What I hear when people say "I'm a humanist/egalitarian, not a feminist"

"I am willing to totally throw out all that feminism and its proponents have fought for over the last couple centuries because instead of continuing to work within the movement as it stands to make it better and challenge those who use it to fuel a weird victim-biased agenda, I would rather take the easy way out and start a new movement based on the exact same things that feminism stands for, further making it look like feminism DOESN'T stand for those things even though it has all along."

To me, choosing this path is cowardly and disrespectful. Of course feminism has issues. It always has. It's likely it always will. But feminism has accomplished a lot of good, too, and to just leave the movement behind to me looks like throwing it in the dirt. People who say these things to me show that they aren't willing to put in the hard work of letting people know that feminism is about equality, but would rather just start a new movement from scratch that has accomplished literally nothing ...

To me, it's like feminism fought battles, and now people are refusing to honour their war dead. Step your game the fuck up, put on your analyzing hats, and get it through your fucking heads that feminism is about equality and always has been, oh my fucking god how many more times do I need to say this????

Yes, over the last century, it has focused on women's rights, because when feminism began to get popular, women weren't even people. Heck, I'm sure there's still parts of the world where they aren't. But I'm sure if we can recognize that women can be sexist and contribute to oppressive practices too, we can expand to discuss men's issues (so long as they are not rude, unnecessary interruptions of discussions of women's issues, which are just as valid and important). Feminism has already become way more intersectional than it used to be, in the days when feminism was kind of completely about upper class white women (who occasionally did make issues of working women's rights and the rights of immigrant women, see for example Nelly McClung (YES she was crazy into eugenics, and that is an unfortunate part of her legacy, but it doesn't cancel out the good that she accomplished. People aren't all good or all bad)).

I am sticking with feminism because I can see all that it has done for me, and this is my way of paying my respect. I'm not going to desert a movement that got me the right to vote, own property, and obtain a divorce. I'm one of the young generation now. I feel it is partly my responsibility to make the world a better place. I also feel like all the feminists who are now aging have to pass on the torch. It is now our responsibility to make feminism better, and yes, it is a lot of fucking hard work and trying to use logic and reason to be heard above the extremists... and now, too, above the people who aren't willing to be a feminist even though they still spout feminist ideals and have feminist mindsets.

And to anybody who tells me "you're just using emotion to sell this cause and make it seem noble" why yes, yes I am. Good job picking up on that. That was exactly my goal. Feminist goals are noble to me. I'm glad you got that.

yer pal,
swegan