Post
by AnyOldName3 » 28 Jan 2016, 15:19
The problem I see with these terms is that the people most vocally describing themselves as feminists are total nutters or people trying to exploit money out of said nutters, and the people most vocally describing themselves as egalitarian are often sexist males who've read too much into the 'radical feminists are making everything terrible' narrative, but want to claim they're still fighting for both sides. In both groups, the vast majority are sane people who want the same thing - people to stop being dicks to each other - and because the standard goals for both of these groups are the same, the sane people don't tend to get into debates about which term is the better one. Therefore they don't write anything saying their term is best, therefore outside observers only see the nutters' definition.
The way I see it, it's most helpful to explain to people that radical/3rd-wave feminism isn't actually feminism, and that they should defend the term's actual meaning instead of fleeing from it and labelling themselves egalitarian, otherwise we could end up with the great work of people who gave a lot to make the world better under the banner of feminism being associated solely with whackjobs instead. Plenty of symbols have been ruined through history by allowing Bad People™ - for example, most people would associate a swastika with the Nazi regime instead of its prior meaning, and in many countries, if a house flies the flag of that country, the owner can be safely assumed to be racist. I had a third, more relevant, example too, but forgot it while writing...
AnyOldName3, Master of Shadows