A feminist is someone who has the audacity and arrogance and bad manners to believe that
1) women should not perform over half of the world's labour but own less than 1% of the worlds land
2) women should have the right to vote and sit on a jury
3) women should have access to education
4) women should have the right to own their own bank accounts, land, jobs and opinions
5) women should earn equal pay for equal work
6) men and women should not be raped or be victim to domestic violence
7) women should not be subject to gross double standards that are used to demean, control and regulate women (such as women are sluts, men are studs)
8) women should have reproductive control over their own bodies and should not be seen as incubators

this is my definition of being a feminist- to the moron who suggested that taking pride in these principles is as bad as being a chauvenistic pig- you clearly have an outdated and prejudicial view of feminism

You are prohibited from voting, having a bank account and so on?

Feminist = cherry-picking, factoids and pork pies?!

I wouldn't consider any things on spikey's or nina's list to be included under 'aggressive' feminism, when I used that term I was referring to feminists who simply attack men.

As Romany and others have pointed out, these specimens are more-or-less extinct, however I do acknowledge they exist. There are fringe nutcases in every movement, though I see far more posts from the extreme feminist-haters than I do from man-bashing feminists.

What really bemuses me is that so many slighted men appear to place these relics at the forefront of their perception of feminism.

Cornflower, my little man, you are either (a) very young and so can't remember when women were not permitted to have their own bank account (or be eligible for a loan to buy a house) or (b) you are no student of history and have no understanding of the days not so far back when no woman - no matter how well educated - could vote whereas any codger wearing pants could.

Ask your mother - if she was a teacher - whether she was allowed to stay in the teaching service the day after she married. You'll find that she and all other married women had to fight for decades for the right to on-going employment, promotion and superannuation whereas her teacher partner was automatically permitted to maintain all those rights after marriage.

The same discrimination can be found in the history of the right to vote, let alone stand for parliament.

It's sad to find in the 21st century men who still think it strange that women want to be regarded as legal equals to men. I think that says more about the state of brain-power of such men than it says about the innate abilities of women.

Cornflower: "Feminist = cherry-picking, factoids and pork pies?!"

I am not very old at all, but in my living memory and experience:

1. It is only very recently in my lifetime that women have been able to borrow or buy property without the permission of father or spouse.

2. In my lifetime women were prevented from entering university on scholarship - even with an excellent record and subject results. Boys, no matter how low their Gr12. passes, were admitted on scholarship before ANY girl.

3. I have been told that although my qualifications are higher; males of lesser education and experience have been given jobs for which I applied because they would have families to support.

4. In the 1970s a woman couldn't be promoted to bank accountant or bank manager, or enter many fields of work. That hasn't changed enough yet btw. Even when the law said that there should be equal wages between the sexes, women were still typically paid 75% of what men were paid.

6. In the 1970s and 80s, most men still refused to answer phones or type (even new recruits) but ALL women, regardless of age or experience or education, were expected to know how to type and to automatically perform any reception duties.

7. I remember my mother, who was quite well educated for her day, having to take any jobs she could get - garage attendant; clothing and fruit factories etc - to support the family. At the same time she was OFTEN berated and abused, and I witnessed it, by people who accused her of selfishly wanting a career instead of doing her duty and caring for her children. No question was ever put to my father about his role in provding for the family.

I could go on, but if you were the least interested you could look up some socio-cultural history for yourself. Suffice to say that the gains for women have been small, recent and hard won. Gains remain extremely tenuous and fragile - as your post and others regularly seen on these pages illustrate.

The strangest thing to me about Cornflower's petulant anti-feminist bleats is that I seem to recall that she is a woman.