No one is ignoring them, but we’re saying that they wouldn’t have done so had the suffragists been fighting for the change. And once again, we’re not excluding men, we’re saying that FEMINISTS did it. There were MEN who were feminists. One of the best essays on women’s rights I read was John Stuart Mill’s “On the Subjugation of Women”.
You make it sound like Congress just decided to vote for women’s suffrage, or that the Supreme Court decided for Jane Roe just for shits and giggles, that it didn’t make a difference that there were others out there working for a change.
I honestly do not see how helping women is “sexist.” Jesus, you can’t help EVERYONE, ALL THE TIME. Sometimes you concentrate on one area or another. In the case of women’s suffrage, it was the women who needed help.
Why are you so eager to deny sexism exists? It does and it hurts ALL of us. Not just women. Not just men. ALL of us.
I’ve made no secret of the notion that feminism as a theory, and the word as it applies to the attempt to attain sexual equality, originate in the notion that a historical power imbalance exists, and that it disfavors women: patriarchy.
If one were to disagree that patriarchy has historically existed, one would not want to use the term “feminism”. (Such a one is a person I would consider not in touch with reality as evidence outlnes it though).
If one were to disagree that patriarchy currently continues to exist, perhaps one would once again not want to use the term “feminism”, even while acknowledging that patriarchy has historically existed. (I have no derogatory things to say about such a person, although I differ, opinionwise, about the completeness to which patriarchy has as of yet withered away).
Ok, I’m a get it done kind of person. From what I can tell, Feminism has devolved from a movement with clear goals to a disjointed quasi-religious philosophy.
Women’s suffrage - check
Full legal standing with men - check
Abortion rights - check
Zero Tolerance for Domestic abuse - check
Parity with Men in the Workforce - check (if you break out the .70 per dollar quote you better have have some cites and the capability to interpret them in a meaningful way. No one has ever been able to do that here before).
What is it that Feminism is supposed to accomplish now? What aspects of feminism should appeal to my executive wife (who has her older brother as an employee)? What about my mother who is a very successful, international full-time speaker and built her business herself? What will it offer my 3 year old daughter twenty years from now?
If you don’t have goals then you don’t have a movement? What are they?
I agree with what Guinastasia wrote on feminists and voting rights. To go into some more tedious detail (based on the history of my own country, as that’s what I know best):
In 1885 the Gina Krog founded Kvindestemmeretsforeningen (Organisation for Voting Rights for Women). Viggo Ullmann (male, member of Parliament) offered to raise the issue in parliament. From 1886 and onwards it was voted on after every election. Meanwhile, feminists (of both genders) wrote about the issue in newspapers and held meetings. One important part of the struggle was to convince the majority of women that voting rights was in their interest. Some political parties took up the issue. In 1913, the (still all-male) parliament voted – once more – on changing the constitution to give women full voting rights, and this time everybody voted for.
Malacandra and catsix, do you really think that if feminists both in Norway and abroad hadn’t “thrown tantrums” for years the time would somehow have ripened on its own, and women would have gained the right to vote the first time someone suggested it to the parliament?
Do you hold this stance on similar issues – for instance, do you think black people gained equal rights in South Africa because the time was ripe, independently of the “tantrums” of the anti-apartheid movement?
Shagnasty, you’ve achieved full equality in rights and opportunities for both genders in USA? Wow, congratulations. We’ve not come that far here, despite a law which explicitly aims at stopping gender discrimination. Some recent cases from the Gender Equality Ombud include:
[ul][li]Discrimination of men in divorces with shared custody if the father isn’t a Norwegian citizen[/li][li]Discrimination of a woman in a employment case in a bus company[/li][li]Discrimination of fathers when assigning places at a day care for children of employees at a university[/li][li]A male and a female employee who does the same kind of job in the same company, significantly higher wages for the man[/li][li]A woman who lost a job because she was pregnant[/li][li]An IT company with two female and two male employees doing the same kind of work, significantly higher wages for the men[/li][li]The rules for the Norwegian Civil Defence exempts mothers in case of draft, but not fathers[/li][li]A prison where female prisoners have significantly fewer facilities than male prisoners[/ul]There are also several cases where different treatment of men and women are ruled as legal according to the law, such as a football education in a specific town for men, and a women’s camp in the armed forces to encourage more women to become officers.[/li]
At least in my country, the fight for equal rights wasn’t won when we got them legally. There’s a lot of inertia in society which leads to discrimination, sometimes subtly, sometimes blatantly. The time hasn’t come to rest on our laurels yet.
Or the fact that if a woman is raped she’s put under a microscope, and called a whore, a slut, what was she wearing, she must have been asking for it?
That men who do traditionally feminine tasks or hobbies are seen as “girlymen” or “wimps”? Why is anything feminine automatically wimpy for men?
And the right to choose is still not completely secure-it’s under constant assault from the religious right.
Thanks, hildea. It’s funny, at this moment, Rosa Parks is lying in state in the Rotunda. The same notion that people are applying to women’s rights (it was the men in charge who really made it happen) could be said of the civil rights movement. After all, Parks and King weren’t in office, THEY didn’t make the laws, so why do we say we owe THEM a debt of gratitude?
I don’t consider the belief in equal rights, or the work to secure them, feminism any more than I’d consider it African-ism. You can attempt to claim those who do as feminists in order to try and legitimize the religion like belief structure it has, but I’ll never buy it. Feminism exalts women above men, it’s sexist, and I want no part of it.
Because I don’t think it exists the way you think it does. Because all the bullshit that feminists spewed at me about what difficulty women have in these ‘male dominated’ fields like engineering was exactly that: bullshit. Every day, every month, every year passed by and I wasn’t discriminated against or treated poorly by those around me and those above me, and I didn’t see this happening to the other women in the program or in the field either. It turned out to be that the only people who had a serious problem with what I did and based it on my gender were feminists who called me the feminist version of an Uncle Tom.
I did experience sexism, but it all came from feminists.
Or the fact that if a woman has a regret the day after, she can ruin a man’s life without having to get a conviction at all, since the mere accusation is enough to get his name and picture on TV and in the newspaper next to the word ‘rapist’, and even if he’s acquitted there will always be those who think he’s guilty merely because he was accused.
That I’ve been called a ‘tool of the patriarchy’ and a ‘sellout’ and a ‘wannabe man’ or even an actual man because of what I do for a living and the hobbies that I have? Why is doing anything masculine automatically selling out for feminists?
Well, that’s a religious debate, not a feminist one.
I don’t exactly think ‘gratitude’ is the right word. Respect for the courage Parks had to follow a belief with action? Yes, that I have. I won’t get into my opinion of King Jr. I certainly respect those individuals (Alice Paul comes to mind) who stood up for themselves, but it’s not gratitude and I don’t think it needs to be.
Well, if you define feminism as a sexist ideology which exalts women over men, then obviously those who fight for equal rights for both genders aren’t true-feminists-as-defined-by-catsix. However, this isn’t, to put it mildly, the usual definition of feminism.
Do you agree that there are, and have been, people fighting specifically for rights for women who do so without trying to put down men? Or do you claim that all (or almost all) people trying to improve the situation for women are guilty of “exalting women over men”, unless they work to right a bunch of non-gender-related wrongs at the same time?
If someone describes herself or himself as a feminist, and works against gender dsicrimination, would you say that he/she is deluded when using the feminist label, or would you say that a person working against gender discrimination will automatically become a female chauvinist, or would you say that such people don’t exist?
I apologise if I appear to put words in your mouth here, but I’m honestly curious to figure out what your world view looks like – it’s obviously very different from my own.
I did a quick search to find out who Alice Paul was, and the first thing I found describes her as a feminist. Would you say that’s a wrong use of the word feminist, in your opinion?
Where did you get that idea? Sources? And don’t give me some stupid little message board that no longer exists. If you are judging all feminists by some of the Ms posters, that’s a very tiny sample size.
So because you personally didn’t experience it, or see it, that means no one did? If people called you a feminist Uncle Tom, they were idiots, but it doesn’t mean that your experience was universal. Those feminists were simply insecure and would probably have castigated you for chosing a traditionally feminine path because that was “playing into gender roles.” Some people are impossible to please, so fuck 'em.
No one said feminists were perfect. I’m not going to play the Scotsman fallacy and claim they weren’t true feminists. However, I think it would be fair to say they were bad feminists. Just like Pat Robertson may be a Christian, but he’s a bad example of one. Can you say that ALL feminists you have met are like that? I don’t believe I am, and I don’t believe hildea is.
Cite? Not about some woman going to someone’s apartment to have sex initially and then changing her mind before engaging in sex, then being forced to. I want to hear actual cases of women who had sex willingly THEN claimed rape. Concrete, solid, actually-happened ones, not just hypotheticals.
It’s not. I’ve been called that too, by idiot feminists. I’ve also been called a radical bra-burner by non-feminists. I don’t let the assholes define me. Nothing wrong with seeking a traditionally masculine path. However, would you say it’s fair to use the idea of doing something traditionally feminine (say, sewing or knitting) and degrading men as weak or “pussies” if they attempt it?
By the way, when I think of “patriarchy”, I don’t believe there’s some monolithic entity like some sort of Illuminati of Sexism. More like the ingrained old-fashioned notions people have, of a woman’s role in society. Think of idiots who would tell you that because you’re a woman, you shouldn’t be taking a “man’s job” that you need to go and get married and have a bunch of babies and get back in the home? They’re out there, and some of them are in positions of power. (Rick Santorum, I’m looking in YOUR direction!) People who still think a woman must, by law, notify her husband if she chooses an abortion. (Alito, for one.) Pharmacists who refuse to fulfill prescriptions for birth control (who are NOT the owners of the pharmacy, and therefore have no say in company policy).
Look at that article I posted in the Pit a few weeks back, about parents being up in arms because SEVENTEEN magazine printed an article about vaginal health that happened to include photographs of vaginas for educational purposes? (sorry for the run on sentence!) There were mothers saying, “It’s dirty, it’s dirty, I don’t want MY child (sixteen years old!) seeing that kind of filth!” Young girls out there are being sent a message that their bodies are dirty, something to be ashamed of. That girls aren’t supposed to be sexual creatures, because it’s not what “nice girls” do.
And no matter what Shagnasty thinks, there ARE still issues out there that need to be addressed. If not in the US (although I disagree), in the world at large. Look at the Middle East. In Saudi Arabia, women are second class citizens. Look at the epidemic of female genital mutilation. And while I’m not for automatic circumcision of boys, the procedure can, at least, sometimes be necessary in certain medical scenarios. But female “circumcision” has no other purpose than to destroy a woman’s sexuality.
Of course, but the right to choose is an issue for feminism.
Fair enough. Gratitude, respect, etc, it’s all good. I just got the impression you were saying that feminists had NOTHING to do with the gains women have made, and that’s not true.
I’m not your enemy, catsix. I’m not insisting you become a feminist. I don’t think anyone HAS to be a feminist. I do, however, wish you would look at some of the better examples of feminism out there, and stop judging it by the fringe elements. For every Dworkin and Daly, there’s a Steinem and a Paul. (I’m going to ignore Solanas due to the fact that she was mentally ill.)
And as for the bit that feminists chose to work for the benefits of women primarily, so what? That doesn’t mean they’re doing it at the expense of others. Some choose to work for the rights of minorities. Some for the rights of the disabled. Some for children’s rights. You can’t do everything, and some have chosen women’s rights as their issue. Nothing wrong with that.
I don’t think it’s too much to ask that someone stop painting with such a broad brush, no?
I have lots of problems with feminism. Not because I believe that women are not of equal value to men and ontologically (although not functionally) the same, but because I believe that feminism is a intellectually dishonest and inherently selfish worldview.
One of the problems with these sorts of discussions is the whole problem of defining exactly what “feminism” is. The reality is that there is a wide range of often incompatable views as to what “feminism” is and so these arguments often devolve into disagreements over what true feminism is. So the criticisms here are obviously not true of all feminists, nor do these criticisms only apply to feminists.
Anyway I think the major problem with typical “feminism” is that it attempts to effectively whitewash history to fit with its own ideology. Typically feminism presents a history where women have been oppressed by some non-descript “patriarchy” where as men were free to live in relative freedom. This is simply not true. If you look through history most oppression is economic rather than gender based. So 200 years ago the main factor in the type of life you could expect was economic, not gender. Despite feminist rhetoric if you were born the son of a poor farmer you would have far less freedom in life than than a woman born into a rich family. So the whole idea that it is gender inequality that has been the major problem in society throughout history is patently false.
Secondly though the assumption that women were oppressed but men were free is also I think untrue. I think that a much more honest reading of history is one where each gender was trapped in their own rigidly defined expectations. While there were disadvantages to being female, there were some significant advantages as well. As a simple example thoughout history it has typically been men who have been the largest victims of war, since most of the dead in warfare were the men killed in battle.
However if you look at society today I think that feminism has to some extent freed women from their gender expectations, yet left men trapped in theirs. So for instance it is facsinating to look at how society reacts to men and women who are unemployed. Women are typically asked “are you going to choose to go back to work or are you going to focus on your family, ect”, where as men are asked things like “when are you going to get a job, support your family and not be a deadbeat, ect”. For every book like The Feminine Mystique about women’s dissatisfaction with their role, there are other books like Man in the Gray Flannel Suit which detail the dissatisfaction that men have with their societal role. Typically though while feminism has been active in giving women choice, it has either been silent, or worse still enforcing a strong gender stereotype for men.
As an example as to how this still happens, have a look at the typical feminist rhetoric on reproduction. When looking at women and reproduction it is ardently argued that reproduction is a “choice” that women should be completely free to make. Yet at the same time when it comes to men and reproduction many of the same feminists actively argue against men having choice in reproduction, saying that men have no say in abortion, and even that it is men’s responsibility to pay child support, even though having the child is the women’s choice. All this does is continue to trap the man in the societal expection that men are the providers, while at the same time giving women the freedom to choose whether or not to be the child carers.
Another problem with feminism and history is that current feminists claim to be a continuation of the the earlier feminist movments of the late 19th early 20th century when in reality there is a huge ideological divide between the two movements. Many of the positions held be these early “feminists” and the logic that they employed to justify them were vastly different to the typical positions and logic used by feminists today.
So for instance “feminists” by the modern definition actually had very little to do with women gaining the vote. If you actually go back and look at the arguments used by a lot of the sufferagete women they were actually agruments based on gender inequality. A common argument of this type was that men are typically logical in their thought processes, where as women are typically more compassionate. Therefore women should be given the vote so as to temper the typical male disposition and hopefully end up with a more just society. A lot of these types of arguments todays feminists would reject out of hand, yet these were the arguments that these women used. Another example of this kind is abortion. Abortion was regarded by many of the early “feminists” as a barabarous practice and a crime against nature, yet today it is seen as one of the cornerstones of the feminist ideology.
To therefore claim that the achievements of these women is the result of “feminism” is simply wrong.
You know, I think I’ve worked out one of the reasons catsix and I wound up with the different attitudes we have towards feminism. You see, she and I attended the same college, although I’m pretty sure I attended several years earlier. That college required people who were in one of its larger sections to take courses in several areas to get their degree. While the courses I took fulfilled the required diversity, I never had any desire to take a class in Women’s Studies, and I’m glad I didn’t. I knew that society had different expectations of men and women. Back when I was in junior high school in the 70’s, I wasn’t allowed to take shop because I was a girl and the rule was simply that girls don’t take shop. They take home ec, which was cooking and sewing, instead. I wanted to take classes which related to my degree and, when that wasn’t an option – there weren’t any classes in the natural sciences which related to a degree in Japanese – I wanted to take classes which looked interesting, which is how I wound up in a class called “Intelligent Life In the Universe.” I may consider myself a feminist, but I consider classes in women’s studies to be, for the most part, a load of codswollop.
There was a story on the front page of this morning’s paper which has reminded me that we still have a way to go to achieve equality. Here’s a link. It seems some local girls are boycotting Abercrombie and Fitch for selling t-shirts which read things like “Who needs brains when you’ve got these?” (printed across the chest) and “Blondes are adored. Brunettes are ignored.” The girls think, and I agree, that these t-shirts are sending out a message that looks matter more than anything else when it comes to women. I’m an ordinary looking woman. Judged on my looks alone, I’ll do badly. I stand a better chance in other areas, and, while a gentleman I know insists I’m cute, I really don’t want people’s opinion of me to be primarily influenced by my appearance, especially if I’m trying to get a job.
A few years ago, a friend of mine who was a teenaged girl at the time told me that women are no good at math or science. She’s an intelligent young woman whose grandmother was a biologist, but somehow she still came by that attitude. When I went to listen to her read an essay at her school her senior year, I was struck by the fact that out of 6 young women who read essays that day, all but one of them mentioned marriage; none of them mentioned a career. No young men read essays that day, but I wonder how many of them would have mentioned marriage and how many of them would have mentioned what career they intended to pursue.
Philip J Fry, you spoke of economics. As a feminist who knows my history, I know that 100 years ago, women were not allowed to own property in the United States, or even control their own paychecks. Indeed, one of the reasons feminists were behind the temperance movement so strongly was women would go to work, earn money, and then be left helpless when their husbands chose to spend it on drink rather than food and rent. It’s only in the last 40 or 50 years that it’s become easy for women to get loans for businesses in their own right, if memory serves. Traditionally, the jobs available to men with only a high school education, jobs such as the building trades, manufacturing, etc. have paid better than jobs available to women with only a high school education such as secretary or waitress. Some of this is due to unionization; some of this is also due to the assumption that men have to support their families on their income, while women only have to support themselves. That is changing as manufacturing jobs become harder to come by. I also freely admit that I took advantage of the roles society assigns to women a few years ago. As a laid off programmer, I think I had a better chance of getting clerical work than a man would have, alhtough I could be wrong. On the other hand, how many male receptionists have you seen?
I like men. My closest friends are either men or rather unconventional women. One reason I became a feminist is because the stuff the guys were doing looked like it was a lot more fun. I also freely admits that anyone who thinks less of me because I’m a brunette (actually more of a redhead these days) not a blonde or who considers my boobs, not my brain isn’t worth my time. I also get fed up with the fringe man-hating element of feminism as well, and I won’t deny they exist. It’s to counter their influence that I proudly call myself a feminist.
I’m CJ. Judge me for who I am, brains, boobs, Bohemianism, and all. Don’t assume I’m dumber than you (I’ve got the card to prove odds are I’m not), less logical than you (I’m a programmer who writes kick-ass code), weaker than you, or in any way less than you because I’m a woman. That’s all I ask.
I think the most worthwhile point’s already been made in this thread, by a good few people; there are feminists who are “good” examples of the idealogy and those that are not, in the same way that Falwell is a “bad” example of christian idealogy.
Whenever you have a subset of people based on idealogy, those people are never going to agree completely. To take it down to it’s most base point, there are (to my knowledge) no people that share the exact same views on everything that I have. I may agree with people on some things, but not others, or to a different extent.
I personally believe that women do have the same basic rights as men, and that, in a court of law, both genders should be considered equally. However, this does not stop me thinking, when a case comes up in the news about a man or woman suing for sole parental guardianship of a child, that the woman would be a better choice. It’s a socially ingrained response; i’ve “learnt” this from other people, from television, films, and books. I know it’s wrong to have this thought, logically and philosophically speaking, but I do anyway. You could call this “innate chauvinism” and i’d agree. However, this doesn’t mean i’m not going to fight this part of me; I know it’s wrong, and so, were I the judge for that case, I would listen to the evidence presented on both sides and make my decision based on that. The thought that “women are better at taking care of children” is dismissed. So yes, i’d say in my case that I do have some level of “innate chauvinism”, but this is not because I am male, but because I have been raised in a society where recently, and still now, females and males are treated, even if not believed to be, differently. I, for one, try to fight this learned behaviour in myself, as it does not compare with my personal beliefs that women and men have equal rights.
In the case of it being “worse” if 500,000 women come back in body bags, i’m going to have to agree that it is no different that if it were 500,000 men. I’m against the idea of a draft, but if there had to be one, drafting both men and women is surely the only way it can be done. If you say women shouldn’t go because they’re frailer, or weaker, or not as designed for war as men, that’s sexism prioritising men. If you say that women shouldn’t go because they are more valuable than men, as they are capable of breeding faster than a similar amount of men would be able to, that’s sexism prioritising women ( it might be different if there is an actual population shortage, but I hate to think what sexism would be like under that situation!).
The biggest problem I have with the “bad” side of feminism, as it were, is the whole notion that women are better than man because they create new life. Well, no, you kinda can’t. Women can gestate life, but not create it. If you stuck 50 men on one island, and 50 women on another, and then came back after 200 years, the results are going to be the same - very boney islands and very happy crabs. Both men and women are needed to create life; if you want to say women are superior because they alone can gestate life, that’s fine by me.
Siege, I don’t mean to be harsh, but your post demonstrates a lot of the problems with feminism.
But first off you seem to be saying that you should treat people as people, not as genders, and on htat point I completely agree. That’s not why I dislike feminism. I dislike feminism for it’s intellectual dishonesty and quite frankly its narrow-focused selfishness.
While it is true to say that women have suffered a lot in history, many women have similarly done quite well out of their gender as well. But more than that in many societies what delineates between those who do well and those who do not has little if anything to do with gender. So for instance in my country (Australia) the group who are the worst off is not women, it is the Aboriginal Indiginous people. While we can talk about women’s sufferage, in Australia quite shamefully Aboriginals only got the vote in the 1960’s. And even today there are some terrible problems of lack of health-care, unemployment, poverty, substance abuse and greatly reduced life expectancy, problems that are just not present in the anglo or even other ethnic communities. Compared to these people the SUV driving soccer-mom insisting that she is oppressed because she is a women is clearly absurd. And it is like that all over the world. In Europe for instance, why is it that in some countries a rediculously high percentage of the children of Romany Gypsies (something like 80-90%) are in schools for the educationally sub-normal. This is opression on a far grander scale and far worse than anything that happens because of gender. That’s not to say that it is OK to treat women poorly, but if feminists were truly interested in ‘equality’ then there wouldn’t be feminists per say, because gender doesn’t really describe societal mistreatment.
Secondly your view of opression is incredibly biased. Tyoically to the feminist anything in which women do worse than men is because of ‘patriarchy’, yet anything where men do worse is swept under the rug. So if women are so oppressed and mistreated why is it that in Australia (and presumably the rest of the western world as well)
Even including rape and domestic abuse, men are more often the victims of violent crime than women
Men have a much higher crime conviction rate, get longer sentances, and represent a vastly disproportionate percentage of prison populations
Men have higher rates of unemployment amoungst those seeking work
Men typically do worse in schools than women, and represent a larger percent of people in undergraduate university courses
Medical research directed at diseases that affect mainly women (eg: breast cancer) get hugely disproportionate levels of funding compared to diseases that affect mostly men (eg: prostate cancer), even though roughly equal numbers die from each.
Men have a much higher suicide rate than women
Women are more often granted custody rights by the family court
…
the list goes on. Yet in spite of all these inequalities feminists still insist that there is systematic descrimination in society against women, yet in many cases this is simply not true. This shows that practically feminism is typically far more interested in getting things for women rather than any sense of equality.
So for instance you talk about women being objectified. Have you seen any advertising in the last 10 years? Advertisers have worked out that women do the larger amount of the spending in society, and so many ads now present a positive view of women, and quite a negative view of men. In most ads women are the strong, intelligent, organised people who hold the family together, where as the men are either the bumbling sidekick who is obviously dependent on the women, or is little more than eye candy and completely sexually objectified. Some ads do still objectify women, but a great number objectify men as well. Yet again while railing against one many feminists are silent when it happens in the other direction.
Or again you talk about how none of the essay talked about career. But if guys were writing the essays I would guess that every one of them would be about career, because if you are a guy that is all you have. There is a much stronger cultural expectation that guys will be devoted to their careers than women will be devoted to their families.
So do you hold the same contempt for David & Goliath T-Shirts that bear messages like ‘Boys are stupid. Throw rocks at them.’ and 'Boys lie. Poke ‘em in the eye.’
Never heard of them? Really? I guess it’s only major news when stupid jokes are made about women.
Something that Erin Pizzey recognized when she started the first domestic violence shelter - that men too were victims of domestic violence (Phil Hartman is probably the most famous case) and she wanted to help all the victims, regardless of gender.
Today, there are programs where I live that will help women who are victims of domestic violence, but will not only reject male victims of domestic violence, but also the female victims’ sons from their shelters and programs because they don’t want any man even knowing where the shelter is.
They’re expected to spend 40, 50, 60 hours a week at a job and miss out on many important functions in their kids’ lives so that they can provide the food on the table and the roof over the head. Many men are locked into this role no matter what they would rather do, forced by societal expectations and gender stereotypes to be the paycheck earner even if their life’s ambition is to be a stay-at-home dad.
Feminists, however, will turn all of that around and claim that it is really the women who are victims. There have already been feminists who claim that women are the real victims of war, even when it’s primarily men who are killed and maimed and psychologically devastated by their battlefield experiences. It seems like sexism is totally acceptable to them as long as it’s men getting the short end of the stick.
I’m not even going to get started on the disparity between breast cancer research money and prostate cancer.
Actually, I do hold those t-shirts in contempt, too. One reason I don’t watch most family oriented sitcoms is I don’t like seeing men shown as idiots. Some are, true; so are some women. I also freely acknowledge that men can be victims of domestic violence and, having been emotionally abused as a child, I agree that women can inflict damage just as easily as men, even if it’s not always as visible.
I’ll try to post more later,but I’m on a short break on a busy day.
Elaborate and provide a cite on the intellectual dishonesty thing?
Are you saying the broad sweep of thought, theory, and social action called “feminism” is intellectually dishonest, or are you saying “There was this feminist who…” and “There was this widely touted statistic which…” —??
I could say “Americans are intellectually dishonest” and back it with a handful of documented occurences of Americans twisting truth, but it would not be a good argument. How does yours differ?
I call this the “poor starving children in China” argument. Hey, you, how dare you complain about the moderation on this board, or police brutality in Philadelphia, or the neglect of children in foster care in our cities, when there are poor starving children in China?
a) Women have a right to complain about their lot. They don’t have to have it worse than Australian aboriginal people in order to be entitled to seek social justice on their own behalf. Period.
b) Radical feminist theory, like marxist theory of the late 1800s, is a macrotheory. You may not agree with it (although you should be sure and read it before you dismiss it), but it says that the reasons Australian aboriginal people (and oppressed Romany gypsies and poor starving children in China and so on) are in that situation is because of patriarchy. Patriarchal structures. Patriarchal priorities and values. Patriarchal belief systems. Nothing narrow about their focus, they consider themselves to be addressing the root of all oppression and all inequality. And their argument would be “It does no good to fight this individual circumstance of oppression when the root cause remains intact, as long as human affairs are organized around the power of some people over other people, more occurrences will just sprout up elsewhere”.
c) Most individual feminists I’ve known also support other equality movements nevertheless. You’ll see them at marches against racism and marches against religious intolerance and yeah, they probably donate to causes that work on behalf of Romany gypsies and Aboriginal Australians for Social Justice and Gay/Lesbian Rights Coalition and so on. Feminism as an endeavor doesn’t take a stand on these issues as a general rule (except for gay/lesbian rights which is closer to a set of core issues) because different feminists are going to have different priorities, attitudes, and political takes on such things. One feminist may be donating money to help the Jewish settlers who settled in the Gaza Strip or the West Bank while another puts resources towards helping the Palestinians recapture their land from the invading Zionists, etc etc, you get the picture. They generally aren’t doing these things as a sideline to feminism, or as an unrelated afterthought, but as an expression of their feminism. They reached the conclusions about the goodness of these endeavors as a consequence of their feminist analysis of things.
I do. And yes, I’ve seen them. But this IS Aberzombie and Bitch we’re talking about. They’re not exactly known for their tact.
Cite? And by the way, I’m still awaiting a cite for cases where men have been charge with rape simply because the woman regretted it the morning after.
So are many mothers! Moms are expected to work full-time, and come home and take care of the house. I do agree with you that perhaps we need more stay at home dads. Some companies offer paternity leave, but it’s unpaid, which I think is wrong. I agree that we need some equality in our working force so that EITHER parent can stay home with the kid-whether it’s Mom or Dad.
Not ALL feminists. Stop with the broad brush. As far as war goes, everyone’s a victim. I only used the war example once to point out to someone who seemed to be saying that women are unaffected by war. And I am totally against the idea that women are somehow more valuable than men when it comes to the battlefield.
Have you done anything about it? Are you out there working to get funding for prostate cancer research? Why not?
I believe the reasons why some feminists react the way they do is they’re tired of the “more oppressed than you” game. Someone always comes along and says, “Yeah, well men have it worse, blah blah blah…” And instead of just saying, “yes, that’s bad, I agree,” they get goaded into one-upmanship.
You could do what I did and call the county agencies. That’s how I found out that they don’t help men.
As for the other cite, there was a case that was discussed on this forum about a man who spent years in prison because a woman claimed she was raped and gave a description that matched him in order to cover for the fact that she had sex with someone while in a relationship with someone else.
It took years before DNA evidence finally got him out of prison.
Pity that after years of being anti-male, they didn’t see it coming.