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Toward the end of the second wave (late 60s/early 70s, I think), feminism morphed from a social movement into an all-encompassing political and philosophical wo

Toward the end of the second wave (late 60s/early 70s, I think), feminism morphed from a social movement into an all-encompassing political and philosophical worldview that ultimately suffers from the same issues that every absolute social ideology does: shoehorning events and disciplines into its predetermined framework. This is the time we got the various unsavory elements like lesbianism as a political identity, the idea that male homosexuality is a result of misogyny (espoused by the Redstockings, for example), separatist feminism, "womyn born womyn" and the radical feminist transphobia espoused by Janice Raymond, Mary Daly, Sheila Jeffreys, Germaine Greer and I think even Gloria Steinem at one point. The problem is that the feminist ideology, the movement, and the principle are all different things. In common discourse, however, the feminist principle (gender equality) is equivocated to give legitimacy to feminist political theory, which is often in conflict with it.

maze-le 11y ago
> ultimately suffers from the same issues that every absolute social ideology does: shoehorning events and disciplines into its predetermined framework I think that is a very big part of the problem. Feminism was once an emancipatory movement, that eveolved into an ideology. With all the bad sideeffects ideologies bear with them. I genrally do agree on what you call 'the feminist principle', while I strongly denounce the political corsett wich it evolved into.
- Karunamon 11y ago
  My theory is that once you get a sufficiently outraged group of people on a righteous crusade (historically, we've treated women pretty badly in the USA), that righteous outrage does not dissipate once the primary causes of that outrage have been addressed. As a result, you get more and more minute nonsense being shoveled into the ideology (example: the "manspreading" idiocy) that's attacked just as vigorously as actual things that cause actual problems, like discrimination and human rights. Then, the movement sufficiently de-legitimized due to this, more and more unaffiliated people turn against it, and some of their gains are lost.

maze-le 11y ago

> ultimately suffers from the same issues that every absolute social ideology does: shoehorning events and disciplines into its predetermined framework I think that is a very big part of the problem. Feminism was once an emancipatory movement, that eveolved into an ideology. With all the bad sideeffects ideologies bear with them. I genrally do agree on what you call 'the feminist principle', while I strongly denounce the political corsett wich it evolved into.

Karunamon 11y ago
My theory is that once you get a sufficiently outraged group of people on a righteous crusade (historically, we've treated women pretty badly in the USA), that righteous outrage does not dissipate once the primary causes of that outrage have been addressed. As a result, you get more and more minute nonsense being shoveled into the ideology (example: the "manspreading" idiocy) that's attacked just as vigorously as actual things that cause actual problems, like discrimination and human rights. Then, the movement sufficiently de-legitimized due to this, more and more unaffiliated people turn against it, and some of their gains are lost.