Feminist infighting only takes our eyes off the real struggle

[libodem]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/25/feminist-infighting-eyes-off-real-struggle

[Violet_Crumble]

1. Good article...

The last bit of it is so true...

To reduce feminism to the screaming fights among the few as opposed to the actions of the brave is to do the work of the other side – the real other side – for them.

[libodem]

2. Thank you

Glad you enjoyed it.

[Violet_Crumble]

3. It hit a chord with me, especially when it comes to DU...

Only a few weeks ago I was referred to as someone who has a demonstrated hostility towards certain feminist issues. Not sure what those 'certain feminist issues' were, but that's an example of infighting that came to mind when I read the article...

[libodem]

4. I'm an older woman now

So I assume I'm in what is called the 2nd wave. I don't know exactly why the waves don't mesh? Maybe it's the same time immemorial problem of mothers and daughters and the need to be new, modern, and different, in one's own right? Perhaps I'm at that solitary witch or warrior, crone, state where the young can no longer relate to my experience of the 60's and 70's? I thought I would be forever young and my ideas would never be old and out of date. Somehow around here especially, I have been left behind. I'm just no longer cool enough to fit into the mean girl's cliques(which they deny exists)so I just come off as a wackadoodle old bat. Oh, well. I do what I can by myself.

[Bonobo]

5. I'm sorry that you have been made to feel that way, Libodem.

I think the whole culture has become a lot meaner. I'm almost 50 now, so I'm just a youngster compared to you, but I remember a different and much more gentle culture. It has become coarser and crueler as the nation of America has become so.

I am certain that no one who knows you in real life would mistake you for anything other than a strong advocate for women and equal rights, but unless you viciously attack men here, I don't think you can really get the creds.

Similarly, no one that knows me would ever say I was anything but an advocate for equal rights. I live a life of equal rights in every way. But having been labeled by a certain clique, my online identity has been fixed.

I always assumed that speaking from my own perspective as a man and about the struggles that we feel personally were entirely consistent with the idea that men and women are both humans deserving of equal consideration. I never coddled women, I never patronized women nor did I offer my "help" -thinking that that it was condescending to do so. A form of sexism, in fact.

Anyway, love is really the best way to get a message across, to build allies and a coalition. Spreading anger and hate may give the illusion of victory, but it is a Pyrrhic one, a short-lived one that may assuage the ego but does not make real change.

Stay the way you are. I think you're great.

[libodem]

6. Thank you friend

That was a very thoughtful reply. I sound a little whiny sometimes, I think. I want to solve the world's problems not argue over dumb stuff. I hope this year brings more productive conversations.