Sure, but its exactly because words are important that its called feminism. When you’re talking about “egalitarianism” the goal is so vague that everyone can be on it. That’s why you have names like “feminism”, because that movement is focused on how we live in a patriarchal society and how women have been historically treated unjustly under it. Or “black lives matter”, which, although I’m sure would also agree that “all lives matter”, are focused on why historically, black lives specifically haven’t as much. Same thing for trans rights.
When you combine that all into one, all the nuance of the different groups gets lost and the average becomes “yeah but human rights are so much better than 50 years ago” to shut down discussion.
Movements have to adapt to the societies they’re in. The term feminism made sense 100 years ago because women barely had rights. However, it makes way less today because there’s way more equality going on. Sure, you can point to something like Afghanistan today where the sense would make sense, and you would be right. However, the same is less true in a place like Sweden or America where gendered issues are less one sided than they used to be and the issues are more nuanced. You can’t use outdated standards and expect not to receive criticism for it. Optics do matter, and if they don’t accurately reflect the landscape then they’ll end up doing more harm than good.
Wish I had more than one upvote to give. Movements and groups name themselves after their targeted focus, yet you never see someone going up to the teacher’s union rep and saying “but shouldn’t you also care about the other jobs?”
Say what you will about PETA (I’m sure I could say a lot), but you never see someone criticising them for their “narrow minded focus solely on the welfare of animals, without regard for the ethical treatment of humans, plants and fungi”
You’ll never catch someone criticising a homeless shelter for not doing enough to shine light on the prevalence of gun violence.
So why does anyone treat these bad-faith criticisms as anything more or less than attempts to silence the already-marginalised groups for which these movements are advocating?
yet you never see someone going up to the teacher’s union rep and saying “but shouldn’t you also care about the other jobs?”
For ducks sakes that’s literally how unions are SUPPOSED TO WORK. No wonder the US worker’s rights are so weak if that’s what you think, and based off your comment you’re on the side of the workers!
Here in Finland when one union goes on strike for a cause other unions join in! Airline union going on strike? Guess what, so I’d the railway, buses, logistics, grocery workers, and so on, with more joining in if it’s for a really good reason, even teacher unions.
What you’re effectively saying is, “We’re specifically not focused on equality, only on where women have it worse than men.” And that’s fine, but then don’t also say, “If you support equality you support feminism,” because both of those things can’t be true at the same time. “We want to achieve equality between the sexes and for the most part women are disadvantaged, so we will focus on the inequality that is impacting women until they are at least on the same level where inequality is impacting men,” would be more appropriate in my opinion, but certainly isn’t going to be a winning slogan.
If the rich face no consequences for breaking laws that help each other, but the poor do, then that is not justice.
It is up to the people to decide if they would then rather live quietly with injustice or fight loudly for their rights, regardless of supposed legality or consequences.
You have just perfectly stated my point: a teacher’s union rep CLEARLY cares about other workers, but that’s not the POINT of a Teacher’s Union. I’m saying that you don’t see anyone complaining that there’s a union to protect those specific labourers, because such a complaint would be patently ridiculous. It is similarly ridiculous to assume that a Feminist opposes the rights of non-women just because their movement is focused on women. That is my point.
And my point is that it’s self defeating to call yourself a feminist if you’re egalitarian unless there’s a reason for it. Otherwise, just call yourself egalitarian to show you’re about equality to the general population, therefore you can recruit others to the cause more easily.
My wife doesn’t call herself a “teacher’s unionist” if asked, she just calls herself a unionist, because the rights of all workers supercedes those of only teachers. Unless talking specifically to other teachers, parent students, etc, she champions the rights of unions themselves, and supports and encourages people to join a union, and union.
The issue with many feminist groups is that they insist on being feminists first and foremost rather than egalitarians. This is what has lead in part to the existence of TERFs - by hyper focusing on women’s rights instead of just agreeing “yeah, and I’m also an egalitarian”, you open the door to exclusionary groups. Because while egalitarianism is open to all who are inclusive, feminism is not by definition of focus.
It’s not the only group afflicted by this, and it’s part of the reason why the right wing has managed to gain so much power over the years - because while they all might be different flavors of hate and contempt, they are at least united globally behind hate and contempt.
Meanwhile we have those who rally behind compassion and equality arguing we shouldn’t all be considered compassionate and pro equality because there’s “specializations” and that uniting under one banner weakens the cause somehow 🙄
Could you elaborate on why that is a bad thing? I’m sort of confused why you wouldn’t want everyone to be in on it. To be clear, I don’t think we really need to change the goal, I just think the wording is unfortunate.
But again, I think we honestly shouldn’t focus on this small disagreement of the words, as long as we agree on the idea itself. We may not agree on feminism or egalitarianism as words, but I think we both agree on the much more important ideas behind it.
It may also be that I’m coming at this discussion from a Danish perspective, which is very different from an American perspective (I’m assuming you’re american, sorry if that’s not correct). We usually use a word like “ligestilling” which translates as “equality” rather than use a term like feminism.
Y’all really don’t get why subdividing makes movements weaker.
Here, I’ll give you an easy way to see the flaw I your argument. Apply it to this flag:
According to your logic, this flag shouldn’t be used, because it’s more vague than just the lesbian or trans flag for example.
Yet, the reason this flag is used is because unity is more powerful than division. All those groups are more powerful in fighting for their rights together than they are separate.
And that’s the flaw behind modern feminism - the issues feminism was created to tackle have been greatly delt with. While some certainly do still exist, they are now also caused by things other than a patriarchy, such as oligarchy. And thus tackling the issues that affect women too in modern times needs the involvement of other groups as well, such as unions and even anarchists, to effectively combat.
In such, movements and groups like these would more be much more effective in modern society reforming under an umbrella one such as egalitarianism, much like the LGBTQ+ ones have.
Multiple causes together are more powerful than a single ones divided. Continuing this insistence is literally missing the forest for the trees.
Actually, I don’t really like the progress flag and think it contributes to division. The original rainbow flag is perfect: sexuality and gender expression are a broad spectrum, the stripes don’t represent individual groups, the whole rainbow represents all groups.
The progress flag adds symbols for specific groups which were already included in the rainbow. Once you start singling groups out piecemeal, you enter an endless spiral of having to individually acknowledge every group, and there’s always another subdivision being left out.
I also like the reclamation of the word “queer” and think it’s a far more unifying label than LGBTQIA+, for the same reason.
It’s fine to have focused actions, but unified movements are better.
I agree on the flag for the same reason - it’s more divided in my opinion than the original rainbow flag. But I used it since it’s the current “official” flag.
But it also somewhat illustrates my point as well - that the divisions weaken things more than a simpler unification.
I’m glad “queer” is being used more for the same reason you listed.
Its the “LGBTQ+ movement” not the “everyone movement” because it’s calling out how queer people have been historically marginalized and persecuted and not everyone. Cisgender, heterosexual people are the norm, that’s why this subcommunity exists. It just so happens that there are a lot of subgroups within this small community that share very similar idealogies and so it becomes (more or less) one bigger movement.
Moreover, the flag you sent came to be to specifically to call out all the different groups in the umbrella movement, to not let them get drowned out by the vagueness of the combined movement.
All these groups are fighting for different but not necessarily opposing things. Fighting simply for a “better life for all”, while noble, is really naive. You need to get specific about the things you want to tackle.
It’s not like these groups fight alone, you can be a feminist, anti-fascist, queer person of color and support multiple things you believe in.
Fighting simply for a “better life for all”, while noble, is really naive. You need to get specific about the things you want to tackle.
Egalitarianism isn’t just “better life for all” without a plan, just like Feminism isn’t “Equality for Women” without a plan.
Uniting under the banner of Egalitarianism as a group, rather than stating you’re not that but are instead a feminist, would be like saying “I’m not in the LGBTQ+ movement, I’m a Trans Rights activist”.
Everytime people like you insist (even if coming from a place with good intentions) we shouldn’t consider ourselves egalitarian, you weaken all groups that would benefit from standing united under it. There’s a reason right wing propaganda networks constantly argue against the term “Egalitarian” and try to keep groups like Feminists isolated from others - because it would hurt them if it actually gained in popularity.
There are indeed many people who would not qualify as egalitarian. Libertarians, Republicans, Musk - all of them hate it, because “equality for all” is in fact not as broad as you would hope, unfortunately.
I dont see how they were arguing for subdivisions. There are in fact many problems to solve, and we should unite to solve them. But if we are talking about a specific problem, we should use specific language. This shouldnt prevent us from seeing that there are common roots to all these problems.
Because they are arguing against the “egalitarian” label rather than supporting both it and feminism.
Today’s specific problems tend to be rooted in a more broader affecting cause. The Waltons and Sacklers for example are not all men, but women too. The issue that affects women the most today are no longer about simply just the patriarchy but instead of the wealthy versus the rest.
Or the org “No one should shoot anyone in the back”, every so often making a statement to gangsters, but having to spend most of its time pursuing cops.
I completely agree with what you’re saying. However, on the other hand, “black lives matter” and “feminism” are equally exposed to the “all lives matter” and “equality” rebuttals from people that want to shut them down.
I think some progress could be made if those championing equality made a concerted effort to gain ownership of the “all lives matter” and “equality” slogans/campaigns, and then used that ownership to point out the problems (all lives matter, and black lives are currently being stepped on, etc.)
I feel like instead of changing the name, we should stop justifying it on “equality”. The purpose of the movement is to stop a form of oppression. The name of the movement clearly takes the side of the oppressed, recognizing the oppression. Saying that the movement is for “equality” backpedals the recognition that an oppression exists and the discussion shifts to another point of derailment like “but arent men and women naturally different in some ways? is equality actually appropriate? what is equality?”
The productive feminist discussions are in debating the oppressions that exist and how to change them, not getting tangled in teological discussions about “nature” and “equality”.
Sure, but its exactly because words are important that its called feminism. When you’re talking about “egalitarianism” the goal is so vague that everyone can be on it. That’s why you have names like “feminism”, because that movement is focused on how we live in a patriarchal society and how women have been historically treated unjustly under it. Or “black lives matter”, which, although I’m sure would also agree that “all lives matter”, are focused on why historically, black lives specifically haven’t as much. Same thing for trans rights.
When you combine that all into one, all the nuance of the different groups gets lost and the average becomes “yeah but human rights are so much better than 50 years ago” to shut down discussion.
Movements have to adapt to the societies they’re in. The term feminism made sense 100 years ago because women barely had rights. However, it makes way less today because there’s way more equality going on. Sure, you can point to something like Afghanistan today where the sense would make sense, and you would be right. However, the same is less true in a place like Sweden or America where gendered issues are less one sided than they used to be and the issues are more nuanced. You can’t use outdated standards and expect not to receive criticism for it. Optics do matter, and if they don’t accurately reflect the landscape then they’ll end up doing more harm than good.
Wish I had more than one upvote to give. Movements and groups name themselves after their targeted focus, yet you never see someone going up to the teacher’s union rep and saying “but shouldn’t you also care about the other jobs?”
Say what you will about PETA (I’m sure I could say a lot), but you never see someone criticising them for their “narrow minded focus solely on the welfare of animals, without regard for the ethical treatment of humans, plants and fungi”
You’ll never catch someone criticising a homeless shelter for not doing enough to shine light on the prevalence of gun violence.
So why does anyone treat these bad-faith criticisms as anything more or less than attempts to silence the already-marginalised groups for which these movements are advocating?
For ducks sakes that’s literally how unions are SUPPOSED TO WORK. No wonder the US worker’s rights are so weak if that’s what you think, and based off your comment you’re on the side of the workers!
Here in Finland when one union goes on strike for a cause other unions join in! Airline union going on strike? Guess what, so I’d the railway, buses, logistics, grocery workers, and so on, with more joining in if it’s for a really good reason, even teacher unions.
What you’re effectively saying is, “We’re specifically not focused on equality, only on where women have it worse than men.” And that’s fine, but then don’t also say, “If you support equality you support feminism,” because both of those things can’t be true at the same time. “We want to achieve equality between the sexes and for the most part women are disadvantaged, so we will focus on the inequality that is impacting women until they are at least on the same level where inequality is impacting men,” would be more appropriate in my opinion, but certainly isn’t going to be a winning slogan.
That’s illegal in the US. Thanks to the Taft Hartley Act
If the rich face no consequences for breaking laws that help each other, but the poor do, then that is not justice.
It is up to the people to decide if they would then rather live quietly with injustice or fight loudly for their rights, regardless of supposed legality or consequences.
Agreed. I’m just telling you the root cause. We know that the brute squad will be unleashed if we try to do such tactics.
You have just perfectly stated my point: a teacher’s union rep CLEARLY cares about other workers, but that’s not the POINT of a Teacher’s Union. I’m saying that you don’t see anyone complaining that there’s a union to protect those specific labourers, because such a complaint would be patently ridiculous. It is similarly ridiculous to assume that a Feminist opposes the rights of non-women just because their movement is focused on women. That is my point.
And my point is that it’s self defeating to call yourself a feminist if you’re egalitarian unless there’s a reason for it. Otherwise, just call yourself egalitarian to show you’re about equality to the general population, therefore you can recruit others to the cause more easily.
My wife doesn’t call herself a “teacher’s unionist” if asked, she just calls herself a unionist, because the rights of all workers supercedes those of only teachers. Unless talking specifically to other teachers, parent students, etc, she champions the rights of unions themselves, and supports and encourages people to join a union, and union.
The issue with many feminist groups is that they insist on being feminists first and foremost rather than egalitarians. This is what has lead in part to the existence of TERFs - by hyper focusing on women’s rights instead of just agreeing “yeah, and I’m also an egalitarian”, you open the door to exclusionary groups. Because while egalitarianism is open to all who are inclusive, feminism is not by definition of focus.
It’s not the only group afflicted by this, and it’s part of the reason why the right wing has managed to gain so much power over the years - because while they all might be different flavors of hate and contempt, they are at least united globally behind hate and contempt.
Meanwhile we have those who rally behind compassion and equality arguing we shouldn’t all be considered compassionate and pro equality because there’s “specializations” and that uniting under one banner weakens the cause somehow 🙄
Could you elaborate on why that is a bad thing? I’m sort of confused why you wouldn’t want everyone to be in on it. To be clear, I don’t think we really need to change the goal, I just think the wording is unfortunate.
But again, I think we honestly shouldn’t focus on this small disagreement of the words, as long as we agree on the idea itself. We may not agree on feminism or egalitarianism as words, but I think we both agree on the much more important ideas behind it.
It may also be that I’m coming at this discussion from a Danish perspective, which is very different from an American perspective (I’m assuming you’re american, sorry if that’s not correct). We usually use a word like “ligestilling” which translates as “equality” rather than use a term like feminism.
Every. Single. Time.
Y’all really don’t get why subdividing makes movements weaker.
Here, I’ll give you an easy way to see the flaw I your argument. Apply it to this flag:
According to your logic, this flag shouldn’t be used, because it’s more vague than just the lesbian or trans flag for example.
Yet, the reason this flag is used is because unity is more powerful than division. All those groups are more powerful in fighting for their rights together than they are separate.
And that’s the flaw behind modern feminism - the issues feminism was created to tackle have been greatly delt with. While some certainly do still exist, they are now also caused by things other than a patriarchy, such as oligarchy. And thus tackling the issues that affect women too in modern times needs the involvement of other groups as well, such as unions and even anarchists, to effectively combat.
In such, movements and groups like these would more be much more effective in modern society reforming under an umbrella one such as egalitarianism, much like the LGBTQ+ ones have.
Multiple causes together are more powerful than a single ones divided. Continuing this insistence is literally missing the forest for the trees.
Actually, I don’t really like the progress flag and think it contributes to division. The original rainbow flag is perfect: sexuality and gender expression are a broad spectrum, the stripes don’t represent individual groups, the whole rainbow represents all groups.
The progress flag adds symbols for specific groups which were already included in the rainbow. Once you start singling groups out piecemeal, you enter an endless spiral of having to individually acknowledge every group, and there’s always another subdivision being left out.
I also like the reclamation of the word “queer” and think it’s a far more unifying label than LGBTQIA+, for the same reason.
It’s fine to have focused actions, but unified movements are better.
I agree on the flag for the same reason - it’s more divided in my opinion than the original rainbow flag. But I used it since it’s the current “official” flag.
But it also somewhat illustrates my point as well - that the divisions weaken things more than a simpler unification.
I’m glad “queer” is being used more for the same reason you listed.
Its the “LGBTQ+ movement” not the “everyone movement” because it’s calling out how queer people have been historically marginalized and persecuted and not everyone. Cisgender, heterosexual people are the norm, that’s why this subcommunity exists. It just so happens that there are a lot of subgroups within this small community that share very similar idealogies and so it becomes (more or less) one bigger movement.
Moreover, the flag you sent came to be to specifically to call out all the different groups in the umbrella movement, to not let them get drowned out by the vagueness of the combined movement.
All these groups are fighting for different but not necessarily opposing things. Fighting simply for a “better life for all”, while noble, is really naive. You need to get specific about the things you want to tackle.
It’s not like these groups fight alone, you can be a feminist, anti-fascist, queer person of color and support multiple things you believe in.
Egalitarianism isn’t just “better life for all” without a plan, just like Feminism isn’t “Equality for Women” without a plan.
Uniting under the banner of Egalitarianism as a group, rather than stating you’re not that but are instead a feminist, would be like saying “I’m not in the LGBTQ+ movement, I’m a Trans Rights activist”.
Everytime people like you insist (even if coming from a place with good intentions) we shouldn’t consider ourselves egalitarian, you weaken all groups that would benefit from standing united under it. There’s a reason right wing propaganda networks constantly argue against the term “Egalitarian” and try to keep groups like Feminists isolated from others - because it would hurt them if it actually gained in popularity.
There are indeed many people who would not qualify as egalitarian. Libertarians, Republicans, Musk - all of them hate it, because “equality for all” is in fact not as broad as you would hope, unfortunately.
I dont see how they were arguing for subdivisions. There are in fact many problems to solve, and we should unite to solve them. But if we are talking about a specific problem, we should use specific language. This shouldnt prevent us from seeing that there are common roots to all these problems.
Because they are arguing against the “egalitarian” label rather than supporting both it and feminism.
Today’s specific problems tend to be rooted in a more broader affecting cause. The Waltons and Sacklers for example are not all men, but women too. The issue that affects women the most today are no longer about simply just the patriarchy but instead of the wealthy versus the rest.
After all, the right wing usually doesn’t have issues with abortion itself - only with abortion of minorities and the poor. Of the others, not of themselves.
Or the org “No one should shoot anyone in the back”, every so often making a statement to gangsters, but having to spend most of its time pursuing cops.
Makes sense why the phrase is instead “ACAB”.
I completely agree with what you’re saying. However, on the other hand, “black lives matter” and “feminism” are equally exposed to the “all lives matter” and “equality” rebuttals from people that want to shut them down.
I think some progress could be made if those championing equality made a concerted effort to gain ownership of the “all lives matter” and “equality” slogans/campaigns, and then used that ownership to point out the problems (all lives matter, and black lives are currently being stepped on, etc.)
I feel like instead of changing the name, we should stop justifying it on “equality”. The purpose of the movement is to stop a form of oppression. The name of the movement clearly takes the side of the oppressed, recognizing the oppression. Saying that the movement is for “equality” backpedals the recognition that an oppression exists and the discussion shifts to another point of derailment like “but arent men and women naturally different in some ways? is equality actually appropriate? what is equality?”
The productive feminist discussions are in debating the oppressions that exist and how to change them, not getting tangled in teological discussions about “nature” and “equality”.
The problem with that is that people who use egalitarianism or all lives matter don’t actually want equality, they want oppressed people to shut up