I’m a cis male and I believe in the importance of feminism, but I hesitate to call myself a feminist because it seems like there is a presumption of understanding women’s experiences as if I was part of the Me Too movement. In some binary sense given how hateful and shitty men can be I’m absolutely a feminist, but I wouldn’t declare myself to be one. What is your standpoint?


If you have to pull out an etymology argument to justify a political position, you’re wrong by default. Because you’re blatantly ignoring the actual movement & extracting whatever meaning you want out of that word.
Feminism fights against the patriarch, which in modern terms include both traditional restrictions placed on women and men. So the fight against patriarchal expectations placed on men, among them toxic masculinity, are absolutely part of feminism as a political stance today.