I find it sexist of women to appreciate and praise successful women just because they’re women. I find it sexist when the host of an international business forum says “I am happy and proud to be the host to the first businesswomen forum.”
In my opinion feminism has derailed when it started promoting femininity as an inherent quality.
As a man, I do not feel threatened by women, their success or anything that has to do with them. I just find it extremely unprofessional for a woman to join a new company and be especially happy because the manager is a woman too. A lot of women immediately bond on account of their anatomy, not likemindedness or any other ideas or characteristics they may have in common, as human beings. Men may do the same, but it’s not as exclusionary and cult-like as it is with women.
You may praise a woman’s success in a patriarchal, male-dominated society, but to dismiss the effort and focus on the vagina of it, is sexist.
Feminism derailed when it became self-referenential, and stopped listening to Women. As illustrated by “I appreciate the gains bought by Feminism, but I don’t describe myself as feminist”. A trophe which has become less common than it once was.
I don’t think that Femisism derailed when it become focused on privileging Women over Men, it just took a track that appealed to Women more than it appealed to Men.
None of these assertions about feminism are accurate, according to my understanding of feminism. My understanding of feminism is simply support for equal rights and equal treatment of women, by law and by society.
If the forum host said, instead, that “I am happy and proud to be the host to the first African-American businesspersons’ forum,” would you consider him racist? If he said, “I am happy and proud to be the host to the first gay businessmen forum,” would you consider him cisphobic?
I’d not women vs. men - its disenfranchised vs. non-disenfranchised. Once businesswomen are as common and as powerful as businessmen, then you might have a point.
For a long, long time, there were no prominent openly-gay, female, or black engineers/lawyers/doctors/businessmen. Even now, there are far fewer than their overall statistical representation would suggest. It seems perfectly appropriate to me to celebrate those that have overcome the obstacles that exist in our society, and to use their knowledge and experience to help other openly-gay, female, and black people to overcome these obstacles as well.
This is perfect when it stops there, but it doesn’t. It spreads and gets branded and institutionalized. If you’re a successful woman who wants to help women grow, perfect, just have an organization dedicated to that. But if you’re a woman who wants to help women grow while you’re a manager in a company and you end up preferring women in new hires, that’s sexist.
Yeah, nice strawwomen you are attacking there, OP.
In your quote in the OP you mention first a “business forum” AND that the speaker addressed the “first businesswomen’s forum” so you’ve got some confusion there. Clarify: was there a businesswomen’s forum within the general business forum? Or was the event itself a businesswomen’s forum?
Are you just upset that groups other than the Old White Boy Network (oooh, look at my racist inflammatory language!) are joining together to lift their own up?
Calls for public discourse to be “[color/gender/etc]-blind” are too often merely an excuse for allowing it to remain “[color/gender/etc]-oblivious” or even for outright [color/gender/etc]-denial.
I have begun to hate the word “privilege” because it is used too often to shut down discussions, but you are providing a picture perfect example of the concept. Do you actually believe that recognizing women who have achieved success somehow negates men’s successes? Or are you just personally annoyed that you have not enjoyed the perks of the ‘old boy network’ in whatever field you are striving in?
I can see that most comments are about me, what I fear and what I am, instead of the topic.
To put it bluntly, I am against gangsterism, regardless of who does it, but I find that it’s widely accepted when women do it than when any other group does it.
It’s acceptable for a woman nowadays to say publicly that men are stupid. But for a man of any designation or post to say the same thing about women would be the end of their career/public life.
I am with recognizing the accomplishments of any group of people who have been persecuted for so long, but I’m against this turning into cult-like behavior characterized by 1) unquestioned trust in the goodness of a successful woman/black person/any persecuted minority just because they are a woman/black person/ or belong to any persecuted minority, 2) exclusivity, 3) assuming they are a victim by default and defending them with immediate hostility in debates/arguments in which they are obviously wrong, again because they are a woman/black person/ or belong to any persecuted minority, 4) immediately accepting the moral superiority of such individuals also because of their gender or ethnicity, 5) favoring such individuals in employment or any other formal or informal collaboration, and the list goes on.
I understand the difference between feminism and radical feminism, and I understand that feminism isn’t an organization that has one official public speaker, and therefore I’m discussing what is widely accepted in the mainstream media and communal means of communication and interaction.
Again: If a woman walks into a meeting room to discuss cellphone batteries, and in the room are two people; a woman and a man that she hasn’t met before, and she ends up discussing the matter with the woman BECAUSE she is a woman, then that is straight-up sexism and gender bias served cold.
I don’t find this to be true. If you want to persuade me, I’ll need more than just your insistence.
There’s a whole lot of assertions and insistence here that have nothing to do with common occurrences in the real world that I’ve experienced. All this stuff sounds not good, but I disagree that any of this stuff is common or accepted. If you want to convince me (or anyone who hasn’t experienced any of this personally), then you’ll need more than assertions and insistence.
Sounds more like the persons who set up the presentation did not make it clear who was the descision maker and who was the observer. A salesperson usually has a well developed sense of whom the pitch should be directed towards - the woman in the room may well have projected more competence and power than the man.
Or it was a fifty/fifty chance and the presenter chose incorrectly.
There are many reasons why a woman would start talking to a woman first, such as age, apparent authority, charisma or any other reason, but I’m mentioning the reason specifically being just the femininity of the person in the room. While we cannot inspect or condemn intentions, I’m talking about a miniature hypothetical situation to emphasize the behavior I’m attacking (gender bias), and which is enlarged and much more aggressive in different situations.
On that understanding, sexism can happen both ways. Sure.
Now, there is one relatively more powerful group which, on the whole, benefits widely and systematically from the exercise of sexism.
There’s another relatively less powerful group which, on the whole, manages to not even keep up with the other group despite the exercise of sexism.
Two groups, both using the same tool (on your assumptions, which I’m granting), one from a position of power, and to great systematic benefit to themselves, and the other from a position of the lack of power, and not to any great systematic benefit to themselves.
And you’re pointing at the less powerful group and nagging at them to stoppit.