Originally Posted by RabidWolverine1:
“There are some feminists that take the literal meaning too far. For example 1 Female Feminist who I met got annoyed when I opened a door for her, because you know I only did it because she was a woman apparently. Nothing to do with that if im walking through a door and I see someone walking that way wanting to go through I will wait and hold it open for them regardless of Gender its just manners. That is taking it too far but it takes too much highlight away from the real movement of feminists.”
It echoes similar problems seen in America (and to a lesser degree in Britain) with civil rights issues with blacks. In the US especially their grievances were so incredibly deep and justified that a lot of rage over that treatment was to be expected. But assholes exist in every movement, especially ones based on strong beliefs being expressed strongly. So eventually the Al Sharpton and Louis Farrkahn types, the opportunistic assholes fueling people's anger for their own gain, appeared and declared themselves leaders. Again, this is to be expected. The saddest part isn't that people like this appear, but that another group of opportunists on the other side use it to try and discredit the entire movement. The opportunists on one side open the door for the opportunists on the other to ruin things for everyone. This is exactly what happened with Feminism too.
So the tragedy here is that ideas about basic respect for women and very general notions about equal treatment can be bundled up as "radical" simply because the idea of the Angry Unreasonable Feminist is out there in the ether.