What Motivates You, Ideologically to Support the Feminist Movement?

Question

For me, the answer lies around core sets of values that I have read in Feminist literature, which happen to sit well with a spiritual outlook. A quote from them is provided below.

What about you? If you support feminism, or for that matter masculinism - is there a core ideology that underpins your support? What motivates you?

Quote follows:

"The Earth is a living, conscious being. In company with cultures of many different times and places, we name these things as sacred: air, fire, water, and earth.

Whether we see them as the breath, energy, blood, and body of the Mother, or as the blessed gifts of a Creator, or as symbols of interconnected systems that sustain life, we know that nothing can live without them.

To call these things sacred is to say that they have a value beyond their usefulness for human ends, that they themselves become the standard by which our acts, our economics, our laws, and our purposes must be judged. No one has the right to appropriate them or profit from them at the expense of others. Any government that fails to protect them forfeits its legitimacy.

All people, all living things, are part of the earth life, and so are sacred. No one of us stands higher or lower than any other. Only justice can assure balance; only ecological balance can sustain freedom. Only in freedom can that fifth sacred thing we call spirit flourish in its full diversity.

To honor the sacred is to create conditions in which nourishment, sustenance, habitat, knowledge, freedom, and beauty can thrive. To honor the sacred is to make love possible.

To this we dedicate our curiosity, our will, our courage, our silences, and our voices. To this we dedicate our lives.

quote supplied from
http://www.starhawk.org/writings/fifth-sacred-thing.html

Answer 1

You pretty much answered the question the way I would with your quote and details. I am an eco-feminist. I believe all life on this rock is of equal value and should be protected from human interference. Where does feminism itself fit into this?
Feminism, particular eco not only promotes equality of evreything regardless of gender, specie or size, it also teaches how to use masculine and feminine energy without being destructive and trampling over everything.

I have a personal belief that if mankind can learn to respect every living thing and the planet as a functional organism that gender and racial equality will be a by-product of that, Tolerance has a way of being contagious.

Answer 2

Had believed in Feminist ideals for a long time, since my teens, but have never realised that there was a bad element to it, where there are radicals who hold extremely sexist views towards men. Never realised that the table has been well and truly turned and alot of women are treating men exactly the same way we had been treated in the past. How do two wrongs make a right? Am still for women's rights, but it doesn't seem right to turn into the thing I hated(chauvinism), so now see that men do need the same consideration that women expect for themselves, but I won't stand with the anti-fems either(too much hate going on). I stand on my own.

Answer 3

The belief that as the world ages, we can, as a species mature.

To me, humans could be considered like children. We must have our time of growth, tantrums, changing beliefs.

In the beginnings of our lives here, the mother goddess was everything. The power to give life was all.

The focus shifted to the father god, and the power to end life became all.

Now, as we grow, can we discover that giving and taking life are simply the portals through which we pass on our journey, and what we may need to do next is learn to live together on our spinning blue island planet.

To me that's what feminism is about ~ finding ways to move forward to the next step.

Cheers :-)

Answer 4

I am with "two socks", it seems I am an "eco" too. I support causes which goals are to reach a better life for everyone, men, women, children, animals, and I am conscious about the earth. Feminism is one of them, as it pertains to women causes.

My motivation was born long time ago, as I was born in a very macho country, where even male teachers told girls that they would put very little effort in teaching them because they were going to get married anyway. Even my own father was uninterested in my studies and my career, although I was the only one with good notes and drive for work. The men of my family just lived crying to him for money, and we women had to clean after them. My father left my mother, actually he was having two families at the same time, no wonder why, he never helped my mother with economical support. I also was treated like sexual public property from age 10. So when my mother lent me the first feminist book, it made a lot of sense. I am not a militant feminist, but I agree about the issues of injustice, and now that I am reading "Backlash" by Faludi, even this microcosm in Yahoo, makes sense.

My interest for feminism was buried for a long time, as I moved to another country where things are million times better for women. It was last year, through researching a paper, I came in contact with it again. And of course thanks to the bashing in here I have become still more interested (lol).

Nevertheless, today that I see what I have done in retrospective: I have signed petitions and given economic support (when I can), to organizations that fight against inequalities and abuses. So in a way I have been an "eco-feminist" all my life, I just didn't call myself one.

Answer 5

Marry me! Wait, my bf might have a problem with that....

Yes, feminism has many elements of the old religion. This is where people don't realize that balance is good, and imbalance is bad for EVERYONE. Yin and Yang. Men and women are different, but equally wonderful. There was a time when the feminine was just as sacred as the masculine, but that has changed. I believe that both feminism and masculinism celebrate our differences, and I see nothing wrong with that. In fact, I think that is the way to live this ephemeral life....

The problem is that some people live their lives assuming that their bodies are never going to die. If they only really knew....

Answer 6

Twilight,
What a surprising choice of quote. I am, most probably not a feminist. I support the fight for equal rights for all people and I know that women, in many countries do not have a voice.
This quote could be new-age religion or wiccan, but as an underpinning of feminism, well, I just don't see it as that.
I'm sorry. I don't know what else to say.
C. :)!!

Answer 7

Females that move
,who in his right mind could be against that

And i do not see women and men as separate species.
the differences have been created by age old propagandas and cultures,by men for selfish reasons.

As far as i am concerned we are one species humans ,and all should have the same rights.

Privilege ,equates with value or experience.

Respect equates with mentality or good manners,not age, gender or race

Most of the quote is Gaian or Pagan ,the blessed gift of the Creator ,is a Christian injection.

Answer 8

I support equality.

If men have the upper hand in one area, then I will support the feminists - but the reverse is also true. It's not about supporting feminism or masculinism (or any other -ism, for that matter.) It should be about whether one supports the concept that all are equal, regardless of sex.

Answer 9

This argument about feminism is irritating to witness.

Feminism is simply a belief in equality of opportunity between the sexes. No one but a bonehead would oppose that.

People have different ideas on how to achieve said equality. SOME feminists make proposals and use language that cause many of us to recoil and/or lash out against these feminists, and by extension, their cause, while the vast majority of us actually agree on the core principles of feminism.

If we could stop and listen to each other for a few minutes, we'd probably discover that we agree on enough points to make us ideological allies, not enemies.

Answer 10

I am never motivated by ideology. The concept that all are of equal consideration goes deeply into our evolutionary past and is reflected in our laws and institutions at the ultimate level and as continually sharpening justice.

The evidence of the success of liberal democracies, who were scientifically designed by those of the enlightenment, puts paid to ideology over evidence.

A living, breathing earth? Lay off the eggnog, Twilight.