Tuesday, March 28, 2017

The Crisis in Feminism: How it's in Danger of Becoming an Unthinking Cult

By Anonymous

Feminism has long been a movement of intellectuals, debating, sometimes heatedly, about issues. Some feminists believe liberal capitalism will help women get ahead, while others believe that socialism will help women more. Some feminists believe in the West exporting feminist values, while others believe in letting feminism develop organically within other cultures. Some feminists believe in affirmative action policies, while others do not. And so on.

It's a healthy thing to have so many ideas. It's a healthy and constructive thing to debate, and form even more ideas as a result.

Sadly, all this appears to be at risk right now. The poisonous idea that everyone must agree on everything, or that people should be included only if they conform to certain views, first took hold of some progressive movements some years ago. It looks like this idea is beginning to take over feminism. People are already saying things like there's no space for certain kinds of politics within feminism. How ridiculous. The only thing that feminism doesn't have space for is sexism.

There's still time to save feminism, the diverse feminism we've come to know and love. But we need to speak up now.