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Why did feminim become a movement?

I was reading a manist's blog (Pelle Billing) and responses to his suggestion that there should be a masculist movement was met by comments that that would just be repeating the mistakes of feminism - that equality should be part of the liberal agenda and not start pitting factions against each other. I was thinking that the desire for a masculist movement is reactionary. To his credit Billing took the criticism and agreed with the point.

He is prolific, try this Google search.
Here is Pelle Billing's blog.
Here is Pelle Billing's website.

Would feminism ever have become a movement had there not been opposition to it?

Women had to find a name for the thing they were standing up to support. And men had to find a name for the thing they wanted to rail against.

At the time when feminism started did it have a name? A movement with no name. All movements start nameless.

The early feminists were women who knew they were being coerced and raped and were no more than indentured slaves to their husbands. Later when they started organising, they organized around childbearing and contraception. They were called uppity

When they started organising around the question of being able to play with men's toys that they got a whole new word to make them sound different and alien - suffragettes.

...
Cinnamon Gurl sparked this off. Thanks. Each week the Flashback Friday: Feminist Edition will feature a story that has something to do with being or becoming a woman or feminist. This series will continue until I run out of stories. I love having guest bloggers. If you have a story you want to tell and you want to be a guest blogger here, please email me; or feel free to link to your own story in the comments.

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