Valter Viglietti - The End of Feminism (as I Knew It)

This post has received over 270 comments at The Good Men Project. If you want to read Jasmine Peterson’s response (she is a feminist) to this post, it's called Toward Equality (For Everyone): A Response To ‘The End of Feminism (As I Knew It).’

Viglietti argues that feminism (or a good part of it) has "changed from seeking equality to “world domination” and men-bashing. All of a sudden, for these people, I wasn’t a friend or an ally anymore: I was an enemy." He acknowledges that not all feminists believe this, but it's gotten to the point where women want men, or it so it seems, to be more like women.

The End of Feminism (as I Knew It)

January 13, 2012 

By Valter Viglietti

If you say you’re for equality, Valter Viglietti writes, then you’re for everyone’s equality.

I have a confession to make: I have been a feminist for most of my life.

Since when I was a child, watching how my father treated my mother, I sensed a strong injustice and instinctively sided with women. Even growing up (it was the 60s and 70s), I noticed how often women were considered or dealt with as inferior, and that deeply enraged me.

Perhaps I became even too much of a feminist, because for a long time I thought women were morally superior to men; I didn’t think much of my own gender.

With time, I became wiser (well, I hope I did). My opinions became less black and white, and more nuanced. I realized how much both men and women can be good—or faulty, deceiving, manipulative, and just plain awful. I noticed that every “typical” gender fault, had an equivalent fault in the other sex.

I came to think God must be really impartial, because He (She? It?) made both genders equally “flawed” (at least, we have equality in this).

But I still thought of myself as a feminist, because there has been so much injustice to remedy, and I wanted to give women my support. I wanted to be their friend and ally. Besides, I really like women.

Then I met The Good Men Project.

What happened then?

I began reading comments (and even some articles) where I was “charged as guilty” just for the fact of being a man. I was accused of things I never did. I felt I could not think, feel, or (politely) say some things, because some women could be offended by them. In short, for some women I was a “bad man” by default.

And all this was happening on a website meant for men to express themselves.

Read the whole article.