Angling back, briefly, to the prior discussion, I wrote:
Quoting Russell Coker (russell@coker.com.au):
I think that the "male feminist" thing is bogus. I think that only people who have experienced living as female (including transgender people) should call themselves feminists.
Well, I will politely, but firmly, decline to give a rat's ass about your disapproval of my having been a feminist since circa 1970. [...]
Irrespective of whether I concur, Russell - you have me curious: _Why_ do you allege that only people who've experienced living as female should call themselves feminists? Pourquoi? When I first encountered that paragraph, I confess I didn't bother to ponder what you were getting at, and merely said 'no' rather curtly. Now that I have, I'd appreciate you detailing your reasons. No obligation, of course, and I remain perfectly OK with agreeing to disagree. My own view is the same as Sarah Bunting's: If you believe in, support, look fondly on, hope for, and/or work towards equality of the sexes, you are a feminist. Yes, you are. http://tomatonation.com/culture-and-criticism/yes-you-are/ As I was pointing out in my laughter-raising rejoinder to Supervisor Sunne McPeak on that day back in the early 1980s, the name of the feminist political group I joined is National Organization[1] _for_ Women, not _of_ Women. There's a serious point, there: Betty Friedan and and Rev. Pauli Murray did not seek to exclude 49% of humanity from their cause or from their organisation (NOW) on grounds of different life experience and lack of personal experience of sexism, any more than the NAACP and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee ever told white people they weren't allowed to be civil rights activists, just because they hadn't personally experienced racism. My parents and I marched with Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers, and called ourselves farmworker activists, even though we had no experience of being a Hispanic field labourer, either. And Chavez was perfectly fine, even delighted, with having surburban, middle-class Noregian-Americans marching with them, FWIW. Anyway, I'll spare you further exegisis on the problems of group identity, and you're welcome to tell me why I'm mistaken, if you wish. [1] Sorry, that's the way they write it. My long-term aspiration to teach American how to spell the English language has yet to bear fruit.