Yeah feminism had a low year in 2014. There was that feminist who attacked that guy in Canada too.

Time to up your game Feminists...the Civil Rights movement built the NAACP...what do you have?

I have to disagree.
An audience of hundreds of thousands - millions of rabid followers is quite enough. If you have over 10000 followers, you're a public figure, and you are one on purpose.
Most of those who had a 'face punch' game made using their image don't have any security. In fact, I'm fairly certain there's one where you upload any picture you want.

Some humans have a better attention span, but not many. Most people by far are NOT capable of focusing on more than one issue at a time. They may think they are, they're wrong.

She is DEFINATELY polarizing. Anyone who listens to her or knows her work either thinks she's a shining warrior for feminism, or a self centered idiot pushing feminism back decades. Very few people who know about her work have no opinion.
If she gets EVERYONE'S knickers in a twist, she's pretty polarizing.

Specifics probably matter, but I'm going to say they don't sound satirical either. The differences are that the people that you listed have an audience of hundreds of millions. Sarkeesian has hundreds of thousands, maybe a million. Making threats and childish fantasies more concentrated. Also, I'm presuming making youtube videos about the media and feminism doesn't quite buy the security Hilary Clinton / the taxpayer can afford.

Finally, I seem to remember the Clinton one was focussed on a pun and not on Clinton. It was a game where you have to beat your political opponents (literally). Hardly ground breaking comedy but its a start.

If you think this draws attention away from other problems, I'm glad to inform you that other humans have a better attention span and are capable of understanding more than one woman's grievance at a time.

I also like that she is described as a 'polarising' public figure. I doubt that. The only people that dislike her are some gamers because she criticizes some aspects of an industry they support. Everyone else either hasn't heard of her, thinks she makes interesting points, or shrugs their shoulders and says 'she might be overreaching'. Hardly a real polarising figure just because she gets your knickers in a twist.

assuming one defines feminism as "the sexes should be equal"

...then the word is redundant. we already have words that describe one that supports equality.

It's become a completely meaningless word because everyone views the word differently.

some people view feminists as "man haters" Im sure there are some out there. That's the problem with any 'ism. There's always a group that takes it way too far. but I'm pretty sure they are a small small minority.

But we see this in other themes as well. Try to give women equality, and somehow that gets interpreted as being a man-hater.
-Try to promote equality for african americans, and that gets interpreted as hating whites.
-Try to promote LGBT rights and that gets interpreted into the idea that LGBT is something that can be "caught" like a cold.

It's rampant insecurity. promoting rights for others isn't going to take your rights away.

@ChaosEngine
I would say you were onto a more useful definition of feminism in the beginning of the thread... all decent human beings in modern times must believe women are people; but they would only be feminists, if they are trying to reshape society's institutions to reflect that. Feminism, as you point out, would then be the civil movement with actual goals to achieve, whereas treating women with decency is a personality trait or a matter of good upbringing, without any specific goals. You can be either decent or a feminist, both, or neither.

A lot of people - conservatives, progressives, religious folk, etc. - believe women are people,* and treat women with respect in individual interactions, because they're decent folk - but they aren't actively trying (except by non-participation) to change the laws, cultures, or conditions that put women at a disadvantage. The ones who are feminists, OTOH, are the ones who, in accordance with their strategy and in their context, are trying to enact change.

In this way, being a decent person doesn't qualify or disqualify you as a feminist, just as being a screechy asshole doesn't qualify or disqualify you as a feminist - it's all about whether or not you are participating in the movement. I'll admit - my definition excludes a lot of people who call themselves feminist, and it includes a few people who wouldn't call themselves feminist - but still there's something about this definition that seems so much more, I don't know, useful, than saying 'you either believe women are people or you don't.'


*To take a slightly extreme example, I'm sure many Saudis would be adamant in saying that they believe women are people, it's just that they don't believe all people should drive cars. Such as, for example, women and children.

Holy shit, did we just have an internet discussion about feminism that ended in civil discourse?

Fucking hell, that's gotta be a first.

I feel an overpowering urge to descend into hyperbole and vitriol!

@ChaosEngine

Certainly most people who call themselves feminists are basically alright. We might say the same of those catholics from a few comments ago, without owning that the full structure of their faith is a good one. There may even be decent republicans somewhere.

I'm glad that, in the end, we're in complete agreement that 'feminism' is a terrible word.

@gorillaman, I admit I'm veering close to the "No True Scotsman" fallacy, but equally, I never claimed that all feminists were sane and moral people.

The difference is, I think most people these days are reasonably feminist and I think the vast majority of them are not man-hating nutjobs. There's undoubtedly a lunatic fringe, but that's the case for every group/ideology.

I also agree that meanings change over time. "national socialism", shorn of its historic baggage, doesn't sound that terrible. But we know that what it actually signifies is actually national fascism, racism and other abhorrent concepts.

The question is at what point the lunatic fringe comes to represent the whole. For example, at one point the Republicans were once the party of small government and fiscal conservatism, but it's becoming increasingly more difficult to describe them as anything other than the party of religious nutjobs and idiots.

I don't feel feminism has been hijacked to the same extent. I believe there are still a lot of normal rational people who describe themselves as feminists (I'd like to think I'm one, for a start).

Finally, I'm with Joss Whedon.... "feminism" is a terrible word, but ultimately, "You either believe women are people or you don't. It's that simple."

@ChaosEngine

So yeah, there's a lot of common ground. Of course there is: values can overlap ideologies; something that, let's say, 'the kind of feminism I dislike' refuses to allow. Everything that says women should be treated reasonably is feminism, which gives us the credibility to declare that anyone who opposes any aspect of feminist doctrine hates women.

I think the concept you're talking about is a part of the makeup of any rational person's mind, and indeed advocacy on its behalf is still necessary. I don't think the particular movement that grew around that advocacy in the latter half of the 20th century is still useful, and I say that it was flawed from the first, even as those flaws were mitigated in the short term by what it accomplished.

It's important to maintain that distinction, and I would strongly prefer that this basic concept wasn't referred to as 'feminism'. Dictionaries describe usage rather than determining reality, and in this case as in so many others I think the majority have got it horribly wrong.

edit: Something of an academic and unnecessary addendum, but I've heard Hitchens say that a few times and I always winced when he did. It's a little trite. The kind of cure he's talking about, birth control, could just as easily be effected by forcibly sterilising women after their first or second child. What he might have said, somewhat less snappily, was, "The empowerment of women, an excellent goal in itself, also handily has the effect of countering explosive population growth and adding more skilled workers to the economy."

That said, I will concede that feminism is both a concept and a movement in support of that concept.

And we still desperately need both, and not just for women.
Even Hitchens said:

"We already know the cure to poverty...it's quite simply, the empowerment of women."

I never said you can't oppose institutional rape. That was a counter-example to your "history wasn't universally sexist" point. I thought that was pretty clear.

I'll concede that sexism wasn't universal, but nothing is, so that's a completely meaningless point. I was illustrating that history in general has been pretty fucking awful to women.

As for that definition, it's not mine. I actually looked it up before I used it to make sure I wasn't using it incorrectly.

"the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities"
- Merriam Webster
"The advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes."
- Oxford
"Feminism is a range of movements and ideologies that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve equal political, economic, cultural, personal, and social rights for women"
- Wikipedia
Do I need to go on?

And yes, the concept has been around for ages. Support for the concept is relatively recent and has brought great change.

@ChaosEngine

Do you honestly believe that we can't oppose things like institutional rape without reference to this single recent ideology? This is equivalent with the idea that humanity only learned theft and murder were wrong when Moses turned up waving the ten commandments at the israelites. It's lucky God clued us in when he did or we'd all still be unabashedly robbing and killing each other today.

Feminists might use the definition you mentioned, when it suits them. Of course they do; they're the popular faction: ideologues always want to fold all notions of moral goodness into their particular cult. Catholicism was the same way when they were the only game in town.

You yourself don't even use that definition, you can't because no one can. Look at the first couple of comments you made on this video. It's impossible to read them as dealing with a basic concept rather than what feminism actually is, which is a complex modern movement that certainly postdates the suffragettes.

If feminism is strictly the concept of equality for women, then feminism has been around FOREVER and until in historical terms about five minutes ago, according to you, 'didn't have any noticeable effect'.

There may have been smart people, but they didn't have any noticeable effect.

Seriously, do you know when raping your wife became a crime in the UK (a relatively progressive country)? 1991. I was 14. I remember seeing it on the news and being shocked.

It is still legal to rape your wife in large parts of the world. (yes, some of that is disputed, point still stands).

Not sure what you mean by "the modern era"? Women were certainly working, and have been since the dawn of man. Ruling empires? Occasionally, but only ever because their fathers were kings/emperors. Victoria might have ruled over the British empire, but if she was a commoner, she couldn't even have voted. NZ was the first country to extend the vote to women in 1893. Suffragettes are still considered to be "first wave feminists" (although I dislike the whole "xth wave" terminology).

And no, I wouldn't accept that argument, because helping the poor, treating each other with understanding, etc are not uniquely Catholic concepts; they're not even the core concepts of Catholicism. In fact, Catholics have been historically pretty goddamn awful on the whole " treating each other with understanding" front.

OTOH, feminism is, again by definition, the concept of equality for women.

History just wasn't as universally sexist as it's made out to be. There were always smart people who saw through it.

Even in the modern era women were voting, working and ruling entire empires before feminism as we know it even existed.

Would you accept the argument that if you believe we should help the poor, say, or generally treat one another with understanding, then you're a little bit Catholic?

Without feminism, people DIDN'T have a problem with what he said for thousands of years.

If you have a problem with what he said, you are, by definition, at least a little bit feminist.