I see 'gender egalitarianism' as an evolution of feminism and, to be entirely honest, a necessary evolution. I think feminism in its current iteration has hit a wall of pushback, from both men and women. That wall is partly because the issues like 'equal pay' are now quite nuanced and complicated on a case by case basis but also because of the misandrist component within the movement itself. Why would you object to rebranding the 'feminine' prefix if you didn't consider it to be a gendered issue?
I've answered something similar before in the article I linked.
Should feminists aim to get more men on board with feminism and if so: how?
No. Because that suggests this is a gender issue and not a rights or society-based issue. The lens by which you consider the problem can sometimes affect the way the issue is framed. Considering it this way puts an onus on women to recruit men to ‘their cause’.This fundamentally wrong.It isn’t their cause. It’s a social rights issue across all society. It needs to be championed by everyone interested in justice and equality.
I’m not sure all women who consider themselves feminists are equipped to get men on board with feminism. Sometimes this is a problem with methods of communication and sometimes it is simply that those who position themselves as feminists are carrying too much baggage and not enough insight.Men will have to get on board with feminism in their own time; you can lead a horse to water, but kicking it repeatedly won’t make it drink.
Humans with all types of genitalia should try and take an objective and genderless view of the situation rather than a subjective gendered view. There are problems facing both sexes and these need to be addressed — and should be done in tandem.
To suggest these need to be addressed separately further encourages the idea that there isn’t joint responsibility.The discourse has created an either/or dichotomy which is unhelpful in which the two sexes try and force their issues to the front using linguistic flanking tricks and echo chambers. It’s a worrying development. The extreme end of both groups continually feeds oxygen to each other.Society has been here before on several issues and shouldn’t conflate ‘being heard’ with ‘making progress’ — the two are different things and that is particularly true when you are only being heard by those people who are already pre-disposed to listening to you.
Feminism has turned men off. Many feminists think this is a good thing. That’s worrying.More worryingly, it has turned men off en-masse, even those inclined to listen in the first instance have moved away. There have been a number of complications which weren’t adequately addressed at the time and a lack of insight into how those problems might play out. There were tactics but no grand strategy. That’s a fuck up we’ll regret in the long run.
