{"id":208,"date":"2013-10-09T20:29:44","date_gmt":"2013-10-10T00:29:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/hoochie\/?p=208"},"modified":"2017-10-31T20:30:38","modified_gmt":"2017-11-01T00:30:38","slug":"why-feminism-does-not-perpetuate-gender-categories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/hoochie\/2013\/10\/09\/why-feminism-does-not-perpetuate-gender-categories\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Feminism Does Not Perpetuate Gender Categories"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many open-minded and freedom-loving young adults do not like the term\u00a0feminism\u00a0<\/em>because they believe it perpetuates gender categories. Is the world not ready to move on?<\/b>, they ask.\u00a0Being \u2018nice\u2019 to women is \u2018common sense\u2019!<\/strong><\/p>\n

That is not the case \u2013 here we discuss why.<\/p>\n

In a thoughtful post<\/a>\u00a0titled Feminism: A Male Anarchist\u2019s Perspective<\/em>, Pendleton Vandiver highlights how the attitude toward women has indeed changed for the better \u2013 not because humanity has slowly come to its senses; not because some vague sense of justice has cured bigotry \u2013 but only because of the ongoing struggle of feminism that has pushed through the past two centuries and still burns passionately today.<\/p>\n

Vandiver writes:<\/p>\n

To deny this struggle is to perpetuate a myth similar to that of the happy slave. Yet this is precisely what we do when we speak of feminism as somehow perpetuating a gender divide, or hindering our progress away from identity politics. Feminism did not create the conflict between genders: patriarchal society did. It is important not to forget that the aforementioned idea that women are fully human is not common sense but absolutely, emphatically, a feminist notion.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He goes on to discuss why many \u2018freedom-for-all\u2019 advocates, especially anarchists, have criticized feminism for being:<\/p>\n