"Feminist" revisited

After a long, late-night phone call to my dad last night, I’ve gained a much better understanding of the perception of feminism and how this causes problems for many men.

Although my dad agreed that he was technically a feminist, when I asked about his perception of feminism he said the term ‘feminist’ wasn’t something many men like to use to describe themselves because it is “still a term attributed to women”.

He told me that “there is a backlash with males against feminism” and that in many cases feminism “generates animosity towards females”. He admitted that while the word ‘feminism’ will always be in use, it “doesn’t do the movement any good” because men see it as being “confrontational” and “extremist” and it makes it seem as though women’s problems are “all men’s fault”.

When confronted with feminism, he said, many men are likely to either “attack” or “shut it out”.

He offered the term “equalist” as a better alternative however I would argue that if the label ‘feminist’ isn’t going to go away anyway, maybe we just need to focus on changing the perception of it.

One way of doing this that comes to mind is for feminist to use less aggravating and ‘man-blaming’ language in favour of something that recognises that it isn’t men themselves that are at fault but the overarching social system- the patriarchy.

We need men on our side if we’re ever going to achieve anything and it is important that we keep this in mind when arguing for our rights. We might not be able to change the perception of the movement overnight, but it is in our best interests to at least try to make the movement less threatening and more accessible to everyone.