You’re in a college classroom, miss. Do you think you’d be sitting in your chair twirling your bleached-blonde hair and talking over the professor to your boyfriend if it weren’t for feminism?
What is it with young women these days? I’m nineteen, and some of my peers drive me insane! It’s “cool” to dress up in the skimpiest clothing imaginable, go to bars to try to get on a “Girls Gone Wild” video, wear Playboy-logo shirts and act like vapid automatons? When did a blow-up doll or a prostitute become the feminine ideal?
I’m not even angry – well, I might be angry if I could wrap my mind around how these people think. Why would you want to devalue your own ideas and emotions like that?
I just read a book on recent feminist history, and it made me realize how much I take for granted. Feminism still has a long way to go (do a headcount of males/females on any news or television program or movie, for just one example off the top of my head), but it’s also come a long way in the last thirty years, and I don’t understand why so many young women today seem to want to reverse that.
So, young miss in my script analysis class: I hope I’m artistic director of my own theater company in ten years, I hope I’m producing as many plays by women playwrights as I am by men, and I hope you find enough female roles to feed yourself over your acting career. Because right now odds are 3:1 against you, and all women trying to get cast in the theater today-- but hey, who needs feminists when you’ve got a boyfriends, right?
PS, you’ll get paid less than those three men who get cast opposite you, too. Thanks for helping out 51% of the population!
Ask the young lady what rights and freedoms she has.
Then (carefully and slowly, because she doesn’t seem too bright) explain what rights and freedoms she would have if she had been born in somewhere like India, Africa or Saudi Arabia.
Tell her:
that marital rape is the norm in many cultures
that domestic violence and “wife burning” is considered acceptable in many countries
that FGM is a reality for many milions of women worldwide
that 1 in 11 women in some parts of Africa die in childbirth
that many women have no control over their fertility
that widows in India often can’t re-marry
that antenatal sex determination had to be outlawed in India because so many female foetuses were being aborted
that in many families worldwide it isn’t considered worthwhile to teach daughters to read or write
that in many places women are still considered their husband or father’s property
Tell her that she only has the freedoms she does because of what feminists did, and that if she has any sense at all she would be fighting for the freedom and happiness of her sisters all over the world. Wanting other women to be free to pursue their own dreams and aspirations and to fulfill their potential isn’t about hating men, it’s about loving humanity.
Ask her to think about a world where almost 50% of people live without what she would consider basic rights, just because of their gender. Explain that this isn’t what life was like 100 years ago, it’s what life is like NOW.
The fight for women’s rights isn’t over, hell it hasn’t even started.
I see your ‘definition’ and raise you Catharine MacKinnon, Valerie Solanas, Andrea Dworkin, Germaine Greer, and Gloria Steinem, who have all been the proud proclaimers of anti-male sentiment.
You just hit on one of the reasons I hate feminists. They take credit for everything that I do today, and everything I’ve become, as if they were the ones who handed it to me and my hard work had absolutely nothing to do with my success. In the next sentence they whine about how women are such big victims.
And if you’re in the United States, it’s almost impossible for a battered man to get any kind of help or protection from his abuser. It’s also common practice to cut off an extremely sensitive part of a baby boy’s body for no medical reason whatsoever and label anyone who objects to the practice a ‘whiner’ or call them crazy.
As for the rest of your list, I need cites. Cites that don’t come from feminist journals.
If someone had said something like this to me in college, they’d be answered with a strong suggestion that they mind their own business and not lecture me. Why is it Tracy Lord’s business to ‘educate’ this girl?
She can say things like that because in a lot of ways, the feminists won. People who believe that women deserve to go to college, or receive equal pay for equal work, or have careers, aren’t called “feminists” anymore. They’re called Americans; I’d feel silly calling myself a feminist for believing those things because they’re so gosh-darn obvious.
I think the reasoning goes like this: once upon a time, being a feminist meant being a radical, even though feminism’s goals look pretty tame by modern standards. So even though feminist goals are no longer radical goals, being a feminist still means being a radical, and what college student wants that? In other words, the moderate feminist writers of times past don’t look feminist to my generation, they just look sane; the only identifiably feminist writers left are the ones claiming that all male/female sex is rape*, or that men should be herded into camps, or whatever.
TV program or movie? What, so they script females out do they?
Script writer: You know, I was going to have an equal number of men and women in this show, but then I remembered how stupid women are, so I wrote out half the women.
I don’t know about over there, but over here, most newsreaders are women.
When come back, bring goood arguments. I agree with catsix.
catsix- would the fact that marital rape is only a crime in 17 countries in the world be a helpful statistic for you?
Here are some cites, to be honest, I don’t know what you would accept as legitimate evidence, but I’ve done my best. There is plenty out there, but I doubt you’d accept it because of the “feminist” sources.*
I didn’t say I agreed with cultural male circumcision, I didn’t say that the 10% of victims of domestic violence who happen to be men should be treated in any way differently to the 90% of victims who happen to be female. Ideally I’d like equality and I agree with you that in the West it has occasionally swung too far. However, there are about 2 billion women in the world who live lives far removed from equality, saying Western feminism didn’t do everything perfectly isn’t an excuse for not working towards making their lives better.
I most certainly believe that everyone is responsible for their own achievements. However, it is really, really hard to achieve anything if your culture puts no value or worth on your life and you have no power or control over even the most mundane areas of your existence.
catsix is Amnesty International too feminist? WHO? UNESCO? Human Rights Watch?
Ok. You’re right. There are feminists who are man haters. Much as ther are Christians who are Fred Phelps. Or Pat Robertson. Sad but true.
Valerie Solanas was a lone nut. Pretty much the definintion of a lone nut. Mackinnon and Dworkin are feminists who a lot of other femisists have called total idiots.
Oh bollocks. Stupid ugly bollocks (and despite being a feminist I consider bollocks to be pretty attractive in most circumstances.)
Ok you’ve worked hard. But if you don’t know there was some other effort involved in letting you on the playing field to begin with? Ah, yes, the world began with you, sorry, silly me.
If a man being abused doesn’t get help that’s horrible. What does that have to do with feminisim? I’m guessing if any man is getting help it’s because feminisim has brought domestic violence to attention.
And yes, circumcisions are still being performed. Because, aside from the religious reasoning, there was an idea that there was a medical reason for it…briefly. An idea that’s falling out of favour. That is, opposition is not called crazy or whiners. And beyond that, if FGM were confined to what circumcision is that would be one thing…it isn’t. It’s more like cutting off the head of your dick. And it’s done to combat the the threat of dangerous female sexuality. Something that circumcision has never been said to do.
Are you kidding? It’s a fairly vague list. But, goodness, nothing you can’t believe.
The existence of one psychotic and several gaping assholes defines an entire movement.
You **are personally responsible ** for things like your own right to vote.
Re: the impossibility for battered men to get protection – CITE??? Battered men have access to the same kind of dubious and ineffective protection as women do – orders of protection. Do they work? Nope. Are they available to men? YES, THEY ARE. Shelters are, admittedly, harder to find. Care to assist in setting one up rather than bitching about it?
And anyone who equates male circumcision with having the clitoris removed, the labia scraped off and the vulva SEWN SHUT lacks perspective. Circumcision may be a LOUSY IDEA. I am no expert in that area. I don’t pretend to be. But how does showing that males can be wronged mean that feminists are Nazis?
To the OP, I’d say the same thing that I’d have said to Bill Cosby in regard to his infamous “knucklehead” screed about black kids: would really you prefer that human rights continued to be withheld if their recipients continued to have human flaws?
Including the ability to do “Girls Gone Wild” videos or just go to bars in general, without half the male and most of the female population thinking them low-moralled floozies (okay, yeah, nowadays it would still be around a quarter of the male and female population, but still compared to before…)
Not impossible, but harder. Even if a man calls pro-actively while being assaulted there is still a good chance the woman can convince the police it was he abusing her, not the other way around. And if she can get to the phone first, game over. And that’s if the man doesn’t even defend himself: there’s no chance whatsoever for him if he puts up any sort of struggle, especially since a lot of men and women think he should be able to “take it” :rolleyes:
It may be that it is a zero-sum game, and that if we make it harder for women to lie about stuff like this when they are the aggressors in abuse, it will become easier for men to do the same. But perhaps it is possible to make it just safer for non-violent people in general.
Tracy Lord, I don’t know how you would define “feminism”, but I suggest you go reading some more stuff on exactly what modern feminist writers are actually saying and theorising. In you post you seem to think that ANY philosophy that benefits women is naturally “feminism”. This is not the case. Feminism is its own philosophy, with its presuppositions, view of the world and morality.
Modern feminism is not the only philosophy that values gender equality. It is completely possible to believe in gender equality and still not be a feminist. Women who don’t agree with feminism aren’t necessarily gender traitors who long to be in a kitchen barefoot and pregnant. So for instance I believe that men and women are ontologically equal, and should be treated as such. The reason I believe that though is that I believe that each is created ontologically equal by God, which is a view that is at odds with modern feminist thought.
And as a philosophy, I think I have to agree with catsix that there is really little to recommend it. Modern feminism is typically a white, middle-class and frankly selfish philosophy. Following on from Simone de Beauvoir’s “The second sex”, modern feminism has defined itself as movement as basically one arguing that women should be able to do whatever they want, whatever helps them to escape “imminence” and achieve “transcendence”. And typically feminism hasn’t really cared much for the feelings or desires of others. So for instance in “The female eunuch”, Germaine Greer urged women to leave their husbands irrespective of what type of husband they were, and how much they cared for them. To her the freedom of the woman to do whatever she wanted was paramount.
But if you actually look at the history, the situation is far more complicated than is commonly presented. One of the distortions of modern feminism is that modern feminists stand in a long line of women who have fought for equality, and that it is singularly the feminist philosophy that has won women so many freedoms. If you actually look at the history and philosophy though of these earlier groups there are some huge disconnects between people like the suffragettes and modern feminists. So for instance while “reproductive freedom” is one of the central issues for feminists today, many early feminists considered abortion a barbaric practice that was indicative of an uncivilised society. And many of the underpinning philosophies of the early feminists were completely different to those of today. So for instance much of the suffragette movement was organised by church women, who had a completely different philosophy and reasoning for women getting the vote than what feminists today would use. So for instance one of the arguments used for giving women the vote was that since women are naturally more compassionate then men, the compassionate nature of women would help to balance out the cold logical thinking of men, and thus allowing women to vote would create a better society.
And in some cases feminism had little to do with the advancement of women. So for instance women being allowed into universities in England happened not as a result of a general feminist campaign, but more as a general shake-up of the tertiary education system in England. In the 1800’s many once excluded groups (so for instance people who didn’t belong to the Church of England could not go to university) were allowed access. That women were included had more to do with common sense than feminism.
And here is the irony. Modern feminism is all about allowing women to do whatever they want, sing whatever tune seems best to them. Well, if these women are doing what they want, then they are embodying the feminist ideal. Just because the new song that they have found to sing to you sounds vapid and shrill and off-key doesn’t negate the fact that it was feminism that allowed them to choose it. Careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.
(my bold)
Is it just me, or does no-one else see the irony here?
**Joey Jo Jo ** it’s a big jump between “I don’t want to have a baby every year until I die” and “I don’t want to have a female baby because a girl would bring shame and dishonour to my family and we would have another useless mouth to feed and no-one to provide for us in our old age”.
Is this really a feminist issue? I thought that this was pretty much the norm throughout most of human history. Sounds to me like more of a medical issue.
Unless, of course, you’re arguing that men wish to be widowed and saddled with newborns because that makes them feel tough and manly.
Yes, but what if it is women that wish to abort their female children? Which right comes out on top, the right of women to live or the right of women to choose?
Maybe you would have succeeded anyway. But as a fiftysomething, I can clearly remember the world as it existed pre-feminism. I can count the changes, and I remember who pushed for them and made them happen, who actively resisted those changes, and who sat on the sidelines making snide remarks about the bra-burners.
I remember when most of the ‘good’ colleges and universities were all-male, and the selective women’s colleges were mostly finishing schools for upperclass women.
I remember when the “Help Wanted” ads were divided into two sections: “Help Wanted - Men” which had all the ‘real’ jobs, and “Help Wanted - Women” which had all the secretarial, nurse, schoolteacher, dental-assistant sorts of jobs.
I remember when graduate and professional programs were virtually all male, and female applicants were actively discouraged and discriminated against.
Those things were true just 40 years ago. Feminists were the reason they weren’t true 10 years later.
I remember when, sometime in the early 1970s, the Rolling Stones promoted their “Black and Blue” album with billboards showing a beaten, bruised woman, and a caption that read something like, “I’m black and blue for the Rolling Stones…and I love it!” Yeah, people thought it was OK to portray women as enjoying getting beaten up by their spouses and SOs.
Fortunately, those angry feminists made a ruckus about it, and now we define domestic violence as a crime and a societal problem, rather than simply the victim’s problem. There still isn’t as much help for abuse victims as there ought to be, but what there is, is there because of feminists.
I remember how controversial it was when the first state law making marital rape a crime was passed. That was, what, about 1979 or 1980? Again, those laws were passed because of feminists.
Remember the legislator who asked, “If you can’t rape your wife, who can you rape?” and couldn’t understand what the uproar was about? That uproar came from feminists. Now, IIRC, every state has a law against spousal rape. Enforcing it will always be problematic, but thanks to feminists, at least society has put out the unequivocal message that it’s wrong.
Feminists also had a lot to do with the movement to take child molestation seriously; I remember a time when it was more regarded as fodder for jokes rather than for the legal system. Those feminists noticed that a lot of them had been raped or molested while growing up, and for some reason they were angry about it - them dykes for some reason weren’t grateful for the extra male attention at an early age.
And feminists took sexual harassment from a non-offense that hadn’t even been defined, to something that’s illegal across the U.S. - and again, generally accepted as wrong.
I don’t care what you think of feminists personally; I think it’s inarguable that they’ve taken this country out of the dark ages in several important ways.
Well, I can’t get too upset about that. Maybe they haven’t caught up with the progress they’ve made happen, but they did what they did because women were victims, and largely without the tools to remedy that situation. Feminists have given them the tools.
And how are feminists the problem here?
But as a digression, let me take this one on, head-on.
The real problem for abused women (why they need shelters, and so forth) isn’t simply that men abuse women they’re involved with; it’s what women fear - with good reason - will happen when they leave: that their abuser will track them down, continue to harass them, and quite possibly kill them.
I have never heard that this is a problem for battered men. Fatal Attraction was a movie; men who leave women for whatever reason almost never, AFAICT, have to worry that the woman is going to track them down, beat them up, drag them back, and beat them up even worse than before.
Men in a heterosexual relationship can (by and large) just leave an abusive spouse, and be done with it. Consequently, it’s just not that big a problem.
If you’ve got evidence to the contrary, go for the gusto.
Channeling Jack Dean Tyler much?
Speaking as a circumcised male, male and female circumcision share a name and a connection with sexual organs, but aren’t analogous beyond that point. Please don’t get all worked up on my behalf, OK?
