Why is feminism so despised today?

[Anonymous]

Feminists try to paint a very different picture because they want feminism to have a positive image. But let's face it, very few people actually support modern feminism today.

I have my own opinions as to why everyone hates feminism now, but what are yours? Please share your thoughts. Thanks in advance.

Updates

+1 y

Thanks everyone for your responses. I wish I could give more than two MHOs.

[MCheetah]

I've spoken so much against feminism in the past, that I don't even feel like getting into it anymore. I literally wrote my graduate thesis on why feminism is bullsh*t, with the last word uncensored. I then left various notes all online, in case I ever needed to remind myself why.

The TL;DR is, it's a sh*tty hate movement and ALWAYS HAS BEEN a sh*tty hate movement.

Even those who dislike modern day feminism make the mistake of thinking First Wave was "good" and wasn't as toxic as modern fourth wave feminism, when they fail to actually look up the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 or the White Feather Movement. Feminism has almost ENTIRELY been bad, except for a few MINOR second wave feminist advocates jumping on the bandwagon of the black Civil Rights movement in America, and even second wave had misandrists like Valerie Solanas in it and was largely anti-male.

Saying feminism used to be a good movement for gender equality is like saying Andrew Tate used to be an honest good man who only wants to help society. Even people against feminism fail to see it's ALWAYS been "toxic," including first wave and proto-feminism with Mary (Wollstonecraft) Shelley and all the other author Marys of the 19th century.

Some, like second wave and proto-feminism, have been better than others, but third and fourth wave have been the most hate-filled and useless of an already hateful ideology. It's no wonder why feminists, the woke, and Communists overlap so much.

Dammit! And this is the SHORT version of why feminism is and always has been so bad for society.

[sage2021]

@NCheetah I remember when the feminist movement began (yes, I'm that old). I think I researched it decades ago trying to find out who started it and what they were all about.
You may laugh at my answer, and that's ok.
Thinking back decades ago, I remember what I took away from some of that research. Not so much as what they were all about, but how did it get started in the first place.
I remember very distinctly getting knowledge about how it started by 14 women who came from rich families. The bone they were picking was that they didn't want their lives to be restricted to being just a secretary, teacher, librarian, nurse or housewife. So they started the movement so they would be given the same job opportunities as men.
Now, this could be a load of malarkey, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[MCheetah]

@sage2021
You could be talking about the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848. Feminism was formed then by Susan B Anthony and Millicent Fawcett, two upper-class VERY wealthy wives of powerful men. They would have been the 19th century equivalent of Hillary Clinton. Basically, they wanted more power in government and wanted to automatically be given positions of power because "we need more women here" or whatever, and not due to any merit or deserving such power.

They also hated all men, and thought of Negros at the time as being lower than animals (although that wasn't uncommon, at the time.) They had a black man, Fredrick Douglass, sit in at the Seneca Falls Convention and essentially saw him as an exception to the black man rule, stating how unusual it was for a black man to be as un-animalistic and "educated" as he was, and how if a black man can even be given such "privilege," then women definitely deserved more than blacks.



They wanted to hold powerful positions in government LITERALLY just for being women, and used the "misogyny" card to argue why they should be given this power. All this sound familiar? Feminism has not changed much in 150+ years. It's still - and always has been - anti-merit and anti-male.

Second wave feminism started as a result of men losing their jobs to women during and following World War II, cause corporations could pay women cheaper to do the same work (the only time there was an actual gender wage gap in the West.) This put many returning solders out of work when they came home. This outsourcing of male labor for 20 years, combined with the black Civil Rights movement of the mid 1960s, is the only reason Second Wave Feminism rose to prominence, to begin with, and the Equal Pay Act was signed into law in America (the bra-burning and sexual liberation stuff were just side complaints.) That may be the one you lived through.

[sage2021]

@MCheetah yes, the bra burning wave was the one I went through - living in San Francisco during that period with all of the protests everyday in S. F and Berkeley, CA.
Thanks for taking the time and energy to reply to me.
Now I gotta check and see if I still have that bra that I burned. It might be in the attic 🤗

[ChiTown33]

I would be one of guys that that thought feminism was originally conceived as a move for equality. Thanks for posting those 2 examples "Seneca falls" and "white feather" clearly you know much more about the history than me @Mcheetah. It's a failing of mine to always WANT to believe that most people just want a level playing field. But the reality is people even if they are fair minded, they still always be motivated by thier own self interests.

[MCheetah]

@ChiTown33
People always conflate "good intentions" for "good actions." I'm sure BLM and ANTIFA believe they had "good intentions" as well. First wave feminism is usually seen as having good intentions because women didn't have the right to vote at the time, however, they were about to naturally get the right to vote anyway around 1908-1909, and first wave feminists (the BLM of their era) rioted and committed arson and vandalism, which actually set BACK women's suffrage by ten years to where the public doubted giving women the right to vote if they were all as crazy as the Suffragettes.

And yeah, another example were the White Feather feminists, who shamed young 17-20 year old men with a white feather for not signing up for war and likely dying in the World War I, despite doing things like taking care of their family, while these same feminists sat on their asses and did nothing to help with the war efforts. It's the same thing as feminists on Twitter today whining about Elon Musk and other rich people not donating 100% of all of their money to charity, on their $1,500 iPhones while they donate nothing to any causes at all and don't even support woke movies and TV shows they pretend to like.

Like I said, feminism has barely changed much in 100+ years, and I find it fascinating how they were acting just as bad 100+ years ago, as they still do today.

[MCheetah]

@Asker
Thanks for the MHO.

[Anonymous]

There is a huge difference between supporting gender equality and supporting feminism.

I think almost everyone now knows that today's feminism is not about equality at all. Most girls who say they support feminism are saying that because they support gender equality, not feminism itself. I use the term 'girls' because it is mostly girls and young, naïve women who support the movement now. Most grow out of it once they have enough experience in the real world to see what feminism actually is now.

Today's feminist movement is toxic, sexist and anti-male, and obviously none of those things have anything to do with equality.

[Asker]

Good answer, I think this sums it up very well.

[Anonymous]

Modern feminists have destroyed feminism and turned people against it, even women. I think a lot of women are hesitant to say they don't support today's feminism because of what feminism used to be and how it helped us. But today's feminism is very different and it's not a good thing anymore. And unfortunately when people support feminism today, they are supporting today's feminism.

[Asker]

This is some good insight, and I agree with you. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

[Jccowen77]

Today's feminists hate men. They condemn men publically, they constantly toil to get men in trouble, they blame all of their problems and those of the entire world on men and so forth. And I happen to be a man. So I don't like them. They can all kiss my ass.

[Asker]

Yeah I think that's definitely true of a lot of them. But I think there are also feminists who don't necessarily hate men, but they are misguided in how they view men and gender issues. They are very gynocentric in their views but don't have the honesty to see that.

[Jccowen77]

Well you're probably right.

[CloudMassacre]

I think it’s the nit picky loud feminists that turned people off. Like even now with the right yelling about Woke shit, most people honestly just don’t give a fugg either way, things just cycle around and eventually the Puritans get annoying to everyone and we have a period of edgy content

[Asker]

Um, ok.

[FilmGuy93]

They're just a really unpleasant group of people to interact with... Imagine going through life, genuinely believing that you need to fight a holy crusade to correct injustices that aren't even happening.

[Asker]

Yeah, I agree. I recently listened to a podcast by a couple of feminists and the topic was the future of feminism. What struck me most was how they made everything a "women's issue". For example, they talked about the environment being a women's issue and justified it with claims that women will be disproportionately affected by climate change. Huh?

But their biggest fear was that most women today feel that feminism already achieved its goals (in fact they actually acknowledged that it had) so women would stop supporting the movement. There response was that feminism would always be able to find issues to fight for if they looked hard enough. In other words, feminism is a movement looking for a cause.

What they didn't acknowledge, of course, is that feminism divides men and women in countless ways (e. g., the environment is a women's issue), which is doing so much harm in society today. If they really want to find problems to solve, why don't they solve that one? The answer: because it would put them out of a job.

[FilmGuy93]

Exactly! Like, how could the environment possibly be a women's issue? Do men not need air? Do we not eat?

The way feminism comes across to me, is that it feels like feminists are just a bunch of women who are bitter and resentful that they've become totally equal to men but aren't anywhere near as happy as we are; that's why they demand to be taken into every male space. I have been forced to conclude that women saw men's careers, hated us for it, and assumed that we loved working, so they came after it. Then they saw things like the boyscouts, sports, whatever else; and they saw us enjoying ourselves, and they hated seeing men enjoy something that they couldn't also do.

And then one day they got everything they wanted, and they realized that they're still miserable. Because they don't understand why men are happy.

[Tracker1958]

Feminism is doing everything they can to destroy marriage and relationships. The women will be the ones to pay the price for this in the long run. Women will no longer have a protection or a man to help support her and her children. Men are the only ones that benefit from this life style. Pump and dump is the new norm.

[Anonymous]

Because of the types like Anita Sarkeesian who wants to censor sexy girls in games and movies, pick fights and then play victim afterwards

[Asker]

Yeah, that's definitely true. Thanks for your response.

[Anonymous]

Because it ceased being a fight for equality. Half the population of women doesn't even want true equality. As most the women on G@G they'll even tell you so.

[BJP21]

It's because it's being misappropriated by certain feminists groups that are man hating.

[msc545]

Constant unrelenting complaints and false accusations.

[LimitedBenefits101]

Feminist=cancer