This group, and its name, reflects the final defeat of the original meaning of “feminism” and its capitulation to both radicals on the feminist side and their opponents on the other side.
Years ago, saying “women against feminism” would be akin to saying “women against women.” Now women who are as feminist as feminists used to be can say they are against feminism with a straight face.
Time for a new word for simply gender equality.
Not in my view. In my view, these anti-feminist groups are largely misrepresenting the views of most feminists.
That’s half of what I said. And it’s much more than half of the problem. But there are enough radicals out there hijacking real feminism to make it awful hard to defend the word any more. As I said, when women who are die-hard feminists in every way, yet insist the label “feminist” doesn’t apply to them, it may be too late to reclaim the word.
If the vast majority start to believe that feminism is very bad, then you might be right. I think we’re pretty far from that point.
Only 18% of Americans say they consider themselves feminists, according to a recent poll. 52% said they aren’t and the balance said they weren’t sure or gave no answer.
It would be very interesting to see a breakdown by gender, but alas.
Most respondents said they believe in gender equality, etc. - they just reject the label.
We may not be at the point where “feminist” is lost, but we may be close. I blame both the anti-feminist a-holes and the radicals within the movement who feed them. But that’s not an unusual thing to happen in any movement.
I don’t know why they would be. Men look for different things in women than women do in men.
They do, all the time, and are rejected all the time. One of them even tried on-line dating and was told to “Die in a fire you ugly cunt”. When she actually asked a male friend to be honest with her about how to get men, he told her, “Be less smart”.
It doesn’t mean ugly. Neither of them is ugly at all. But if it makes you feel better, then ugly women shouldn’t date, but then, neither should ugly men, right? So everyone in the Friendzone is just the uggos. Wow, that makes me feel a whole lot better.
That’s not the Friendzone, that’s the “needs to report this asshole and get him kicked off the dating site-zone.”
But still, can’t find a date? “Because of the pigtriarchy” is just as invalid an excuse as “because feminism made all these bitches think they’re too good for me.”
If we are, we’ll find a different word coming into use, at least until the deliberate stigmatization of “feminist” wears off somewhat.
Similarly, starting in the late 1980s there was a concerted effort by many conservative media voices to make “liberal” a dirty word that listeners would automatically associate with negative things. The percentage of the population identifying with the term “liberal” dropped even as they continued to support policies that liberals espoused. Consequently, liberals began to use less stigmatized terms, such as “progressive” or “populist”, to describe themselves and their positions.
These sorts of perception shifts tend to go in generational cycles. As time passes and kneejerk grumbling about “liberals” becomes more familiarly associated with grouchy parents and grandparents than with edgy young contemporaries, young people will tend to lose their instinctive fear of the word. Similarly, as today’s self-proclaimed anti-feminists grow ever older and less cool, their stigmatization of the term “feminism” will ultimately lose its grip too.
[quote=“Jane_Elliot, post:426, topic:732667”]
I don’t know why they would be. Men look for different things in women than women do in men.[/]
I just cant imagine turning down a date for being too smart or too successful.
I guess your friends have sadly ended up in network of arseholes.
Are you crazy? If it was up to me everybody would be happy, ugly or not. Ugly girls are one of the segments of the population I feel the worst for. Ugly men at least have options they can work on, like being financial successful, have an interesting career, having a powerful position, or whatever of other things girls find attractive. Ugly girls have very few options like this. Unfortunately I’m very much a broken person (although I’d never say a thing like “die you ugly fire cunt”), but I always hope there’s a better person than me out there that can make them happy.
It’s just that it’s not really my experience that men in general find intelligence or success to be turn offs. Just that it’s not a particular turn on either. So what I observe is that a successful women still only want to be with a man at least as intelligent and successful as herself. But these men are very attractive to a very large number of women, and then they’re outclassed because the men don’t value their success or intelligence and they’re in competition with 15 year younger girls with perfect tits and a face that light up a moonless night.
There are some men who won’t date a too smart or too successful woman. I think it’s a minority, but there’s hardly any woman who will turn down a man because he’s too smart or too successful, so there’s an imbalance. More importantly, being smart, and even more so successful generally isn’t as much as a turn on for men as it is for women. Being successful doesn’t add a lot to your “market value” if you’re a woman while it does matter if you’re a man.
Also, smart/successful women, in my experience, tend not to date “below their condition”. (a female manager won’t date the janitor, regardless how attractive or funny he is, while her male counterpart might) and as a result, as Rune pointed out, tend to restrict their pool to equally successful men who are highly sought after.
That say, despite being successful not being highly valued for women, it’s not my experience that successful women typically fail to find a mate. And regarding intelligence, there are a lot of men who value it. So, I’m pretty certain there’s some other factor in the case of these two women. Maybe Jane Elliott find them very pleasant to be around, but being valuable as a friend doesn’t necessarily translate to being valuable as a partner, let alone to being able to find a partner. I think most of us know some people, male or female, who are really nice, reasonnably attractive, etc… and still mysteriously unable to score a significant other.
I don’t believe the real issue of these two women is that they’re too smart.
Never used that word, don’t quote it back to me.
All I was trying to say was that the “Friendzone” for what ever reason, isn’t limited to something women do to men. It happens to both men and women, but only women get blamed for putting men in the Friendzone.
What you’re doing is called the apex fallacy:
But yes, men are pretty awesome. Or at least we have the potential to be.
This doesn’t apply when comparing men and women of the same experience, and noting that men make more money.
Still curious about your response to this post and others like it:
That’s fine, but it’s not an extremist opinion. It’s from The Chronicle of Higher Education, not some random poster on an internet forum. According to Wikipedia, it is “a major news service in United States academic affairs.” And “Over the years, the paper has been a finalist and winner of many journalism awards. In 2005, two special reports – on diploma mills and plagiarism – were selected as finalists in the reporting category for a National Magazine Award. It has been a finalist for the award in general excellence every year from 2001 to 2005.”
In any case, I’m glad you condemn it.
“Humanist” was brought up. I like it.
I’ve read multiple opinion columns and articles in many mainstream periodicals that I’d consider extremist. It’s not that rare, and seems to be a pretty common occurrence. That’s one of the things opinion and editorial sections exist for.
Huh? It’s right there in your post. Or do you mean “patriarchy,” not friendzone. OK, no offense intended. But it really does sound like your friends are blaming the status quo, and in a thread about feminism, that status quo has a accepted name.
Great, except that “humanist” already has a mainstream definition. I’d suggest finding another term to marginalize feminists.