Feminism Is For Men Tooįeminism also acknowledges how patriarchy and other forms of social hierarchy can hurt men while giving them benefits at the same time.

Just as women in the beginning of the feminist movement fought to have their voice and perspective included and valued, feminism today fights to include the voice and perspectives of all groups who experience dominance in our society – which is pretty much every single person. Over time, this has led to seeing how essentially everyone – men and women – is mistreated and exploited in socially acceptable ways due to their social status. This led to feminism expanding its focus to understanding how all these groupings of different power and privilege intersect to shape the everyday lives of women. There was a backlash within the feminism movement who felt it overly represented issues of white, upper class women. While feminism began focused more solely on issues related to being a women, women do not experience their lives as merely women but also as women of different races, classes, sexual orientation, and other groupings. How Feminism Evolved To Be For Everybody (and Not Just Women) To create such a world, all forms of oppression need to end – sexism, racism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, ageism, ableism, etc. It aims to create a world where there is no domination, where people are valued for being who they are fully and freely. Feminism strives to free people of these beliefs. Living in patriarchal, homophobic, racist, and classist societies, we are conditioned to perpetuate sexism, homophobia, racism, and classism.īoth men and women can try to dominate each other and be dominated, rewarding and punishing according to how much they fit into traditional definitions of gender, sexual orientation, race, and class. It helps us stand up against oppression and demand justice.īy engaging in feminist thinking and action, we can free ourselves to make meaningful choices in how we live our lives and pursue what makes us happy and fulfilled as human beings.įeminism identifies discrimination, exploitation, and oppression - and not men (contrary to a wildly incorrect popular belief)- as the problem. It helps us to understand why some people hate, abuse, exploit, discriminate, and silence certain individuals and communities. It supports us in questioning what we’ve been taught about forcing people into traditional roles and valuing some groups less than others. Feminism strives to end the discrimination, exploitation, and oppression of people due to their gender, sexual orientation, race, class, and other differences and supports people in being free to determine their own lives for themselves.

Feminism is for everybody sparknotes