feminist no reason i put an ad out on a message board asking about jazz jams, saying i'm a drummer new to the city. someone replied, "hey dude, welcome!" and listed a couple of suggestions. i wasn't personally offended or anything (obviously there are a lot of dude drummers), but it did annoy me a bit, since i gave no indication of what my gender was. "i am a feminist because people assume since i play drums i'm a dude"? a side note that i suppose he could have been just saying, "[gender-neutral] dude, what's up?" but since we don't know each other, i kind of doubt it. 140723 ... flowerock feminism should be about equality, people abuse the term and attach negative ideas to it, women and men both misuse and misinterpret the term/label. to me dude is neutral, but I agree that they likely assumed you to be male. My first boyfriend was a drummer and he'd always be impressed by female drummers, at first it made me feel insecure because i played flute not drums... but then I understood, women are just under represented in the percussion field. the thing to remember is equality, in all things. men and women both have unrealistic ideals to live up to and under and we all have areas in society where men or women dominate whether its work pleasure fashion what ever. gender_roles gender_bender multi_gender why do we only have boy or girl? other cultures have more that two words and places for gender, fir those who are neither make nor female nor a combination of the two. 140723 ... no reason lindy west puts it well (albeit long-windedly): http://jezebel.com/5992479/if-i-admit-that-hating-men-is-a-thing-will-you-stop-turning-it-into-a-self-fulfilling-prophecy the biggest problem that seems to occur is people get feminism confused with patriarchy, when they're actually the opposite. 140726 ... epitome of incomprehensibility Nooooo! You sent me a link to Jezebel! For me, it contains all the elements of a good Internet-time-wasting site: exaggerated titles + mostly good and intelligent writing + interesting and funny comments. Like Cracked.com a bit, though maybe that one's not always so "intelligent." I only spent an hour this time, so it's okay. Some thoughts on the article and things in general: I don't see "man-hating feminist" that much anymore; at least, I haven't had anyone I know say or suggest it for a long time. I've heard "man-hating lesbian" which is perhaps more easily torn apart: the truth is very shocking, but it is possible to like people you don't want to fuck! For example, I love my brother and I don't want to have sex with him. I guess there are a few feminist branches that CAN be man-hating. I heard from a friend who's more in touch with the activist-academic scene that a particular radical feminist conference was banning men as well as trans people (to F as well as to M, since people born without vaginas are not "real women") and this made me angry. But many self-proclaimed radical feminists were angry too and didn't want to have anything to do with it. Saying feminist instead of humanist makes sense. The reason for focusing on women is that women still have unfair disadvantages in many parts of life. "Humanism" recalls the post-medieval time when the power being resisted was the church, or at least intolerant incarnations of it, in favour of philosophies about self-determination and working for the greater good of (what was then called) mankind. The two are definitely compatible, but have different connotations and origins. And feminism also can be combined with anti-racism or anti-homophobia struggles; it's doesn't have to be the only -ism people think about - you can be a feminist and other things to. In that sense I'm a feminist. Not in the sense of it being my main area of work or study, as in "Gloria Steinem, the noted feminist," etc. (first name I could think of off the top of my head). But I guess that's not what people expect you to mean when they ask if you're a feminist. 140726 ... e_o_i ("Off the top of my head" - silly expression. I doubt that Gloria Steinem lives in my hair.) 140726 ... e_o_i spell check (Also, there was a misplaced "it's" and it's TOO, not TO. How many times do I have to tell you that?) 140726 what's it to you? who go blather from