I took a feminism class at Santa Clara University in the honors program under one of the smartest people I've ever met in my life. We read some of the most intellectual, thought-provoking, and important literature I've ever read in my life. It revolutionized the way I think about many things, and if you've read even just a few of my blog posts, you can probably tell that I sprinkle some feminism into my writing, as it has come to broaden my worldview regarding much of this evolution stuff.
Feminism is not about hating men. Feminism is not even about advancing women's issues. It's bigger than that. It's about decoding systems of power, not just patriarchy. It's about unraveling gender, not just women. Our textbook was titled "Feminisms," with an s, because there are many definitions of what feminism means to many different people.
When I hear someone say they're not a feminist, all I hear is ignorance, because they are literally ignoring the fact that feminism is a fully-fledged, nationally-accredited, universally-recognized academic institution. Every top tier university in America and most of the Western world has a team of highly intellectual academics that work on very important, infinitely complex issues concerning society.
Ignoring the legitimacy of an entire academic movement is a bold gesture, so why do people do it? I think that feminism has become a bad word, because of how it's thrown around. They heard a crazy girl in high school say something that rubbed them the wrong way. They don't like how weird that feminist was that stopped shaving her armpits. They met a misandrist once who justified anti-male views with a naive understanding of feminism. This sort of stuff happens all the time, and not just with feminism.
Remember Jack Kruse? When he started saying crazy shit, did you stop believing in evolution? When Marlene Zuk misinterpreted evolutionary implications, did you call Darwin a hack? Why abandon a legitimate intellectual discipline over some crazy people running around?
Feminism has sort of been hi-jacked by noobs. Tons of women consider themselves feminists, yet most of them disagree about what it means, and the vast majority of them haven't studied it formally. If a hack that calls himself a physicist says something crazy, are you gonna abandon the theory of gravity? No, because there are plenty of other things in the field that make sense other than that one thing that that crazy guy said, right?
So don't commit the fallacy of composition. A part does not represent the whole. Truth is more important than politics. But, in other news, my next post is about why I hate feminism.
Feminism has sort of been hi-jacked by noobs. Tons of women consider themselves feminists, yet most of them disagree about what it means, and the vast majority of them haven't studied it formally. If a hack that calls himself a physicist says something crazy, are you gonna abandon the theory of gravity? No, because there are plenty of other things in the field that make sense other than that one thing that that crazy guy said, right?
So don't commit the fallacy of composition. A part does not represent the whole. Truth is more important than politics. But, in other news, my next post is about why I hate feminism.
