The role and impact of dissent

Question 1

What is dissent?

Answer 1

Dissent — the holding or expression of opinions at variance with those commonly or officially held (essentially, unpopular opinion)

Question 2

Internal dissent

Answer 2

Liberal Feminism
Values individualist approaches to justice and societal structures instead of blaming inequalities on others.
Gain women’s suffrage and then gain individual liberty
Concerned with gaining freedom through equality, putting an end to mens cruelty and gaining opportunities to to become full persons

Radical Feminism
Differs from liberal feminism as they are perceived as more willing to actively agitate for social and political change within their philosophy
More militant in their approach
Aims to dismantle patriarchy rather than making adjustments to the system through legal change. Radical feminist also resist reducing oppression to an economic or class issue, as socialist or marxist feminism did or does
Radical feminism oppose patriarchy not men
First wave feminism was rejected by second wavers as being too individualist and reformist, focusing on peace and abstinence and an obscure concepts of rights, second wave argued that Women’s Liberation needed to be collective and revolutionary

Diversity Feminism
Intersectional feminism centres the voices of those experiencing overlapping, concurrent forms of oppression in order to understand the depths of the inequalities and the relationships among them in any given context.
“White feminism” is a term that is used to describe a type of feminism that overshadows the struggles women of colour, LGBTQ women and women of other minority groups face.
They contend that the first two waves of feminism put too much emphasis on issues such as suffrage and equal pay, while ignoring intersectional issues that disproportionately affect marginalised women, such as racism, sexism, ableism, and homophobia.
Indeed 3rd wave feminism were critical of feminism and the construction of ‘victimhood’, their militancy and not finding a place for men in the movement.
These third-wave feminists reject the exclusive concerns of the white middle class and the emphasis on women as victims. Some call themselves neo-feminists because they think feminist implies hatred of men. Third-wave feminists want to be more inclusive and global and to connect gender issues with broader social concerns. They see reproductive justice as part of the larger goal of women’s physical, mental, spiritual, political, economic and social well being.

Question 3

External dissent

Answer 3

Masculinity politics can be conceptualised along a spectrum ranging from (pro)feminist to anti-feminist stances. While profeminist men embraced feminism, the Men’s Rights Movement expressed a backlash against the perceived harms of feminist efforts. Backlash can thus be read as the flipside of feminism, arising in response to the (perceived) progress made by women (Faludi, 1993, p. 10). The notion of anti-feminist “backlash” was popularised by Faludi (1993), who identified the emergence of a backlash against the women’s movement in the mid-1980s.
This backlash, she argued, stemmed from a series of contradictory messages, starting with a celebration of women’s alleged equality in the mid-1970s, to claims that feminism had made women more miserable dominating the media in the 1980s (Faludi, 1993, p. 90). In Faludi’s (1993) thesis, the aim of the backlash is to “push women back into their ‘acceptable’ roles”, thus undermining the gains made by the women’s movement.
The Men’s Movement

Sympathetic to feminism in the 70’s-80’s (Apologists)
Became more ‘pro-male’ in the 90’s
(Liberationists/Fathers rights)
Currently reject feminism and its ideology
See feminism as advocating for ‘female supremacy’
Has a substantial female following
Eg. Anti-Feminism Australia
Concerned with:
Prevention and awareness of poor mental health outcomes
Prevention and awareness of male homelessness, alcoholism and drug addiction
Opposition to violence against men
Opposition to disproportionate male prison sentence for same crime
Fathers rights/family court
Opposition to injustices of divorce courts
Awareness of lower life expectancy
The MRM has continued to evolve since the 1980s, blaming men’s issues primarily on feminism and claiming that women have made disproportionate gains at the expense of men (Blais & Dupuis-Déri, 2012). Underlying the grievances of numerous men’s rights groups is the perception that heterosexual white men are victims of “reverse discrimination” favouring women and racial and sexual minorities (Nicholas & Agius, 2018, p. 44). By placing blame on women, and more specifically feminism, the MRM provides a sounding board for the frustrations of these “angry white men” who feel stripped of the power allegedly provided by their racial and gendered privilege (Coston & Kimmel, 2013, pp. 377–378).
With the advent of the Internet, men’s rights groups have created an online presence, with websites dedicated to exposing the “evils” of feminism and documenting the hardships of men, presented as “subjugated scapegoats and silenced victims of ‘politically correct’ coalitions and coercions” (Menzies, 2007, p. 68). These spaces offer a platform for views perceived as dangerous to hold in a feminist culture accused of inhibiting free speech, and form part of what some have termed the “manosphere”, referring to a number of online communities converging around the rejection of feminism and the idea that men are underprivileged in society (Lilly, 2016).
Women Against feminism
Female anti-feminism is nothing new. In the 19th century, plenty of women were hostile to the women’s movement and to women who pursue nontraditional paths. In the 1970s, Marabel Morgan’s regressive manifesto The Total Woman was a top best seller, and Phyllis Schlafly led opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment. But such anti-feminism was invariably about defending women’s traditional roles. Some of today’s “women against feminism” fit that mould: they feel that feminism demeans stay-at-home mothers, or that being a “true woman” means loving to cook and clean for your man. Many others, however, say they repudiate feminism even though — indeed, because — they support equality and female empowerment:
“I don’t need feminism because I believe in equality, not entitlements and supremacy.”
“I don’t need feminism because it reinforces the men as agents/women as victims dichotomy.