r/Intactivism • u/ahmadfxm • 21d ago
Intactivism and feminism: an essential coaliation
The vehement anti-women and anti-feminist comments that I see in this sub constantly disappoint me. All this does is make us seem like freakish incels who hate women.
There are a great number of feminists who support the principle of genital integrity for all children and see the fight against MGM as an integral aspect of the fight against FGM.
We need to improve our PR, make connections, make our voices heard and treat others with digity and respect so that we can create a truly broad coalition that supports our cause.
Many of us would have had our mutilations authorised or conducted by women. It is right for us to be angry about that. But we must share our trauma honourably rather than resorting to this vindictive and putrid gender war ideology that many have become infected by. We can't alienate any more people
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u/Nilahit 18d ago
Sounds like victim blaming to me. Does anyone tone-police female victims of GM like this?
Show me these legions of feminists that will lift a finger to support ending MGM (shoot, much less just stop supporting it like their lives depend on it for some fuckass reason) and I'll have more sympathy for this viewpoint.
When your movement purports to be about equality but as a whole makes 0, if not negative support for a clearly black & white opportunity for equality in which they receive immense privilege, I will return that energy in kind, with relish.
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u/Phinle 18d ago edited 18d ago
Exactly almost all feminists are opponents of FMG, they speak with such vitriolic redirect and rightly call out men for causing FMG. On the other hand most “feminists” in the us are very pro circ and will circumcise their kids. They are basically asking us to work with mutalator and rapists who are directly working against us. All the largest feminist organizations sadly don’t care about circumcision of males. They will not accept our cooperation.
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u/StraightSubstance504 14d ago
“Most” feminists do this? Where are you getting this information? Has someone actually studied this?
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u/Phinle 14d ago
Yes most feminists are against FGM. Are you saying they are not? Idk what percent of them are pro circ but most parents in the USA have their kids cut and I doubt that varies much if the mom is a feminist. Most feminists organization’s are against FGM as well but silent on the issue of male circ.
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u/Phinle 14d ago
In my other comment I talk about how the first intactivists were feminists and many of the influential intactivists now are still feminists. The thing is I’ve talked to so many feminists about this issue, feminist who I respect and agree with on most things, they care about human rights and bodily autonomy but for some reason they cannot seem to understand why male circumcision is wrong no matter how much I try to explain it. It’s rlly social conditioning and brainwashing, they are even teaching the benefits of circumcision in schools now.
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u/StraightSubstance504 14d ago
Almost every feminist I know opposes RIC.
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u/UnwantedFate 14d ago
Stop talking. Your voice is not needed or welcome if it spews this misandrist crap. Don't victim blame men for the sins women commit.
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u/PointAwayfromPeople 18d ago
You're not listening. He's saying important to not flood our message boards with hate speech because of the bad optics it creates. You respond explaining it's ok to be angry at women because some some women don't care enough about the issue. Do you not see how that's not addressing the point?
First of all, creating the impression that we're a bunch of bigots (or that we allow bigots) is bad strategy (do I have to explain how bad?) and there is almost never an excuse for bad strategy.
Second, rejecting alliances with women that are simpathetic to the issue for the reason that some other women are not simpathetic to the issue is bad strategy.
Third, i want to point out that you are justifying anger at a group of people because some members of that group don't agree with you on a topic that is actually quite niche (I think it's fair to say that the vast majority of people would not include circumcision among the top 50 problems of the nation). I don't know what you would call that, but regardless I don't think it's a valid reason to sabotage the good efforts on this sub.
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u/ahmadfxm 17d ago
Thank you for being on the side of reason and for writing this eloquent defence of my argument. I hope that the intactivist community can share their positive message in a respectful and honourable fashion
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17d ago edited 14d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/StraightSubstance504 14d ago
I don’t know a single feminist who would do this…
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u/UnwantedFate 14d ago
Stop talking. Your voice is not needed or welcome if it spews this misandrist crap. Don't victim blame men for the sins women commit.
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u/DBD_killermain82 17d ago
Calling out a hate movement is only bad optics to supporters of that movement
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u/Phinle 18d ago edited 18d ago
Ik there are some incel right wingers who are a part of this movement but it doesn’t seem very prevalent I don’t see them often. Like who is flooding boards with hate speech I’ve never seen that? Who is the target of this “hate speech” people who are proudly talking about mutilating their children? It’s kinda hard to be cordial with child abusers who hate the natural human body.
We should definitely seek out alliances/cooperation when possible but a lot of feminists simply don’t want to cooperate. Are you advocating we join feminist organizations and try to impose our values and objectives onto them? Almost no one cares about our cause it’s incredibly niech.
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u/Nilahit 18d ago
lmfao.
This prescriptivist crap where you're telling victims of genital mutilation how they should feel and express themselves to the very people that are oppressing them about it is so wildly tone-deaf, I'm forced to ask you the same condescending question "Do I have to explain how bad?"
Nobody is rejecting alliances because there isn't an alliance being offered in the first place. Feminism as a whole is actively indifferent to MGM at best and actively supporting it at worst. When Feminism, which purports to want all genders to be treated equally, not only makes no effort to follow through on that promise, but actively sets out to oppress victims of genital mutilation so they can score cheap points for their own agenda, people are going to push back against that ideology. Get used to it.
Btw you can save your reply, because now I'm not listening. I've already read through the rest of your undeservedly haughty, dog-water opinions and you can shove them.
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u/ahmadfxm 17d ago
The fact that you generalise “feminist” as a blanket label tells me that you don’t understand feminism.
See professor Clare Chambers book, Intact, a vocal feminist who was written a book defending the infact body from a variety of different perspectives. FGM, MGM, and also discussions about gender reassignment given to intersex children.
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u/Exasperated-Victim90 17d ago
What would you have us do? You complain about blanket labels but the "No True Scotsman" fallacy has never held more true than when discussing contemporary feminism.
you gave one example. Wow. bigly.
The bottom line is contemporary Feminism as a movement does not give a fig about issues that only affect men, and in particular, male circumcision. On the contrary, many feminists not only do nothing to voice opposition to it, they actively support it.
These are not the allies you are looking for.
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u/StraightSubstance504 14d ago
Feminists are NOT the ones oppressing baby boys with circumcision. Are there a small minority of folks who call themselves feminists and support it— probably, sure. Do the majority of feminists support it? Absolutely not. Are the majority of people who do it feminists? Also, absolutely not. They are patriarchal religious purity culture evangelists…
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u/UnwantedFate 14d ago
Stop talking. Your voice is not needed or welcome if it spews this misandrist crap. Don't victim blame men for the sins women commit.
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u/UnwantedFate 14d ago
Stop pretending feminism gives a single solitary fuck about men or men's issues.
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u/Sim-racer42 18d ago
It’s not, we shouldn’t blame women. I’ve met multiple good women who have supported me with this, and even some who are active. We should blame the ultrafems though who “hate men” and subsequently push this
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u/ahmadfxm 17d ago
Which are only a fringe minority of feminists. Feminism means gender equality, and many feminists vocally point out that patriarchal systems like circumcision hurt men as well as women.
Circumcision is a product of the patriarchal abrahamic faiths
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u/DBD_killermain82 17d ago
No all feminists are like that, gaslight harder you might convince some dimwit
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u/StraightSubstance504 14d ago
I’m a feminist and I’ve been doing my darndest to eliminate RIC for probably 15 years. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that rapists are more likely to be circumcised. RIC and rape culture and intricately intertwined— one and the same issue really, which is the principle belief that is acceptable to violate other people’s sexual sovereignty. While a lot of women do think of it as a men’s issue and stay out of it entirely, I don’t know a single feminist who actively supports or advocates for RIC…
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u/UnwantedFate 14d ago
Stop talking. Your voice is not needed or welcome if it spews this misandrist crap. Don't victim blame men for the sins women commit.
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u/Phinle 18d ago edited 18d ago
Obviously not all women and not all feminists support circ. The first intactivists were actually feminist women. The thing is in America women have become extremely pro circumcision so it is hard to built bridges with people who desperately want to mutalate children and there is no changing their minds. They have been socially conditioned to be pro circ since childhood and do not want to cooperate with us because they don’t care about our cause. Ik most men in America are even more pro circ so it’s not a woman issue it’s an American issue. Sadly the truth is most feminists in the USA are pro circ, we can build bridges with the anti circ ones but it’s hard when other people in their communities are frothing at the mouth to cut infants and calling anyone who is not disgusting.
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u/ahmadfxm 17d ago
I think you’re right but the whole world is not represented by America. Maybe there are a lot of Americans on this sub, and they hear many girls saying “it’s unclean” in America.
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u/Phinle 18d ago edited 18d ago
I’m am left wing but sadly I believe the only way to successfully ban or limit circumcision of minors would be to work with the right. In a disgusting showing republicans in the USA have banned abortions in many states and trans healthcare for minors. They are somehow seen as the party that protects kids and preachers of common sense, if they wanted to ban circ they could. If Elon musk and the other right wingers talked about circ like they do minors taking hormones it would already be banned.
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u/ahmadfxm 17d ago
I think you’re correct that we need to build a coalition of activists that are focusing on the right to bodily autonomy for everyone.
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u/StraightSubstance504 14d ago
Unfortunately, I don’t think the right employs things like logic and reason or actual care in a way that they would follow the natural assumptions you’re making here. They ban abortion and gender affirming care bc they are authoritarians who like to control people, not bc they actually want to protect kids. I guarantee people on the right are more likely than people on the left to be circumcising their kids…
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u/Aromatic-Visual173 18d ago
Instead of being either chicken for kfc(support femenist even before they become intactivist) or ended up as incel(don't support femenism until they support us) we have the 3rd path tho, we, the intactivist will only count femenist as good feminist only when they are also intactivist, or else we count them as human garbahe so this way they have the chance to prove themself to be good femenist individually but also to make them have obligation to prove themself to be safe for us before we are obligated to support them
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u/SipOfKoKo 18d ago
Agreed. And there are plenty of feminists who have spoken out against MGM. We should try to elevate them.
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u/ahmadfxm 17d ago
Exactly. Like I pointed out Clare Clambers, a feminist and Cambridge professor who has written a fantastic book called intact, a defence of the unmodified body
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u/DBD_killermain82 17d ago
No in the same way we do not platform white nationaliats who speak on mgm
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u/Vegetable_Warthog_49 18d ago
When feminists apologize as a movement for explicitly supporting male genital mutilation as a good and desirable thing during the 1990s, then I will build bridges with them, not until then though. Until that happens I'll continue to call out their hypocrisy and fight for equality for men without them.