Perhaps you fail to recognize them. You haven't met Floof from this forum? You don't recall her rants last summer about not some but all men band how horrible they are? You don't recall the "why can't we hate men" thread on this forum?
The movement may have started out being about gaining equality under the law for women. They won that for the most part, though there are still a few battles to be won on it. It then has been morphing into something other than a right for equality, as every opportunity to cry bully as victim is sought out, masculinity is branded toxic, laws are pushed to ensure women are paid not equal but "at least as much", MRAs and gender egalitarians are vilified, and hate screeds against men have become more common over the past few years.
The vast majority of women know this and won't call themselves feminists because of it.
Every movement has those.
Sure. That's true. Though most movements speak against their own radicals. Aside from Christina Hoff Sommers and Cassie Jaye I haven't seen much of that from self identified feminists.
But the stories told about these alleged man-haters assert they're the norm, not the outliers. So why are they so hard to find?
The actual man haters aren't the majority, but nor are the egalitarians the majority. The majority of feminists may claim to be for equality, since that sells well, but actual push for measures like the Ontario Pay Equity Act, which requires female job roles to be paid "at least as much" (not equally) as male.
I think the term 'feminist' has been hijacked much like how the term 'social justice warrior' has been turned into a pejorative, so that nowadays the people who fight for those causes get really pissed if you call them feminists and SJWs.
I agree. I don't mind in the case of feminist since that word isn't self descriptive of women's rights advocacy for equality, but social justice warrior is self descriptive for what it should be. We do need warriors for actual social justice. I think SJW can be reclaimed as words such as crybullying, regressive and illiberal are more self descriptive for what people mean by SJW as a perjorative.
It's not that feminism or fighting for social justice has changed, it's that the terms that identify those things have been sullied.
There still exist good and virtuous movements for women's rights and for social justice. But these movements have been sullied with the "woke", virtue signalling, illiberalism, crybullying, and authoritarianism. That shouldn't have been unexpected as the virtuous movements gained ground quickly. Some were bound use and abuse them and strike out in retaliation against individuals they associate with others who were the legit problems of the past due to their gender (without realizing how sexist that is).
No one wants to be tarred with a term that's a troll magnet
And many actually pushing to social fairness don't want to be associated with those using and abusing their cause. That explains why so few women today, who believe in and push for gender equality don't take on th feminist label.
