Any country which has fifty percent women in their government is not a country I want to be a part of. I’m all for legal rights for women. But not for femininity. It ruins a country.
See Sweden!
I agree that women should have the same opportunities as men, as far as running for/being elected to public office. But I would question the assumption that having more women in office means other women are represented, anymore than most men are well represented by the wealthy,well connected male politicians in power.
The mysoginist speaks.
He is a good example of why one should be vigilant, rather than assume that equality has been achieved and that it will not backslide.
That illustrates the problem of the glass ceiling in the corporate world.
BTW, the mysoginist is positing the advocating of rape in another thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=8829186#post8829186
As long as there are people with attitudes such as this . . .
You do not understand the nature of mysoginy.
Misonginy is bias (hatred even) of women. That is entirely different to a bias against feminity. Femininity stands for risk aversion. For a bias of emotion over rationality. For a lack of decisivenes.
En aggregate, women are more afflicted than men (indeed, Simon Baron Cohen argues that a complete lack of femininity leads to a perfect male mind: autism). Therefore a goverment made up of fifty percent women would most likely be more feminine. And that would be a very bad thing.
Noone lives in an Athenian democracy, instead, most of us posting here live in a representative one. There are good reasons for that.
That’s misogynist, please. Fingernails down the blackboard. (Same “gyn” as in “gynaecologist”.)
Another feminine (note that I do not say female) trait: twisting words, and using the ad hominem rather than the ad argumentum (to coin a psedo-latin phrase).
Because that Maggie Thatcher was so over emotional and risk averse.
It’s getting harder and harder to take your arguments seriously.
Clearly you aren’t reading them. Your example proves my point exactly!
Women are more inclined to have the traits I mentioned, in the same sense that Kenyans are more likely to be good marathon runners.
That doesn’t mean that we should discriminate against them. They should have every opportunity. But we should fight against those traits (and lord knows Maggie, who is a personal hero of mine, fought against those traits). In the same way that we should allow Italians politicans to head the EU. But I wouldn’t want a typical Italian politican in charge of it!
(Prodi can be debated another day)
Gynocritique, n’est pas? Sorry, my bad. I will have to write “misogynist” on the black board one-hundred times.
I still need the word for other purposes. Until the battle is won universally and forever, I can’t let them have it.
Some of you are talking about the connotation of the word feminist as if it were the actual meaning of the word. I agree with you that thanks to people like Rush Limbaugh and people others who would seek to do disservice to the feminist movement, the word feminist now has negative connotations for some people. But the denotation of the word feminist has remained the same.
The denotation is the definition. The connotation is the implication or suggestion. Connotation varies from person to person. Denotation is what is found in the dictionary. Both can change over time, but the denotation is not likely to make a sudden change.
A good explanation of denotation and connotation:
I am a feminist because I support equal social, economic and political rights regardless of gender.
That is all that is required to be a feminist.
I couldn’t agree more! Feminism is about empowerment, not victimhood. Both of the men that I have been married to support equal rights. I have known men who were oppressive and paternalistic, but they were not very successful in oppressing me. As for the “enemies” of feminism, that is not gender specific.
I’ve actually only heard that raised by anti-feminists as a false issue. The women I know couldn’t care less about side issues like that one. (It’s like those “bra-burning” feminists. I was in college in the 1960’s and never knew about a single rally. Never knew anyone who claimed to have burned her bra or known anyone who burned her bra. (shrug) It was such a non-issue for most women.
You acknowledge the gains we’ve made and that work still needs to be done. That seems fair enough to me! Feel comfortable in who you are and in what you want to be. I would have chosen to be a stay-at-home-mother, but I didn’t have babies. I “adopted” all of the students that I taught in high school. Cried at every graduation. Anyway, I am traditionally feminine. I think most feminists probably are. I still think that The Beauty Myth had some good points. I still wear makeup and shave my legs. I no longer think I have to weigh 105.
Also, being a feminist has given me more confidence in men. I trust their willingness to open up more. I think that may be one of the reasons that despite my own liberalism, two or three of the guys that I like best at the Straight Dope are on the conservative side.
A personal insult against you? Not at all. Just a simple statement of fact.
That is a very disturbing, misogynistic statement.
This is being discussed in at least two other threads, and being a gentlemant (women can’t do that) I shall not discuss it any further in this one.
Yet another deliberately inflammatory and misogynistic statement.
Yeah, but you deserved it. You’ve posted links to that thread in at least three others now, which obvously causes me a headache in defending it. And that’s only what I’m aware of through my subscribed threads.
You will have to get used to defending your statements if you stick around here.
But why should I defend a statement I made in one thread in many other threads?