Do you identify as a feminist? (for frequent posters in women's rights and issues)

[laconicsax]

43. I'm a frequent lurker, so I'll answer anyway.

I most certainly identify as a feminist, but not really as a member of any set 'brand' or wave. I've never identified with a wave and I think too much has been made over the manufactured conflict between 2nd and 3rd-waves and that conflict only serves to brand 2nd-wavers as sex-hating racists and 3rd-wavers as ditzy, hypocritical capitulators and marginalize feminism in the process.

I oppose patriarchy. Patriarchy is largely responsible for all sex and gender-based inequality and discrimination in our society, whether it be wage-gap between men and women or the oppression of the LGBTQ community. It forces men, women, and everyone in between into little, explicitly defined boxes and punishes any and all variation.

This isn't to say that race and class issues that affect women should be relegated to the sidelines. On the contrary, these issues combined with patriarchy form a kyriarchy that rules society. I tend to see the elimination of patriarchy as one prong, no more or less vital to the destruction of the kyriarchy.