It appears the trending anti-feminism hashtag #Menisim isn’t fading anytime soon, especially after men, and even a few women, have been donning Meninism shirts on Twitter and Instagram.

“#Meninism” is being sold on t-shirts online, and self-proclaimed “Meninists” are buying and sporting this anti-feminist merchandise, amusingly posting pictures of them wearing them online. As a feminist, I can’t help but compare this “meninist pride” to other forms of pride non-minority groups that have been promoted throughout history.

What comes to mind, at least for me, is the “white pride” and “straight pride,” argument, which has been frown upon by almost all activist circles, especially in this progressive age. Though, it seems that the meninists wearing their meninist swag try to avoid this image of pseudo activism while also trying to distance themselves from Men’s Rights Activists. Wearing shirts like this – especially emulating feminist pride or LGBT shirts — further proves that these meninists still don’t fully grasp what feminism is, and almost pride themselves of that.

Meninists make the argument that feminists support what they believe to be double standards. Some meninists have expressed these thoughts by tweeting things such as “I need Meninism because the movie “Magic Mike” promotes an unrealistic expectation of how men’s bodies should look like.” What they don’t understand, however, is that feminism doesn’t represent double standards, it represents equality.

Aside from this, I think the larger picture here is that men are claiming they are meninists because they do not feel included in feminism. Feminist media platforms such as Bitch Magazine and Ms. Magazine (and Fembot of course) enjoy reporting the accomplishments of women, for women, filling most of their content space with news about women because let’s face it, women are generally pretty ignored in mainstream news.

So how would a meninist look at this? They view feminism as if we are shutting the door on men. But isn’t that what men having been doing to women for years? Women have been deprived of many of the rights that men have enjoyed for centuries.

The meninism trend also reminds me of a regarding the criticism and inaccuracies that were brought up about the Civil Rights film ‘Selma.’ White People Are Flipping Out Because ‘Selma’ Isn’t About Them by Sarah Seltzer is a well-written piece detailing, what Seltzer presumes to be, the reason behind the criticism that followed the film, which includes the film’s portrayal of white people and historical inaccuracies. In her passage, Seltzer describes:

“It is baffling to so many white viewers to encounter white people appearing mostly, in a major film, as symbols in a black struggle. They literally do not know how to comprehend what they’re seeing.”

That’s what is sort of going on here, if you really look at it, for not just meninism but anyone who’s ever criticized feminism. I believe there are two reasons why many have still not accepted feminism and that is that they either don’t understand it, or they can not wrap their minds around it. I believe the later applies to men who hold on tightly to the narrow demands of masculinity and gender roles; they do not know how to process this change of focus. It’s almost as if men have been in their own club for years, and now that women feel they too should show pride for their team colors, it’s as if we are against the opposing team. But there is no actual opposing team; the opposing team just want to make themselves seem as the enemy when in truth, we’re all supposed to be on the same team, or at least have the right to our own club houses if we so wish.

But what does meninism really accomplish? You can search #MeninistTwitter and find mostly tweets poking fun at feminism, or exemplifying double standards. They are fighting for anything else other than, what they believe to be, the rights for men? Are they taking a serious stance and bringing awareness on bigger issues men are experiencing, such as male rape or male eating disorders? And, does meninism only include straight men, or do they also welcome male members of the LGTBQIA community? Or is their real purpose just to criticize feminism? But wait, we’ll never know, because feminism is decades in the making, whereas meninism will solely only be a Twitter movement.



Meninism pride is almost staged as a direct attack on feminism, but feminism doesn’t want to attack back, we just want everyone to understand that feminists want equal rights for all, and want to talk freely about the accomplishments or the hardships women go through as a minority, and for minorities within that minority itself. Do you really need to take this away from us, meninists?

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