Answer to Quora Question: Why are there women against feminism?

This wouldn’t be everyone’s reason, but there seems to be a common swing to causes:

• Often the instigator of a good cause begins a movement acting in principle, and then over time lots of people jump on the bandwagon and take it to a point where it violates another principle.

Unfortunately, in many cases passionate but extreme actions and expressions have invalidated and alienated people from good causes.

When I worked for an organization promoting gender equality I would sometimes talk to men and women who said they did not like feminism, but when they elaborated it often translated to disliking the extreme degrees and methods some feminists take to.

For example, we were there to talk about issues including child marriage and female genital mutilation. However when one young lady heard “girls’ and women’s rights” the image that was first evoked in her mind was overall privileged women claiming that sanitary napkins are oppressive, and walking around with period blood running down their legs. That put her off.

Despite any good intentions, individual activists inadvertently took the focus away from very extreme issues and put the spotlight on extreme antics.

It got attention, but the violation of their society’s standards of hygiene drew more negative attention and ended up reflecting badly on/invalidating good causes that deserve to be taken seriously.

Posted to lunar-winds April 28, 2018. Answered on Quora Sept 13, 2017