I've read her post before, though I still don't agree. I do believe in equality for the sexes, or rather I believe in equality and think sex et al is irrelevant to that. "Feminism" does not seem the right word to me.
Every academic strain of feminism I'm familiar with is invested in the idea that "women" exist, that there is some platonic nature that distinguishes them from other entities and other people. I disagree, I do not think that sex or even gender is an appropriate metric for categorizing the world (which is not to say that I think people don't do this). I don't think there is anything fundamentally special or different about women, even though society raises us to very different positions and natures. Few if any of these feminisms openly claim there is such a difference, my interpretation is based on their tone, terms, and methodologies.
That doesn't mean that I think we should abandon feminism, that feminism hasn't brought us great things, that it won't continue to bring great things, that it causes more harm than good, or any such rot. And it certainly doesn't mean I think women don't deserve to have a special focus given all of history. As I said in the post, I do not generally disagree with the practicing of feminism. I do see theoretical flaws with it however, ones which I am unable to reconcile without altering it to the point where "feminism" is no longer an appropriate name since the new version abandons feminism's core idea that "women" exist.
Just because I disagree does not mean I think other people should abandon feminism either. I disagree with Government–Binding Theory and Minimalism, but that doesn't mean I think we've learned nothing from them nor that it would be beneficial for everyone to abandon future work on them. Even if fundamental problems with the theory mean they can never solve their problem domain, future development could uncover better theories and even if it does not the theories are well developed enough that other discoveries could be made which hold even if the framework is eventually abandoned.
Non-academic strains of feminism are less invested in the problems I see with academic feminism. However, non-academic strains of feminism are much more the "equality of the sexes" variety that Sarah Bunting espouses, which is where it gets into the issue that I do not think "feminism" is the proper term for encompassing the whole of gender/sexuality studies nor the proper term for equality for everyone (regardless of sex, gender, race, nationality, religion, creed,...). I think feminism, in the narrow sense, is important and broadening the term in either of those directions weakens it. Calling everything "feminism" is like calling episcopalians, baptists, lutherans, apostolics, quakers, unitarians, etc all "catholics"; doing so ignores the reasons they broke off from catholicism and also makes "catholic" into a term as generic as "christian", which means profoundly little.
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Every academic strain of feminism I'm familiar with is invested in the idea that "women" exist, that there is some platonic nature that distinguishes them from other entities and other people. I disagree, I do not think that sex or even gender is an appropriate metric for categorizing the world (which is not to say that I think people don't do this). I don't think there is anything fundamentally special or different about women, even though society raises us to very different positions and natures. Few if any of these feminisms openly claim there is such a difference, my interpretation is based on their tone, terms, and methodologies.
That doesn't mean that I think we should abandon feminism, that feminism hasn't brought us great things, that it won't continue to bring great things, that it causes more harm than good, or any such rot. And it certainly doesn't mean I think women don't deserve to have a special focus given all of history. As I said in the post, I do not generally disagree with the practicing of feminism. I do see theoretical flaws with it however, ones which I am unable to reconcile without altering it to the point where "feminism" is no longer an appropriate name since the new version abandons feminism's core idea that "women" exist.
Just because I disagree does not mean I think other people should abandon feminism either. I disagree with Government–Binding Theory and Minimalism, but that doesn't mean I think we've learned nothing from them nor that it would be beneficial for everyone to abandon future work on them. Even if fundamental problems with the theory mean they can never solve their problem domain, future development could uncover better theories and even if it does not the theories are well developed enough that other discoveries could be made which hold even if the framework is eventually abandoned.
Non-academic strains of feminism are less invested in the problems I see with academic feminism. However, non-academic strains of feminism are much more the "equality of the sexes" variety that Sarah Bunting espouses, which is where it gets into the issue that I do not think "feminism" is the proper term for encompassing the whole of gender/sexuality studies nor the proper term for equality for everyone (regardless of sex, gender, race, nationality, religion, creed,...). I think feminism, in the narrow sense, is important and broadening the term in either of those directions weakens it. Calling everything "feminism" is like calling episcopalians, baptists, lutherans, apostolics, quakers, unitarians, etc all "catholics"; doing so ignores the reasons they broke off from catholicism and also makes "catholic" into a term as generic as "christian", which means profoundly little.