To the young woman sitting behind me who said feminists were "man-hating Nazis":

The BBQ Pit
21

It’s not that I believe ‘western feminism didn’t do everything perfectly.’ It’s that I firmly believe western feminism is a crock of victimist bullshit.

The difference is that mainstream feminists and women’s studies classes focus on these people as leaders of their cause in a way that christianity does not look at Fred Phelps and Pat Robertson. If the pope was as nutty as Andrea Dworkin or Gloria Steinem (and he may well be) then I have a problem with any movement based on his insanity.

A lone nut with the acceptance of the major ‘mainstream’ feminist organization NOW.

Yes, I have worked hard. I don’t need someone in my face telling me that I couldn’t do it without feminists. They want credit for what my blood and sweat have made.

Oh bullshit. What ‘feminism’ brought to attention is a bunch of lies that results in things like PSAs in which men are always the abusers and advertisments before the Super Bowl reminding men not to beat their wives. That Super Bowl PSA was based on nothing more than a myth.

Actually wasn’t one of the reasons often cited for male circumcision to stop them from doing the evil self-harm known as masturbation?

When the ‘gaping assholes’ are the leaders of the movement and the largest feminist lobby organizations in the country? Hell yes they define the movement.

Trying to invoke Godwin? I didn’t call feminists Nazis. That’s the OPs strawman. I think they are anti-male sexist bigots who rally in a cult of victimhood.

I didn’t think she meant to say literal Nazis. The term gets used a lot to place emphasis on the bigotry, sexism or racism of a group these days, and is rarely used to mean ‘actual goose-stepping SS who shovel bodies into giant crematories.’

22

You could tell it to Phil Hartman, but he can’t hear you. He’s dead.

What about the women who have run their husbands over with cars or hired killers when the husband leaves them?

Yeah, men have nothing to worry about. Keep demonizing them.

Case in point. I’m painted as a lunatic because I oppose the practice of a surgical procedure that carries risks and damage and is completey medically unnecessary.

23

Case in point. I’m a circumcized male and my sexuality has not suffered one bit from it. I have full use of me pee pee. Circumcized females do not enjoy the same amount of sexual function.

24

tdn: it’s a feminist issue when the governments concerned (Ethiopia and SUdan) prefer to spend money on arms rather than healthcare. When the reason that the women are dying is because of FGM, child marriage and the fact that it is cheaper, more convenient and more desirable to marry a new wife than to save the life of your current one, who might not be in good enough health to provide you with more children.

Joey Jo Jo- India has decided that abortions may be performed for the life or health of the mother, but not on the grounds of the gender of the foetus. The UK has laws that allow abortion for almost any reason, the one reason that is not accepted is the gender of the foetus. It’s not the big debate you think it is, if the only reason the pregnancy is unwanted is because of the gender of the foetus, it’s not ethical to abort.

25

Unless you were circumcised as an adult, there is no way you can possibly know what degree of sensation you lost because of the circumcision.

Also, I find it funny that male feminists in this thread don’t want me speaking for them with respect to circumcision but they have no fucking problem speaking for me about the adversities that women face.

26

I advocate feminism because I think the qualities we value in people: intelligence, drive, talent, imagination, determination – come in all kinds of packages, including both male and female packages. Erecting barriers to achievement to some people who have intelligence, drive, etc. just because they’re female is dumb, and beggars us as a society.

I think women have made great inroads in their ability to achieve in the workplace, though I think there’s still a glass ceiling in place in many organizations. Once again, dumb, the best person should be the CEO whether male or female, but it clearly isn’t working out that way, yet.

I also think that Tracy and others’ attacks on young women for being, acting and dressing sexy is the DUMBEST thing I ever heard of. This is where most regular folk completely break with feminism. Men and women, most especially young men and women, are sexually attracted to one another, and they quite naturally act in ways that are deemed sexy because they want to be attractive to members of the opposite sex. I do not understand at all why this is wrong. Then again, I go with that old hippie love ethic. I don’t understand why being sexy and so forth is wrong. It seems so natural.

Good luck on getting young people to stop being sexy. I won’t be holding my breath on your behalf.

27

In that light, it sounds like an issue that feminists should be concerned about, but not a feminist issue. Unless you are arguing that in those nations men get decent governmental healthcare while women do not (which may well be the case – I don’t know), then it’s an issue that concerns all people, not just women.

And if spending more on weapons than healthcare is the problem, then one hardly has to go all the way to the Sudan to find an example.

28

I realize that’s what she meant, but my impression of the OP’s complaint was that you shouldn’t go tossing around the label “Nazi” as lightly as a lot of people do. Of course, I am not the OP, so we’ll have to wait for a clarification.

29

Can I see a cite on MacKinnon, Greer, and Steinem?

30

I think that the disagreement here is coming from a lack of definition.

There are types of feminism:

There’s the “I just want a chance to do what the guys are doing. If I can do it just as well as they can, then I’d like to be able to” type of feminism.

And then there’s the “I should be allowed to do whatever I like, no matter if I can do it better than a guy or not. Guys have been in charge too long and now it’s time for girls to rule over them. I need special privileges because I’ve been horribly mistreated (someone tried to hold a door open for me!!) and guys need to be taken down a notch, thinking they’re so damned good. Screw them, I wanna be special. Oh, and I don’t wanna have to sign up for the draft. I want better rights than men, but to hell with that equal responsibility crap” type.

First type, good. Second type, man-hating nazis.

31

No, I can’t. You are correct. However, I’m fairly certain that I experience a great deal more pleasure than a woman that has been circumcised. Are you seriously arguing otherwise? How are the two even remotely comparable?

I find it fucking hilarious. The thing is, you’re not speaking for me. And I reserve the right to get outraged about little girls being sexually mutilated all in the name of some nutso deity.

32

Reminds me how a few years back there was one I heard of (in Australia) where she’d killed him and cooked him up for dinner. First question someone asked on the message board I used to frequent: “OMG! Had be been abusing her children?”

No, he’d just decided he wasn’t going to marry her. But let’s start out by assuming the victim needs to be blamed. :rolleyes:

Then there was the very dodgy case over here the year before last where the man had just told his wife he was leaving her, and half an hour later his lawnmower shed caught fire with him inside it. And she was too panic-stricken to remember how to call the fire-brigade (yes, really). The coroner’s court obligingly decided he’d set the place on fire by accident, and the site was subsequently razed, so not much chance of any further evidence turning up…

33

Is it because of sexism or is it because the best candidates with the requisite seniority and experience might happen to be men? You see a male CEO and assume that it’s because of sexism?

Read some of their essays, which is what I had to do when studying feminist influence on law in the US and Canada in college. Most of my impressions were formed then, but I’m afraid I can’t cite you chapter and verse of essays I read eight years ago.

And I don’t think that in the US today that qualifies as feminism. What can a man do in the US that a woman today can’t?

While one often causes more severe physical detriment than the other, both are completey unnecessary and irreversible procedures done to unconsenting patients. The degree of severity of one versus the other does not mean they are entirely different animals.

Nope. I have my own viewpoint on the practice in general. That is my right, isn’t it?

And I reserve the right to get outraged if I want to about little boys being sexually mutilated whether in the name of some deity or not.
Malacandra: Men have nothing to worry about, though. Or so say the feminists.

34

Yeah, I demonize men because I hate myself. :rolleyes:

Who’s Phil Hartman, and why should I care? Any relation to Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman?

I’m not saying no woman has ever tracked down a man who left her, and killed him or otherwise done him harm. (That’s why I seasoned liberally with expressions like “by and large.”) I’m saying it’s rare.

Case in point: I’m painting you as a dishonest debater. Not because you oppose male circumcision, but because, first, you treated it as comparable with female circumcision, but then when called on it, you backed away from that stance, changed your position, and accused me of painting you as a lunatic on account of your new position, which I hadn’t yet said word one about.

I see you haven’t touched my list about the accomplishments of feminists.

35

RTFirefly–and as a 40 something, I well remember that my mother could not get a credit card in her name, and that she could not get a job without my father’s approval–the company called and asked him. Of course he said no–“no wife of mine will work”–and so, no job.
My mother used to say that she was grateful that when she went to the train station to pick up Dad, that he allowed her to drive home–the other wives used to slide over (ah, bench seats!), because no woman should drive a man. That was the way it was.

The social structure was saturated with the notion that women were irrational, hysterical, taller children. It was very odd to say the least, and difficult to convey to those who did not experience it. Old sitcoms like Andy Griffith and Dick Van Dyke are good examples.

this was 1970, btw–not 1870.

IMO, the feminist movement did a great deal of good in this country. Does that mean I adhere to all the positions and opinions touted by those active in the movement?

No way. Noone takes any political platform, agenda, premise completely to heart–or if you do, you’re a bit of nut, yourself. I don’t know of anyone who doesn’t have qualifications to place on any school of thought–look at politics.

So, I don’t equate Dworkin or whoever with entire feminist movement is a crock.

We’ve been here before–and to no good purpose. But we have far to go. I am grateful to the feminists for raising such a huge stink–sometimes it is the most extreme factions that even get the issue on the table–but that doesn’t mean that all of what they say is invalid or wrong.

Until we can get to a time where Americans do not bandy about the inherent dangers of having a menstruating President (what will she do when she get PMS?)–we are far from done with this fight.
And, just for yucks–I think the Pope is indeed nuts. He needs to get out a bit more, dontcha think?

36

Exactly*. We’re done. Mission accomplished. No need for radical, man-hating feminists.

What was the point of feminism? To let us do what we wished, if we were good enough to do it. And we can. The modern, man-hating types just want us to switch to some Amazon type culture where women…sorry, womyn ( :rolleyes: ), rule.

  • Yes, I realize there are still some areas where women and men don’t have equal opportunities, but mostly, they do.
37

Of course we can’t. But we can know how much joy our circumcised joysticks bring us, i.e. plenty. It’s hard to imagine we’ve been deprived of much. It’s not like uncircumcised guys have multiple orgasms, or something on that order, that we circumcised guys don’t. If there’s something in the literature to suggest that the degree of sexual pleasure experienced by uncircumcised males is vastly greater than that we circumcised males know, I’ve missed it. Care to illuminate us?

I don’t consider myself a feminist. But I’m someone who’s lived through a time of changes, and I can bear witness concerning those changes as easily as the next person, male or female.

38

These posts IMHO demonstrate another problem with feminism in that it demonstrates a worldview that is either fundamentally selfish or fundamentally disconnected with reality. Part of the feminist ideology is that gender marks the greatest divide between those that have and those that have not. In other words women are the poor and oppressed while men are lords of the manner. This view is simply not true. The reality is that class and wealth are the greatest separaters between the oppressed and the opressors. While it is certainly true that poor women around the world often have quite hard lives, it is equally true that poor men likewise lead hard lives.

So for instance irishgirl talks about countries buying arms is a feminist issue because it takes money away from healthcare. This completely ignores the fact that arms in general are used by men in war. As such arms spending can be seen as an indicator of the deaths of men in warfare. And it is not like there are special good hospitals for men and poor wones for women. A lack of funding for healthcare typically effects both genders as men do get sick too. Yet somehow this spending on arms is a problem for women.

For every such list of hardships that women face, you can come up with equal lists of things for men. So off the top of my head

  • Men are typically treated harsher by our justice system, with far more men in prisons than women, higher rates of conviction and typically longer sentances
  • Excluding rape and domestic violence man are far more likely to be the victims of violent crime. And some men are victims of rape and domestic violence, yet these are still seen as “womens crimes”, and thus cases where men are the victims are typically not taken very seriously
  • Girls are significantly out performing boys in nearly all levels of schooling. There is now a distinct female majority on most university campuses
  • Men have a higher rate of suicide
  • Men are far more likely to be conscripted into military service against their will
    And so on.

The point is not to try and say that everything is fine and dandy for women. In fact far from it. The point is to say that the feminist division of the haves and the have-nots into male/female is in many cases just wrong

Then that is just illogical. Why is “the foetus is female” any better or worse reason than the myriad of other possible reasons why someone may choose to abort a foetus? If it really is the women’s choice, as so many pro-choice advocates say, who are you to put boundaries on her fundamental right to choose?

39

The Hell?

SNL. News Radio. The Simpsons.

40

Really? I’m not that familiar with you, so I don’t know what you’ve worked hard for. But I can think of many situations where you could have worked hard, and how feminism may have helped pave the way for you to even get a chance to pursue your ambitions in the first place.

Let’s say you (generic female, not necessarily you) worked hard in school, got an undergrad degree, busted your chops studying and working, got admitted to grad school, worked your ass of for more years, and earned a PhD. Damn hard work. But despite your hard work, where would you have gotten if your gender denied you even the chance of being admitted to college in the first place?

Your blood and sweat made you successful in whatever you chose to do, but how can you not appreciate the fact that you were given some kind of choice in the first place? Do you honestly take that for granted?

Do you think that all the women 50 or 100 or 500 years ago who didn’t get to pursue higher dreams just didn’t have enough blood and sweat? That it was a personal failing on their part?

Or just maybe they didn’t get a chance to pursue their dreams because of the mysogynist bias of their culture?

Or in some places/times they didn’t even have dreams to pursue, because they weren’t aware that they even could have other ambitions?