beauty standards for women that have them starving themselves and hating their bodies, but there are strict success standards for men that have them working 60+ hours a week at a dangerous and difficult job, away from their families in order to prove their worth as a provider. Each female concern has an equally important male counterpart, but feminism does not want the general public to know this.

I am tired of this ridiculous assumption in our culture that feminism = goodness and rightness. Feminism is a flawed and slanted ideology. It has positive sides and negative sides, just like any ideology or religion. If you’re an intelligent, well informed individual, you’d be hard pressed to find ANY organization, ideology or religion that is 100% moral, right and good. Morality itself is highly subjective, and all movements have varying political outlooks and specific agendas. Therefore, to claim that feminism is synonymous with goodness and what is best for women and the world is not only highly presumptuously naive, but also blatantly false. There is a heavy dark side to feminism that spreads lies and slander about men and women alike. It is a highly ideological way to look at the world, sex, gender and human interrelating, and should not be considered synonymous with a moral high ground of any sort, nor with what is best for women.

As an illustration, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) was once heralded for its work in fighting for animal rights. Unfortunately, as time went on, it was discovered that PETA is in fact a highly corrupt, violent organization filled with zealots who sanction terrorist attacks in the service of animal rights activism. want a less subtle example?  Christianity has long been considered synonymous with goodness and rightness by its proponents and yet it spawns groups such as the Westboro Baptist Church, the Crusades, anti gay conversion camps and countless wars and insurgencies in God’s name. Yes, it also does great work with the poor and homeless, and in building cohesive and loving communities, but just calling oneself “Christian” does not make one a good person, just as calling oneself “Atheist” does not make one morally corrupt.

And yet, whenever anyone, male or female speaks out, criticizing feminism (as an ideology), they are instantly considered an enemy of goodness. They are often immediately branded as a misogynist or as being blind and uneducated as to the REAL meaning of feminism. Rarely if ever do feminists stop to consider that being against feminism is NOT being against women. Nor are my anti-feminist beliefs based on a simple lack of education about the movement as a whole.

I have been reading feminist articles, watching feminist YouTube videos and listening to nuanced and detailed deconstructions of feminist ideologies for several years now. I am anything but ill informed or incompletely informed on the movement. To assume so is condescending. Also, I love women with all of my heart. I have many many amazing, intelligent, hilarious, loving, accomplished and beautiful (inside and out) female friends, many of them feminists themselves, and I care for them all deeply. I care for all humans. To imply that to be against a flawed, one sided, anti-male political ideology is to hate women is one of the most naive and ill informed false conflations imaginable.

So I would challenge any feminists who read this piece to take a long, hard look at your movement and at the critics of your movement who are female. We are all women. We are intelligent, open minded, creative, driven and amazing. Those who are anti-feminist should not be written off as self hating or ill informed. We are neither.

This article was written by: Fayerweather Douglas.

11 Comments on “Feminism Is Not Synonymous With Morality, Goodness or Rightness”

  1. Hello.

    This is my first comment od this page. I appologise for all linguistic mistakes I will probably make.

    “There are strict beauty standards for women that have them starving themselves and hating their bodies, but there are strict success standards for men that have them working 60+ hours a week at a dangerous and difficult job, away from their families in order to prove their worth as a provider.”

    As a Polish woman I have little knowledge on what AMERICAN feminism is. Yet I believe the problem with women feeling bad for not being beautiful and men feeling bad for not earning enough money is the result of your sick AMERICAN mentality, that either you are rich, popular and excel in almost everything, or you are ugly, unsuccessful and generally a – loser.

    “If you’re an intelligent, well informed individual, you’d be hard pressed to find ANY organization, ideology or religion that is 100% moral, right and good. Morality itself is highly subjective, and all movements have varying political outlooks and specific agendas”

    I wholeheartedly agree with you. That is why a rational individual should stay away from any movement which is corrupted with ideology.

    “As an illustration, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) was once heralded for its work in fighting for animal rights. Unfortunately, as time went on, it was discovered that PETA is in fact a highly corrupt, violent organization filled with zealots who sanction terrorist attacks in the service of animal rights activism.”

    Do you consider people who attack Japanese whalers terrorists? If you do, what do you think should be done to protect whales from Japanese whale hunters? Just an example of a problem with the so-called Animal Rights. (I don’t like this expression, just as I don’t like the expression Human Rights.)

    “Christianity has long been considered synonymous with goodness and rightness by its proponents and yet it spawns groups such as the Westboro Baptist Church, the Crusades, anti gay conversion camps and countless wars and insurgencies in God’s name.”

    Sure it does. But it seems the religion is more than OK in USA. 🙂

    • No, we Americans do not have a sick belief that you are either perfect or nothing. I am not sure where you got that. But we are a Capitalist society, and believe that people should work hard, and work smart to be rewarded. We don’t simply reward people for showing up to the job, like a Communist country does. I certainly don’t consider that sick. My parents were born in the Soviet Union, but they are actually Polish, and from what they tell me of that country, it sounds like the men there disrespect women as much as they disrespect a good work ethic.
      Actually, yes. I would consider killing people in order to force your ideology on them to be very wrong, even if it does save something as wonderful as whales. PETA does worse then that. They have set bombs in places where animal testing goes on, and several times have hurt people who had nothing to do with the testing. They have attacked people who eat at restaurants that serve meat, and much more.
      Actually, Christianity has come under attack in the United States in several directions, first from a well meaning left wing government, that is attempting to not show favoritism bans Christians from praying in places like schools( not mandatory of course, but by individual choice) while allowing and encouraging other religions doing so. It has also come under attack by the many Muslim recent immigrants, who are often offended by religions other then Islam. So, nope. Not so OK. 🙂

  2. “Morality itself is highly subjective”
    No, it is not. Blurring the frontiers leads to relativism which is responsible for a clash of rights and an epidemy of mental illness (depression, anguish, fear…).

  3. Using your own analogy:
    One does not need to be “anti-Christian” to take issue with the darker, extremist parts of Christianity. In fact, many Christians keep the title but reject those parts of it that have twisted and radical.

    Thus, the same can be true of feminism and feminists. Why does rejecting the darker, extremist versions of feminism mean you can’t also be a feminist?

    If feminism, in its core ideology, is the focus of creating balance and equality amongst the genders, then, what is anti-feminism?

    I entirely agree with the sentiment that any ideology can become perverted. As Orwell stated, “Orthodoxy means not thinking–not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness” (from Politics & the English Language). This is true of communism and democracy and capitalism and socialism. Christianity and Islam and Judaism and Atheism. The list goes on. It is orthodoxy that is the real problem.

    So, then, it comes down to the meaning of language and labeling. You don’t like the term feminism, not because of what it is but what you perceive it to encompass.

    Another option to anti-feminism (from your definition) is to rebrand or reinstate or reclaim the word feminism so that it more closely means what it is intended to mean.

    While you are right that feminism is not innately good or moral or just, it is also not bad or immoral or unjust. It is a product of its people and its society. But it has been defined not just by its proponents but also by its antagonists.

  4. I myself have done numerous research in 3rd wave feminism and what the call new age feminism. I don’t agree with it and my wife does not. We don’t need to identify as a feminist to want equality. I asked some feminists questions to become more and better informed on there cause….I got yelled at screamed at, Google it! , called names….this is why men run the other way…I see so much men shaming and it’s sad. To give you an idea of what I go through I work many construction sites and there is a 5 second rule at many university’s I work at meaning you can’t talk, say hello, or look at any woman on the campus. I think it’s very sexist to assume all men are rapists. This was decided by a woman that made this rule and indenifies herself as a feminist. It’s really quite sad. I mentioned this to feminists and they have me a statistic 1 in 5 women get rapped in canada and women don’t report it. So ylthey are creating fear mongering to make women afraid of men? What a terrible tactic…and I told them if you are a feminist and you are about equality why don’t you talk about men in jail being raped more then women. They can’t answer simple questions they can’t respond well or politely to share there views. They get angry and it turns into a fight and that’s not what I am trying to do. I am just educating myself. It’s really sad I just want equality between the sexes and we don’t need to join a group that has man hating , only caring for women not men, and most of all can’t answer simple questions. It’s just sad…I love your article it makes sense and I stand with you! Very powerful points shared and I look forward to reading more! Thankyou

    • Equally between genders is stupid anyway. Men and women are not equals by any means. If we were, then you’d be able to give birth like your wife. I wish people would just drop this gender equality sh*t. It’s unrealistic and we are all different people. If Genders were so equal, why don’t they let Women MMA fighters compete against Men MMA fighters? I’ll tell you. Because the men would DESTROY THEM. Sure they have women who can fight, but the male MMA fighters would hit ten times harder than the women would, and I’m pretty sure one grapple from a male fighter, it’s lights out for that woman. People need to just accept the fact that women and men will never be equal to each other.

      The only men I can somewhat remotely consider being equal to a woman at all, are transgenders. And that’s because most of them think like women do, walk like them, look like them, and even act like they do. They still can’t give birth, except for Female to Male Transgenders who still have their reproductive organs. When there was all this buzz about the first man who gave birth, it was laughable. Because it wasn’t even a real man, it was a transman.

      • Good point. FYI, Fallon Fox is a formerly male MMA fighter who got a sex change, and now competes in the female MMA circuits. Fox was essentially manhandling the female fighters. Fox also broke a few female fighters’ skulls because Fox still retained a tremendous advantage in muscle mass, bone density, and upper body strength.

  5. I felt I was arrogant equaling leftist to ill persons.
    But I see a pattern (described according to my limitedness): they deny the intrinsically evil human nature, therefore they fall into Manicheism; they are greedy, and to placate their consciences, they want other people’s money go to the needy.
    “They have a low tolerance towards frustration”. I never forgot this sentence used to explain why people prefer animals better to human beings.
    They refuse God because they want to do whatever they feel like. They have a misconception of God as being restrictive when in fact, his ordeals intentions are only protective, any sensible parent applies them.
    I pray for them. And I pray to God to protect you and your wife, Adman.

    I apologize as my online dictionary is refusing to help my poor grammar and thinking.

  6. My god please we need more women like this speaking up in this world. So much respect for an intelligent woman that sees how feminism will result in bigger problems for her gender in the long-term. The easy option would be to just ride the wave and follow every other woman during this ‘global movement’, under the assumption that it is best for society and ‘equality’. It goes to show that education is always the answer.

Leave a Reply to Martine Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.