Feminism

Feminists tend to get a bad reputation among the public nowadays, since they are portrayed by the media as man-hating lesbian separatists who fantasize the amazonian utopia or women who identifies too many social conducts as sexist. Most even give the impression that only females can be feminists, but this is obviously false since there have been plenty of male feminists (e.g. James Sterba). I reject this popular portrayal of feminism, since it often oversimplifies feminism into a generalized stereotype. Feminism is a tradition that extends from intellectual tradition to activism, which consists in variety of opinions, beliefs, or attitudes on different issues: There are feminists who consider prostitution to be hopelessly exploitative while others optimistically believe that prostitution can be less exploitative if it is de-criminalized and regulated by the government; there are feminists who condemn pornography as objectifying women, while there are other feminists who have more positive views on pornography (although they have some reservations such as unrealistic portrayal of sex). As you can see, these are examples of issues where feminists have different views on. There are even feminists who view sex positively, they are known as sex positivist. You even have feminists disagreeing with each other on how they should understand science: is science ultimately a masculine-POV of the world that is to be mistrusted or is it a relatively neutral enterprise that simply needs more female members? (of course, the debate is more complex than how I present it).

However, there are certain things that are popular (though not universally accepted) among feminists that I find myself resisting. I find myself resisting the idea that there is no such thing as neutral or value-free area of discourse in which ideas or concepts are value-free and purely descriptive. The reason why I resist this is because I think if we were to accept this view, then it seems that we cannot have any objective understanding of the world. I also reject the idea that objectivity is equivalent to masculine values, I think objectivity is an ideal that either sexes should pursue. I also think that "rationality" is not merely a masculine value or trait, I think this is (and should be) a universal quality among capable human beings, although it is not the only one. I often find feminists critique on evolutionary psychology to be tiresome as if almost everything has to be ideological.

Nonetheless, I think there is no shame in endorsing feminism. I personally identify with feminism to the extent that I believe that both sexes (men and women) should be treated equally, however these equal treatments are not arbitrary. I think these equal treatments are underpinned by the moral ideal of treating each other like human persons rather than merely instruments or disposable things; it prohibits dehumanization, but encourages humanizing each other. I also feel very indignant when I find someone who considers females to be the inferior sex, I often find myself wanting to condemn that person (many times I do condemn that person). While men and women are biologically and psychologically different to varying degrees in various of ways, such differences are merely factual differences that does not inform us about what moral norms we should adopt in regards to how we ought to treat people of different sex. While inequality entails differences, differences does not entail inequality: it is possible to be different from each other, but still deserve equal treatment in so far as we want to be treated as persons.

I think almost everyone in the modern world is to some extent a feminist, but nowadays being a feminist is associated with those who are very vocal about gender equality and very critical of any symptom of patriarchy and sexism. Many people find it to be confrontational and rude, which I can understand on occasion, but I don't think feminists are seriously misguided.