Feminists Quest For Equality

Feminism through the ages has been about advocating the rights of women in equality to men. In Kate Hughes article, “I’ve Been Pondering Whether You Can Be a Part-Feminist: Young Australian Women’s Studies Students Discuss Gender” she interviews Women Studies students on their stance on feminism. Some students label themselves as feminist, with the stipulation that they are not “radical feminists”. Radical or extreme feminists have taken on a more aggressive approach than the waves of feminism that have come before. Radical feminists target existing social norms and institutions rather than using a purely political process which was seen before. Hughes states that there is a dichotomy when it comes to the label of feminism and that the two

With the latter two categories not in favour of equality then the only remaining category, if you are in favour of equality, is feminism. Misandrist feminist beliefs have negative ideas that men should suffer for their past suppression of women. This deters many people from labeling themselves as feminists. Sandra Kim addresses this in her article “How Most Things You Know About Feminists Are Vicious Conservative Lies”:

Misrepresentations of feminism are so powerful that many progressives and liberals today don’t necessarily want to self-identify as a feminist even when they believe in what feminism stands for. They don’t want women or anyone else to be abused, raped, exploited and discriminated against. They want all people, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, and class, be treated with respect and free to determine their own lives.

Kim articulates that the feminism label comes with a stigma and until that stigma is able to be removed there will always be people believing in the message feminism has, but will they never be willing to label themselves as feminists. We ask ourselves, what can we do to help part-feminists become feminists? A step towards this is to label the man haters as misandrists. By removing the title of feminist from radical feminist it creates a distinguishing line between the true beliefs of feminism and the radical beliefs of the man hater

For example, breast cancer is a mainly female predominate medical issue, but it is not unheard of for men to also suffer from breast cancer as well. Killermann points out that “there are a lot of gender-based men’s issues to address… [like] why men in general have always been more likely to be caught up in the criminal justice system or be homeless.” These important issues that men’s rights activists would address, thus feminisms should address as well. This points highlight the concept that it is as important for feminist to lobby for changes in gender-based male issues as to lobby for female based issue to further implement the notion of