Following the superb (Dutch) interview with (female) Belgian philosopher Griet vanderMassen on feminism, I made a note to research its male equivalent. In 2017, I had tried and failed. Nevertheless, my 2017 blog on male feminism and female sexism was fun to read again. A new search revealed that masculism, or masculinism, is the male equivalent of feminism.
Wiki: “Masculism or masculinism may variously refer to advocacy of the rights or needs of men and boys; and the adherence to or promotion of attributes (opinions, values, attitudes, habits) regarded as typical of men and boys. The terms may also refer to the men’s rights or men’s movement.”
I suppose that I have always confused the term masculism with masculinity. Hence, my mental association with bodybuilders (eg, Arnold Schwarzenegger). Clearly, masculism has never been of interest to me, and neither was masculinity, nor feminism. I do like femininity though: “a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally associated with girls and women”.
It seems that all words ending with -ism tend to be at the extreme side of any belief. Beliefs can be grouped into the 7 Belief systems, being: Love, Money, Philosophy, Politics, Religion, Science, and the Truth (my blogs). Feminism and masculism are philosophical beliefs.
The essence of any belief is that it’s worth giving up your (own) life for. However, the flip side of that coin is that people also murder (other people) for those same beliefs. Any belief tends to evolve towards its extreme side. At that point, beliefs get either crushed or materialize.
It’s tempting to argue that feminism is outdated because its causes have (largely) been realised. The current American attempts to overturn a 1973 U.S. Supreme Court landmark decision, better known as Roe vs Wade, show that feminism may never stop to be relevant. To a large extent, this new court battle could be viewed as feminism vs masculism.
When two -isms collide then it often brings “war” and nothing good for the people in the “crossfire” (eg, HuffPost, Modern Healthcare). The Israeli newspaper Haaretz found that “Laws in many Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East are actually more lenient than those currently being pushed in some U.S. states”.
Alyssa Milano showed the extreme side of feminism by making a plea to women for a sex strike in order to protest against these legislative changes. CNN pointed out the obvious: “Critics said the strike assumes that sex is enjoyed only by men and that women’s bodies are commodities that can be denied to men as punishment.”
No Sex Please, We’re British (1971)
Note: all markings (bold, italic, underlining) by LO unless stated otherwise
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