> I thought a woman overly dedicated to the female cause was a feminist. After all, you never hear of a maleist, do you?? (or do you?).

I think I will have to join in, I can bear it no longer.

There seems to be totally different way of describing men and women here.

The point about feminism is that it is about an oppressed majority in search of equality, no more, no less. When the suffragettes chained themselves to railings it wasn't because they were overly dedicated to the female cause it was because they thought it would be nice to be able to vote for the government of the day (and therefore have their views taken into consideration by those in power), a right which was at that time in the UK not only not available for women, it wasn't available to working class men either, so they took the on the cause of non-land owning men too. We've all benefited.

When the women in the sixties and seventies burnt their bras it wasn't because they were overly dedicated to the female cause it was because many quite ordinary rights were denied to them. Women would now be appalled to be told that they couldn't sign a cheque or have a mortgage in their own name but these are relatively recent rights in the UK. A friend's mother pretended she wasn't married so that she wouldn't have to give up her Civil Service job in the early sixties - she was the main breadwinner in her family but knew she wouldn't win the battle if she told the truth.

When we try to do something about mandatory female circumcision or the plight of women who are outcasts following fistulas related to childbirth traumas we are not overly dedicated to the female cause, one would hope that any modern, caring man would be a feminist too.

So call us female chauvinists, not feminists, when we want to set up a women-only club or fail to employ men when they are better qualified for the job. We can behave badly too.

I'm sure that in some matriarchal societies it would be right and proper to have a maleist movement. It may be just round the corner as more marriages fail (or never happen)and so many boys are brought up without access to their fathers.

So I suspect the reason that the "male" has started to disappear in the word "male chauvinist" is that we don't get enough time to be "female chauvinists"!