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RE: Are you brave enough to be called the dirty word?
@whatsup and @beanz, I have to say, I found your conversation interesting and enlightening. But it's like @whatsup says:
I still don't understand why I would choose to embrace the "Title" of feminist. The truth is, if feminism is about advocating for equal rights for both genders, then choosing the term "feminism" to represent such a concept is unfair to begin with. Why not 'masculism' ? So it seems from the word go, we are already siding with women. Personally, I am a strong advocate for gender equality and I find the term 'humanist' more refreshing and fair.
I am certainly not going to engage in who has advantages or disadvantages, I don't really the see the value in it, and we likely would disagree. A pet peeve of mine is arguing for your victimhood. I think there are pros and cons for both genders.
I could care less what you name any group, call it Ralph. What rights are we fighting for, for whom, and with what goal in mind?
I'm only seeing this reply now so sorry for the delayed response.
Before feminism became a movement focused mainly on the injustices against women, but strictly to bring them to an equal level of rights and opportunities and not higher, "feminism" was actually a study. And this study which led to a movement is where feminism gets its name.
The study was of femininity and how it is socially constructed and learned through culture. At the time they did not even consider that masculinity was also a culturally learned social construct. It was - as it often still is - considered the default. As the study progressed it began to incorporate the study of masculinity and gender as a more broad topic.
Your argument that the word feminism makes the movement more biased towards women is true, but because of an important misinterpretation of femininity.
Femininity does not mean women. It is a list of characteristics that are expected of women and demonised in men as part of patriarchal society. This oppression of men is actually included in the movement, but it has never been made a priority for the participants and that is problematic. It is mainly due to lack of participation by men to fight for their rights (parental for example) as women fought for theirs. This could be due to a lot of women using "feminism" as their badge of entitlement who misdirect their anger at men for the issues their gender faces. So we can't blame them. But in reality, by definition feminism is about freeing both men and women from the restrictions of gender.
@beanz, thanks for the enlightenment.