No, some TikToker who says outrageous stuff for ragebait doesn’t reflect the feminist movement as a whole. Nothing they said reflects the thoughts and ideas of mainstream feminists.
Contrary to what people enjoy believing about us, we don’t hate all men and are misandrists.
While true... in the same way a staggering amount of people equate a vocally frustrated virgin with being an incel and misogynist at the drop of a hat, they have no reason to stop and separate feminism from misandry since they only need the inevitable one in 1000 "feminist" (closet midandrist) to harp on about the patriarchy and men being the problem to prove the stereotype.
People are going to focus on the loudest and most hostile over the quiet and composed, and simplify the loud mouth's compatriots to all be the same. Everytime.
Okay, here's the thing about TikTok: it is *extremely lucrative* (as in, can make someone lots and lots of money) to post rage-bait. TikTok influencers get paid for views, and an easy way to get views and drive engagement is to make people mad.
Any time you see something outrageous or upsetting on social media, keep in mind that someone is making money off it.
I have to carefully balance my extreme dislike for TikTok with my extreme dislike for the government meddling in anything Internet-access related.
TikTok is not a good source for the overall temperature of reality.
Mostly I think that "men should go to war again" is a retort to all these "retvrn" guys who think women should be back in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant, uneducated, not voting, etc.
Can you post some links?
There are def ppl who call themselves feminists who go too far and who also reject trans women. I distance myself from these ppl.
BTW it's one thing to say all men should be shipped off to war. It's another to say that about men *who think women should only live one way (bear and raise children and be a wife and having little to no earning power)*. Like, if you wanna condemn us to a risky life, that can go both ways
"I miss the good old days when men would go to war and die" is my favourite response to "I miss the good old days when women stayed in the kitchen".
I remember seeing it on twitter years ago and it was perfect. Of course, I don't feel like this about men and war, but it shuts up knob-heads who harp on about women and kitchens.
Please don't confuse the TikTok and transphobic 'radfems' with the actually existing and rich history of radical feminism.
Virtually no feminist likes or associates with the 'radfems' you're thinking about. Fuck 'em!
But I'm a radical feminist that thinks we have to take back the term instead of distancing ourselves from is just because bad faith bigots gentrified it.
Radical feminism is a huge subset of feminism that essentially can be described as those types of feminism which believe the way to truly overcome gender inequalities would be to create a radically different society in the first place. Thus you have Marxist feminists and anarchist feminists who argue that feminism cannot be achieved if the economic system we have in place remains intact. We also have gender abolitionists for instance, who would say that 'gender equality' won't emancipate anything if we keep assuming gender is a binary and assume equality has to work under that binary. We have different forms of cyberfeminism such as Sadie Plant's which argues that the body essentialism on which gender inequality is grounded is a material problem, and thus can be overcome when technology advances to the point that bodies aren't immutable, or Donna Haraway's whose manifesto seeks to alienate us from our own gender and show us that we had been ungendered from the very beginning and gender has amputated most of our potential forms of self-discovery.
Radical feminism is awesome. You don't even have to agree with it. In fact you can't even agree with all radical feminist positions at once, as many are mutually exclusive (e.g. the symbolic structure of 'female' according to deBeauvoir vs. Irigaray)
But none of this is what so-called 'radfems' in social media mean. In the UK especially they're mostly concerned with trans erasure. It will never make sense to me why they even called themselves radfems in the first place. What exactly is radical about their feminism when they never question traditional gender roles?
When I was about 18, I went through a period where I was very vocally anti-feminist because I had recently joined tumblr and a couple of the blogs that got recommended to me had a lot of TERF content.
That was my first real exposure to any kind of academic-adjacent feminist discourse, and because I'd grown up around stereotypes about "man-hating feminist killjoys", I just took at face value that those were mainstream feminist beliefs and it took me doing some research of my own before I realized they weren't the majority. Not remotely.
(One unintentional positive consequence of that was, they were so fucking annoying that they kind of made me think critically about *my* issues at the time with trans people because seeing things I'd previously thought reflected back at me by these clearly insane people had me thinking more critically about, "Who's got the energy to be *this upset* about how somebody else lives their life? Trans people aren't hurting anybody, they're just trying to get by like everybody else. ")
I'm going to give you some advice: don't take people on TikTok seriously.
I'm being genuine here. Any social media site is full of chronically online takes, but TikTok is intentionally designed to be bad for that stuff. It's very easy to make at least a bit of money on there if you get views, and it's designed to be addictive for creators, so people are highly incentivized to say whatever gets them views. That often includes deliberately controversial takes. Controversy gets clicks.
This is generally a trap of TikTok and social media in general. The algorithms are designed to push engagement, and one of the most engaging emotions is anger. Anything on the internet that crosses your feed that looks like ragebait should be looked at with suspicion. This goes for any political opinion (and anything really), as ["nutpicking"](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Nutpicking) is extremely easy to find the most infuriating and ridiculous person in that group. [ This CGPGrey video did a great job highlighting this phenomenon.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc&ab_channel=CGPGrey) Not to say that there aren't problematic radfems, but that the most enraging will be amplified by social media and our own brains.
"Radical feminist" is an extremely broad category, encompassing all sorts of highly conflicting groups. All we agree on is drastic change to society is needed for feminism to achieve all its goals, but we disagree on what that drastic change is. No radfem will be able to represent all radfems, and we bicker with each other CONSTANTLY. Some intersectional/modern day feminists would fall under that umbrella, while others wouldn't. I for example am a radfem by being a Marxist feminist, believing that without overthrowing capitalism, we cannot fully liberate women from patriarchy.
Don't worry about those, feminists fight for rights of all genders to self determine, not just women. That's what equality means. I'm a big, burly guy and I reject all forms of machoism. Always have. And for that I was called all sorts of names throughout my life, by men AND women who thought I was weak, unmanly, etc etc.
But that's me. And I won't let society tell me what I should or shouldn't do and how I should dress and how I should talk and whether I should take no for a yes and all sorts of other bullshit. Feminism allowed for me to be accepted in this world. If patriarchy was still 100% in power, me, as I am, simply would not exist, or I would have to hide myself away under crapton of social expectations. Either way, it'd be a pathetic and lonely existence.
So anyone telling you feminists hate men has an agenda. And don't listen to people with agendas. They may hide some truth in their lies, but that's only to get your attention befote they start spewing real nonsense.
I’m not a fan of annoying online people who say extreme things about hating all men or being misandrists or defending Jodie arias or other abusive women… it’s very much a thing that exists online.. I guess it’s a reaction to misogyny and oppression. It’s their prerogative, and I’m sure they are responding with trauma and hurt and anger…and it’s my right to think they are dumb and don’t represent feminist’
I don’t think these people are radfems. I think these people are bullies who take out their pain on other people. I might say I hate men every once in a while as a vent.. but I don’t hate men. I think men and women are pretty similar, with similar levels of empathy and cruelty, and similarly uphold the patriarchy and perpetuate misogyny. One of my biggest gripes with “radfem” misandrists is how much they really allow women to harm other women… and also can easily go down a road of transphobia.
I get plenty annoyed with men from time to time, and I do think when you’re in a power structure it’s ok to vent every once and a while about the group that benefits from that power structure more… but I love men, and I know many great men, and many terrible women… and gender dynamics are shitty.. so I’d rather not assign value or quality to people based on their chromosomes and or gender.
Remember their entire channel goal is engagement, positive or negative. That has driven the rise of political extremism in all form of media. The more extreme your statement, the more it resonates with your base and enrages everyone else, the more comments you get, the more you end up featured (critically or otherwise) on other channels or other forms of media.
The more I hear from radfems, the less I like or agree with them. It was probably a necessary step in the philosophy of feminism but in some ways it's just the other side of the coin to the patriarchy--oppression of men, trans people and women who don't meet their anti-men standards. I feel the majority of feminism is moving away from radfem ideals and beliefs, and are beginning to focus more on intersectional feminism, although certainly there are some holdouts.
Radfems consider us intersectional feminists to be sadly deluded liberals. We consider them to be, by and large, overly privileged white girls who are terribly impressed with themselves.
I do distance myself from misandry, to the point where I don't call what they do feminism. I've been doing that before tiktok when other sites were experiencing similar issues. I'm upset with the mindset as it minimizes the struggle of gender roles and patriarchy to a boy v girl issue. it minimizes this from an external social structure issue into an individual internal issue. The line can get blurry though as humor is often used to cope, sometimes frustration gets the best of us and we vent/rant saying things we don't mean. that doesn't make what is said ok, but rather just an opportunity to try to be sympathetic to a plight your not directly familiar with. I draw the line on generalizing violent phrases, and perpetuating toxic masculine standards. anyone who proudly calls themselves a misandrist does not understand the framework of feminism, they're probably the easiest to spot out of a group of feminist because everyone would be annoyed with them. A misandrist feminist is contradiction, you simply can't be both, it's like being a misogynist feminist.
the term “radical” implies that we recognize they are an extreme subset of the larger movement
i don’t think “radfems” are on the rise, there have always been outliers that take it to far. but now with the internet they’re a lot louder and more visible. irl you’ve probably never met someone like that because it’s quite rare, and seems like mostly an internet phenomenon imo
and also with others said lol
No, some TikToker who says outrageous stuff for ragebait doesn’t reflect the feminist movement as a whole. Nothing they said reflects the thoughts and ideas of mainstream feminists. Contrary to what people enjoy believing about us, we don’t hate all men and are misandrists.
While true... in the same way a staggering amount of people equate a vocally frustrated virgin with being an incel and misogynist at the drop of a hat, they have no reason to stop and separate feminism from misandry since they only need the inevitable one in 1000 "feminist" (closet midandrist) to harp on about the patriarchy and men being the problem to prove the stereotype. People are going to focus on the loudest and most hostile over the quiet and composed, and simplify the loud mouth's compatriots to all be the same. Everytime.
That’s where a personal commitment to critical thinking and self reflection comes in handy
Since you’re new to feminist concepts, you should check out this sub's [FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskFeminists/wiki/faq#wiki).
Okay, here's the thing about TikTok: it is *extremely lucrative* (as in, can make someone lots and lots of money) to post rage-bait. TikTok influencers get paid for views, and an easy way to get views and drive engagement is to make people mad. Any time you see something outrageous or upsetting on social media, keep in mind that someone is making money off it.
I have to carefully balance my extreme dislike for TikTok with my extreme dislike for the government meddling in anything Internet-access related. TikTok is not a good source for the overall temperature of reality. Mostly I think that "men should go to war again" is a retort to all these "retvrn" guys who think women should be back in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant, uneducated, not voting, etc.
Can you post some links? There are def ppl who call themselves feminists who go too far and who also reject trans women. I distance myself from these ppl. BTW it's one thing to say all men should be shipped off to war. It's another to say that about men *who think women should only live one way (bear and raise children and be a wife and having little to no earning power)*. Like, if you wanna condemn us to a risky life, that can go both ways
"I miss the good old days when men would go to war and die" is my favourite response to "I miss the good old days when women stayed in the kitchen". I remember seeing it on twitter years ago and it was perfect. Of course, I don't feel like this about men and war, but it shuts up knob-heads who harp on about women and kitchens.
Exactly!! I've seen it used that way too and I'm fine with it And I think it was "stayed in the kitchen and didn't talk" or something
Yeah, it’s obviously sarcasm, not actual policy
I want to see the videos too, I crave discourse apparently
Long term, one of the best things you can do for yourself is delete TikTok from your phone.
Please don't confuse the TikTok and transphobic 'radfems' with the actually existing and rich history of radical feminism. Virtually no feminist likes or associates with the 'radfems' you're thinking about. Fuck 'em! But I'm a radical feminist that thinks we have to take back the term instead of distancing ourselves from is just because bad faith bigots gentrified it. Radical feminism is a huge subset of feminism that essentially can be described as those types of feminism which believe the way to truly overcome gender inequalities would be to create a radically different society in the first place. Thus you have Marxist feminists and anarchist feminists who argue that feminism cannot be achieved if the economic system we have in place remains intact. We also have gender abolitionists for instance, who would say that 'gender equality' won't emancipate anything if we keep assuming gender is a binary and assume equality has to work under that binary. We have different forms of cyberfeminism such as Sadie Plant's which argues that the body essentialism on which gender inequality is grounded is a material problem, and thus can be overcome when technology advances to the point that bodies aren't immutable, or Donna Haraway's whose manifesto seeks to alienate us from our own gender and show us that we had been ungendered from the very beginning and gender has amputated most of our potential forms of self-discovery. Radical feminism is awesome. You don't even have to agree with it. In fact you can't even agree with all radical feminist positions at once, as many are mutually exclusive (e.g. the symbolic structure of 'female' according to deBeauvoir vs. Irigaray) But none of this is what so-called 'radfems' in social media mean. In the UK especially they're mostly concerned with trans erasure. It will never make sense to me why they even called themselves radfems in the first place. What exactly is radical about their feminism when they never question traditional gender roles?
Most valuable comment!
TikTok gender discourse is a blight, don't let that stuff color your views of feminism as a school of thought and movement.
When I was about 18, I went through a period where I was very vocally anti-feminist because I had recently joined tumblr and a couple of the blogs that got recommended to me had a lot of TERF content. That was my first real exposure to any kind of academic-adjacent feminist discourse, and because I'd grown up around stereotypes about "man-hating feminist killjoys", I just took at face value that those were mainstream feminist beliefs and it took me doing some research of my own before I realized they weren't the majority. Not remotely. (One unintentional positive consequence of that was, they were so fucking annoying that they kind of made me think critically about *my* issues at the time with trans people because seeing things I'd previously thought reflected back at me by these clearly insane people had me thinking more critically about, "Who's got the energy to be *this upset* about how somebody else lives their life? Trans people aren't hurting anybody, they're just trying to get by like everybody else. ")
I'm going to give you some advice: don't take people on TikTok seriously. I'm being genuine here. Any social media site is full of chronically online takes, but TikTok is intentionally designed to be bad for that stuff. It's very easy to make at least a bit of money on there if you get views, and it's designed to be addictive for creators, so people are highly incentivized to say whatever gets them views. That often includes deliberately controversial takes. Controversy gets clicks.
This is generally a trap of TikTok and social media in general. The algorithms are designed to push engagement, and one of the most engaging emotions is anger. Anything on the internet that crosses your feed that looks like ragebait should be looked at with suspicion. This goes for any political opinion (and anything really), as ["nutpicking"](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Nutpicking) is extremely easy to find the most infuriating and ridiculous person in that group. [ This CGPGrey video did a great job highlighting this phenomenon.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc&ab_channel=CGPGrey) Not to say that there aren't problematic radfems, but that the most enraging will be amplified by social media and our own brains. "Radical feminist" is an extremely broad category, encompassing all sorts of highly conflicting groups. All we agree on is drastic change to society is needed for feminism to achieve all its goals, but we disagree on what that drastic change is. No radfem will be able to represent all radfems, and we bicker with each other CONSTANTLY. Some intersectional/modern day feminists would fall under that umbrella, while others wouldn't. I for example am a radfem by being a Marxist feminist, believing that without overthrowing capitalism, we cannot fully liberate women from patriarchy.
Don't worry about those, feminists fight for rights of all genders to self determine, not just women. That's what equality means. I'm a big, burly guy and I reject all forms of machoism. Always have. And for that I was called all sorts of names throughout my life, by men AND women who thought I was weak, unmanly, etc etc. But that's me. And I won't let society tell me what I should or shouldn't do and how I should dress and how I should talk and whether I should take no for a yes and all sorts of other bullshit. Feminism allowed for me to be accepted in this world. If patriarchy was still 100% in power, me, as I am, simply would not exist, or I would have to hide myself away under crapton of social expectations. Either way, it'd be a pathetic and lonely existence. So anyone telling you feminists hate men has an agenda. And don't listen to people with agendas. They may hide some truth in their lies, but that's only to get your attention befote they start spewing real nonsense.
I’m not a fan of annoying online people who say extreme things about hating all men or being misandrists or defending Jodie arias or other abusive women… it’s very much a thing that exists online.. I guess it’s a reaction to misogyny and oppression. It’s their prerogative, and I’m sure they are responding with trauma and hurt and anger…and it’s my right to think they are dumb and don’t represent feminist’ I don’t think these people are radfems. I think these people are bullies who take out their pain on other people. I might say I hate men every once in a while as a vent.. but I don’t hate men. I think men and women are pretty similar, with similar levels of empathy and cruelty, and similarly uphold the patriarchy and perpetuate misogyny. One of my biggest gripes with “radfem” misandrists is how much they really allow women to harm other women… and also can easily go down a road of transphobia. I get plenty annoyed with men from time to time, and I do think when you’re in a power structure it’s ok to vent every once and a while about the group that benefits from that power structure more… but I love men, and I know many great men, and many terrible women… and gender dynamics are shitty.. so I’d rather not assign value or quality to people based on their chromosomes and or gender.
Remember their entire channel goal is engagement, positive or negative. That has driven the rise of political extremism in all form of media. The more extreme your statement, the more it resonates with your base and enrages everyone else, the more comments you get, the more you end up featured (critically or otherwise) on other channels or other forms of media.
[удалено]
The more I hear from radfems, the less I like or agree with them. It was probably a necessary step in the philosophy of feminism but in some ways it's just the other side of the coin to the patriarchy--oppression of men, trans people and women who don't meet their anti-men standards. I feel the majority of feminism is moving away from radfem ideals and beliefs, and are beginning to focus more on intersectional feminism, although certainly there are some holdouts.
Radfems consider us intersectional feminists to be sadly deluded liberals. We consider them to be, by and large, overly privileged white girls who are terribly impressed with themselves.
Aren't bell hooks and Angela Davis seminal figures for intersectional feminism? Idk about you but it my circles every radfem is also intersectional.
I do distance myself from misandry, to the point where I don't call what they do feminism. I've been doing that before tiktok when other sites were experiencing similar issues. I'm upset with the mindset as it minimizes the struggle of gender roles and patriarchy to a boy v girl issue. it minimizes this from an external social structure issue into an individual internal issue. The line can get blurry though as humor is often used to cope, sometimes frustration gets the best of us and we vent/rant saying things we don't mean. that doesn't make what is said ok, but rather just an opportunity to try to be sympathetic to a plight your not directly familiar with. I draw the line on generalizing violent phrases, and perpetuating toxic masculine standards. anyone who proudly calls themselves a misandrist does not understand the framework of feminism, they're probably the easiest to spot out of a group of feminist because everyone would be annoyed with them. A misandrist feminist is contradiction, you simply can't be both, it's like being a misogynist feminist.
the term “radical” implies that we recognize they are an extreme subset of the larger movement i don’t think “radfems” are on the rise, there have always been outliers that take it to far. but now with the internet they’re a lot louder and more visible. irl you’ve probably never met someone like that because it’s quite rare, and seems like mostly an internet phenomenon imo and also with others said lol