No it wasn’t. WHen you’re fighting for equality, you don’t score a victory by discriminating unjustly. You don’t beat the enemy that way: you become the enemy.
Daniel
Explain. Are you attempting to imply that Female Genital Mutilation is a sign of the oppression of men?
Nah. It’s telling gay people to use their brains, pick their fights and always look for the main chance.
Self-control isn’t the same thing as discrimination.
I was pointing out that you have no evidence it has anything to do with the oppression of women. To me, it looks more like oppression of the young by the old. AFAICT, it has relatively little to do with men, save as the resource these women are competing over.
What, you think women can’t oppress other women? Feminist ain’t just about what men do to women. It’s about what society does to women.
This point is so absurd that I don’t know how I missed it before, but I thought I should clean it up. Whether or not women are “happier in their everyday lives” is irrelevant. Feminism wasn’t supposed to be about putting women in a better mood. It was about recognizing that women should have the same rights, opportunities, and responsibilities as men—that women should be equal citizens and capable of leading independent adult lives.
Now that this recognition of equality is something that modern women take completely for granted—to the point where, as we’ve seen, some women will even deny that it has anything to do with anything except their own individual efforts—why would we expect that it would magically make them happy? Are men necessarily happy just because they’re allowed to go to college and have careers and support themselves? No, it’s just something they take for granted.
And the “marriage is a bad thing for women” theme has not been a part of mainstream feminism for quite a while, if indeed it ever was. The vast majority of feminists agree that women should marry if they want to, and that a good marriage can contribute a lot to personal happiness. What feminists maintain, and rightly IMO, is that women should not feel that they have to marry, or that they have to be a subordinate partner in marriage.
Anti-feminists like to gripe that feminism hasn’t magically made women’s lives happy, so it must be no good. “Some women can’t find a husband and it makes them sad! They wanted a man to love and all they got was feminist independence! What a tragic betrayal of women’s happiness! Boo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo! Feminism is a lie!”
But you notice that anti-feminists focus on this kind of emotional self-pity issue rather than hard questions about choices. Modern women in the largely egalitarian society that feminism helped achieve may still not be uniformly happy in their personal lives, but they sure as hell don’t want to give up their equal status and the freedom it gives them. Ask a woman if she really wants to go back to a system where women aren’t allowed to vote, aren’t allowed to attend most colleges or professional schools, aren’t considered as capable as men, aren’t considered suitable employees for most prestigious or high-paying jobs, aren’t considered fit for leadership positions, and so on and so forth. Even the most disconsolate, man-hungry single or divorced women will tell you, “Fuck no!”
That’s how you tell what feminism’s really done for women. Not by what they’re grateful for, but by what they take for granted. When you stop to think about it, actually, the complacency of anti-feminists like catsix, who can’t even conceive of not being able to achieve equal rights in society, is the greatest tribute possible to the achievements of feminism. Feminism has succeeded so well that some people can no longer even imagine why we needed it!
Sure they can. But are they being oppressed for being women, or for some other reason ? If feminism is only about the interests/rights of women, then it’s not a civil rights movement ( which seeks equal rights ), but just another special interest, right up there with the fur industry or steel makers in moral authority.
Not to mention, I think it’s much less effective to try to eliminate female oppression while ignoring the male. IMHO that’s where the Civil Rights movement really went wrong; instead of trying to make society fairer for everyone, it’s become every faction for itself. If gay left handers care only about gay left handers, why should I care about them ? For that matter, why should gay right handers care about them ?
On the contrary, there is a ton of information proving that this is more about patriarchal dominance. However, I also concur that there is a generational situation too. But, what is even more interesting is that many of the young girls particpatre willingly. The cultural pressure is so great that they assert this as normalcy. This is typical as well. Patriarchy, or matriarchy if that is the case (it exists in some cultures) pervades the entire society, just like any other social construct.
It is interesting that you bring this up based upon the writings of “third wave” feminists. They were extremely disgruntled with how, in thier opinion, feminism left behind the other disenfranchised groups, such as gays and racial minorities. Try to remember, feminism is a very diverse theoretical perspective. Just like any other social theory, ti has critics on the inside and outside.
Remember, folks: “patriarchy” means “father rule”. They could’ve said “andrarchy” or some such formulation if they just wanted to talk about male supremacy. The notion that it was also the control of of the younger by the older was always part of the analysis.
You’re right. But in this case, you’re not talking self-control, you’re talking control by outsiders. And that control by outsiders IS the same thing as discrimination: that’s exactly what it is.
Daniel