I don’t agree it’s exactly like saying “all lives matter,” but feminism is about bringing women up to a level of equality with men. Like why LGBTQ+ doesn’t include cis/het people without being against them, because it’s about increasing queer acceptance. Cis/het people are already accepted. While feminists and queer activists may want/fight for equality on all fronts, and be aware of the ways a patriarchal society is shit for everyone, feminism does focus on helping women because things are a bit more shit for them.

Knowing some people who said “all lives matter,” they weren’t necessarily racist, they just didn’t get how bad it was for black people. Or didn’t understand “black lives matter” wasn’t excluding their lives. Similar to how feminism isn’t denying the inequalities men suffer, it just doesn’t focus on it.

(*Yes, “All lives matter” was used by a bunch by racists as well.)

I wouldn’t take this as an attack on your character like you’ve said. It’s drawing a correlation between that situation and your opinion.

BLM when it started is all about bringing attention and equality to black individuals and communities. Think of it as black people saying, “hey, we matter too”. Conservatives, as a means to attack and weaken the movement said, “not just black lives matter, all lives matter” which is true, but all lives matter doesn’t bring attention to the parity between black people’s situations and white’s.

My first reaction when reading your post was similar to the person you responded to, but not because I think your a bad person, but maybe because of a misunderstanding or skewed view of what feminism is and stands for.

If you had said, feminism shouldn’t exist because males matter too, then I would have said you’re intentionally being like the all lives matter crowd with the intent of keeping the disparity between genders in place. But you didn’t.

That’s quite a stretch, I’m not saying that at all.

All Lives Matter was something that was intended well - but missed the point completely. While Bernie originally said it trying to say that all lives should matter, it missed the point because the movement was specifically saying that black lives matter - because all too often people forget that black lives do in fact matter. In the opposite, we don’t need all lives matter because society as a whole already knows that white lives matter - what they were fighting for was that black lives also matter.

You’re feminism argument I feel is trying to argue the same thing. Society already knows men should have rights and equality. That’s not the point of the feminism argument. Feminism is that women specifically deserve those things.

Saying feminism should be more about all equality is the same as saying all lives matter - it may be well intentioned, but it minimizes the actual issues they are facing. We know that men and women should be equal, but men have all of society and thousands of years of history on their side already, women can have feminism on their side. Men have enough already fighting for them.

Think of it by adding a “too” or “also”. Black lives also matter. Women deserve equality too. It’s because they’re the outside groups.