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?
That’s not how quotas work, though. Policies that aim for supporting women and increasing the number of them as a ratio does not mean qualifications do not matter. Performance absolutely counts, but systemic barriers to employment also exist that lower the number of women in fields like tech.
Secondly, the fact that reactionary groups form as a resistence to social progress does not make social progress a bad thing. Again, trying to give full legal equality without addressing lingering impacts of historic issues leads to those issues persisting for far longer than they need to. Under the banner of “equality,” reactionary groups merely defend existing inequality.
The solution is to address historical inequalities that persist to this day actively, through social programs. Legal equality is merely the first step to achieving actual equality.