Feminism

Thank you =p

I feel like this logic falls apart when you realize that not only do women have all of the same rights as men, but men don't have all of the same rights as women. For example, when a wife and husband divorce, statistically women get the child more than the man even if the man is equally or more qualified to raise the child, and thus men are more likely to have to pay child support.

Similarly, if a woman has sex, she can do the following to prevent having to pay child support in the event that she does lose rights. She can have the man wear a condom, she can take birth control, she can take the 'day-after' pill, she can get an abortion, and finally she can put the baby up for adoption. Contrastly, the man can wear a condom. If he fails that, he is at the mercy of the woman. Men should be allowed to "Financially abort" their children should they so choose, meaning that they claim no rights to the baby fiscally but can not see the child unless the mom agrees to it.

For the same crimes, women are sentenced to extremely less prison time, and I see a lot of people complaining about how "bad" women in jail have it when men nearly objectively have it worse. I've even heard feminists complaining that women in jail don't get make-up that specifically caters to their specific skin tone. Holy ****.

You see, I'd agree that perhaps in some respects and niche situations, men have "male privilege." Women on the other hand have a lot of privileges. Women only scholarships, women only homeless shelters, etc, but if you made a Men only scholarship you'd be legislatively barred from doing so.

So calling yourself a Feminist when you think that it applies to both genders is false and a misnomer. Feminists do not touch on these things, and more often than not they are vitriolic and petty.

Exactly.

I think it's right to slander the whole movement.

And women DO have access to all of their rights all of the time. And from your post, it seems like you think sexism hurts women more than men. This is simply untrue. If a man tells a woman she is too ugly to be his girlfriend, he is called a sexist pig. When a woman tells a man that he is too short to be her boyfriend, or some similar thing, she it called strong and independent. Can you not see how this is bad for men? There is sexism against women, but as someone who grew up male and lives her life now fully as a female, I can tell you that instantly the treatment I receive is so much more positive than before.

And no one is arguing that women shouldn't be respected simply for being female. We are arguing whether or not they already are. I am tired of feminists telling me things like "Either you are a feminists, or a sexist." It's not true. I want women to have all of the same rights as men, as they already do, obviously. I think men need those same rights and respect now.

 

Here's a question for all the feminists:
Should a woman always be paid as much as a man for the same job?

What about physical labor jobs, where an average woman simply would not be able to as much as an average man?
Is it fair to pay her the same wage when she's not doing as much work?

 

This is a good point. I mean as far as I hate to say it, Sexual Dimorphism is a real factor for this. I'd say that people who cannot do as much work should make less money in general.

 

Well it depends what you mean by 'physical labour jobs'; I can't think of many jobs which purely involve physical work without any element of skill or training. It's that skill and ability that you're paid for, and I see no reason why an average woman would be less able than an average man; it's mostly down to practice, I think the effects of the physical differences between men and women would be negligible, so the pay should be equal.

As for the few jobs which do entail mindless physical labour, can you really see your average woman being interested in doing that anyway?

 

You make a great case for the ways in which men have fewer rights than women, but it is also true that women do, in some other different cases, have fewer rights than men. Mostly, society just seems to treat them differently, and I've found that the core concepts in Feminism (disregarding all the unhealthy pop-Feminist junk) really fit with my desire to see the problems faced by men and women be equally assuaged.

The point about men and women with respect to their financial obligation to their offspring is a good one.

Women definitely do have some privileges. Actually, I think anyone who says they don't have any privileges is totally oversimplifying the idea of privilege to begin with.

There are some problems with the feminist movement. Most of it is in our image and our outspoken, ignorant members who in reality make up a small minority of our population and tend to be mostly young people at that.

You lost me a little bit here. I get that the classic tumblr feminists and loud people over social media can be as annoying as heck, but not all of us feminists have such blatantly arrogant views.

Women definitely don't have access to all of their rights all of the time, (i.e. all the same rights as men) but you're right that sexism hurts men just as much. I just think it hurts them in different ways, according to how society looks at their stereotypes.

Well, some people definitely do argue that women ought to have less respect, but they tend to be the odd ones out.

I do think men's social sphere ought to be expanded, in much the same way I think women's social sphere should. I don't consider those two things opposed, but rather deeply connected.

There are plenty of women who are stronger or tougher than I am. Their biology doesn't necessarily have to be relevant. If they can do the job, they ought to be paid the same. Maybe this sort of qualification should be evaluated on the personal level.

True.

 

I meant more like unskilled construction jobs.

 

Maybe. The ones I've worked with seemed ok with it though.

 

Hi Sarah Thanks for the response!

I suppose if women really are treated equally, then supporting that should be pretty easy. I don't think that's the case everywhere, but it's also true that humanity is not evenly anything everywhere. Women are not CEO's and National Leaders as often as men are, but those numbers are edging toward a more even representation. Women are more free today than they were 100 years ago, 1000 years ago, and probably more than they were 10,000 years ago. So I feel pretty optimistic about equality.

I also feel secure in my own rights. So I'm going to mostly ignore them and focus instead on my responsibilities. I feel it's only right for me to treat myself sternly and treat others compassionately. In fact, if everyone did that, we'd have a pretty awesome planet. Feminism is a part of that for me.

I very much agree that male gender roles are just as limiting as female ones, and that males should liberate themselves from cultural expectations as much as women do. But I also feel that by liberating "the other", you will liberate yourself. I'm from a southern family and my ancestors owned plantations. It was all too true that by enslaving others they enslaved themselves. But I think that street goes both ways. If you free others, you free yourself. I'm not saying you should be a feminist. Maybe you shouldn't. But I ought to. I feel it's necessary for the sake of my soul.

As for having the right make-up in jail, that does sound silly.

I don't feel I need the help from government or society for supporting my white maleness. Maybe you feel the same about your femaleness. I agree there are some inequalities regarding roles in childcare, family planning and a few other things, but I'm not going to complain about it. Instead I'm going to support "the enemy". Because that enemy is myself. And maybe if I support women, they might take it easy on me and fight for "the other's" rights, too. But I don't need anyone's permission, nor anyone's reciprocation to do what I feel good doing. And that's calling myself a name that many dislike, braving the whips and scorns of outrageous fortune, balking instinct and self-preservation and proving my spiritual existence by fighting for something that might give me no benefit.

I hope you will not find me vitriolic and petty if I call myself a feminist. And I hope I've explained my personal ever-evolving brand of the word.

 

Aidan OGain, I do not think you are vitriolic or petty. You seem like a pretty stand up guy in fact. =D

 

You're too kind. Part of the reason I like MLP is because of the way it models positive human values from a female perspective. Finding that perspective is very important to my efforts in story telling. And in being human, generally.

So yay. Feminism!

 

Every person in the world will be hated by no less (but far more) than 100 people for the silliest reason. Everyone's being told they're less than human for a label that's been attached to them by people who don't want to know them. Everyone: men, women, agenders, cisgenders, transgenders, feminists, masculinists, this, that, and the other thing. And everyone of them deserves kindness and people to protect them should they be unable to speak up on their own behalf or protect themselves.


But you shouldn't expect every person to join your side and defend you. With hundreds of thousands of political struggles all over the world and many of them involving people getting away with justices, how could anyone tackle even 1% of all those problems without either getting discouraged, depressed, or finding an issue they have trouble understanding and thus defending? So people should be allowed to cherry pick whatever causes they want to fight for. Please remember that if you get upset should you meet a feminist that doesn't talk about men's issues, or a masculinists that doesn't talk about women's issues.


The only thing I condemn are the people who want to shut up one side and force everyone to worship the other.

 

Very few males really want to empathize and perceive existence from the point-of-view-perspective of women, and vice-versa, very few females really want to empathize and perceive existence from the point-of-view-perspective of men. So an objective mind is very rare, and unheard of in females.

Males have a natural instinct and prerogative to "get into the mind of women", while the inverse is not true. Females do not empathize with men, and more specifically do not want to. What's the reason? I suspect that it has to do with the necessity of male suffering to account for male expendability.

The bottom line.

Women never know the suffering of average men, never want to, and never will.

This forces males to be the 'Altruistic' half of the human archetype. Males are recognized as "more selfless" than women, more self-sacrificing (like warriors and soldiers in war, dying by the thousands). This also immediately explains why "Jesus Christ", as a living legend, must be male and not female. Because all legends must contain a modicrum bit of believability. Nobody would believe in Christianity if Christ were a female, a woman.


Women are naturally selfish, and even including their own children, a mother can and will still put herself before her children, despite all claims contrary. A woman, like a man, only truly cares for her own biologically first. The difference between men and women, on this point, is that a woman is assured the child is hers, while the male usually is left wondering, and sometimes unsure.

Civilization, marriage, and husbandry all evolved and become more sophisticated to ensure the male (husband) of a pair-bond that his children, are in fact his, genetically.

However this traditional, conservative value is diminishing in western society (usa). The social era is one where fewer and fewer "biological fathers" interact with their own children.

It's becoming more and more unnecessary as 'female' nature is unleashed and overpowering, oppressive.

In the end times, there will be a cleansing, and the righteous will prosper. Women will be taken into bushels and bushels, and burned.

 

I can't tell if you're taking the piss or if you're legitimately prejudiced with half this nonsense.

There's no lack of empathy on the part of women towards men or men towards women in especial; some people in general seem to be extra empathetic, while others are not. Gender rarely seems to play into it, and the notion that any one gender or sex is inherently more empathetic is both preposterous and entirely unsupported by facts.

Also, growing up I knew some kids that never knew their fathers, but I knew just as many (if not more, actually, although the numbers themselves are more anecdotal than empirical so don't read too much into that) whose mothers abandoned them; I'm not talking about giving up for adoption, I'm talking about legitimately walking out of their growing children's lives and never looking back. I don't know why they did it and I'm not here to sling my judgements around, but it just goes to show that there is nothing inherently nurturing about women. Plenty of women never have and never want children, and the notion that they do/must is just a dumb social construction.

I'm not even going to address the woman-burning crap.

 

There are two kinds of feminists that are most prevalent, I believe.

a) People (both men and women) who truly want equality for everybody, but somewhat blindly support the movement, trusting in its stated goals rather than the ones it is clearly moving towards. These people have a good heart, but have been misled to believe that the toxic, supremacist sludge leading the charge of Feminism (feminist type b) actually have the same beliefs and ideals that they do, therefore gaining their superficial support as a statistic and a spokesperson. Alternatively, these could be people who have been in the feminist movement for a while, but have only just begun to realize what the most recent generation of feminism actually is.

b) People (mostly women, but some men too) that believe men as a whole are out to get women as a whole, in the form of oppressing them and forcing them to the bottom of society in any way possible, and therefore believe that women must oppress men first, in a preemptive strike sort of mindset. Or, alternatively, they realize that is totally incorrect, but they are women just in it for the essentially free money, fame and power that comes with being a leader in the Feminist movement, or being a woman in a post-feminism world. It's difficult to tell which is true at a glance.

Of course, there are people who do not fit into these categories, but these two are primarily what I see. And I see more and more people who want to call themselves feminists, but are intelligent enough to realize that the movement has become something that they cannot support. I see the terms "humanist", "egalitarian" and "equal rights supporter" being used far more frequently, as they avoid association with feminist type b. I would call myself any of these things, but not a feminist. While I could call myself a feminist and insist that the others are just not TRUE feminists, it is far less confusing to dissociate altogether from them. After all, if the motivations of feminism are truly equality for everyone, these names are a far more appropriate label for the movement than something that would imply only seeking rights for women, correct?



Finally, I've seen several claims thrown around here regarding how many rights women ACTUALLY have compared to men, and I would like to say that doing proper research is never a bad thing. And not only research looking up facts and figures, but finding out how those 'facts' and figures were actually obtained! Many key feminist uses of statistics, such as the Gender Pay Gap and the infamous "1 in 5 women" statistic, were acquired through extremely sketchy research, or have had the numbers skewed in some way that may or may not be technically legitimate in order to make more of an impact, or have been grossly misrepresented or intentionally used out of context, or any combination of these or worse! It is of utmost importance to ALWAYS check your statistics and where they came from before you accept them as support for anything.

 

Yes, doing your own research is always important.

Okay, you lost me. This is just plain untrue. I've seen plenty of people argue against the statistics you've mentioned but they're backed by multiple legitimate sources whereas the counter-statistics used to discredit them have very little to no credible academic backing at this time.

The gender pay gap cent-to-the-dollar percentage fluctuates based on tested demographics, so a range of percentages is most often used for an accurate idea of men's pay compared to women's pay in general.

As for the 1/5 female sexual abuse statistic, it's also well-supported. I've seen a lot of arguments against it but again, very few of those arguments made any salient points against the statistic itself, instead choosing to attack the study. It's important to understand the origins of the statistic; the origin survey cited the experiences of college-age women. Other surveys have backed up those findings with different methods. If you want to know about inconsistencies in the original study, there were also companion studies to some of those surveys which found that the same statistic represents roughly 1/25 among the male population (that's about three times as high as originally thought).

 

I should have been more clear, I didn't put it very well. The problem I have with feminism and statistics is not that they use incorrect statistics, necessarily. The problem I have is the same problem I have with many other groups, which is that statistics are consistently used incorrectly or misleadingly, perhaps intentionally, or perhaps not.

That is correct, it does fluctuate, but I have no problem with the actual statistic. The problem is that while women overall make 77% of what men make overall, a side-by-side comparison of a man and a woman working the same job has consistently showed that there is little to no pay bias in the country. That statistic is a result of men working more high-risk jobs, or jobs that require much more out of a person, than women. And statistics show, once again, that this is voluntary, or as voluntary as a job can be.

Men usually work high-risk, high-pay jobs more often because traditionally, they are the money makers. Women, on the other hand, tend to work jobs that pay less, because they prefer those jobs, not because other jobs will not consider them (there are exceptions to this, but they are just that: exceptions). Factory workers get paid more than daycare workers, because factory work is physically harder.

Finally, the statistic often does not even take into account the 'per hour' pay of the two groups. It simply takes into account the median earnings of each group in one year. How about accounting for overtime, or the fact that men work overtime more often because again, they are more often the breadwinners?

This one is tricky. There have been a lot of studies, and I've seen statistics ranging from 5% to 40%, both of which are probably incorrect. The truth is that researchers have only a vague idea of how to accurately conduct these studies, because of the sensitive nature of the topic. I cannot, therefore, say that I know one thing or another.

The problem that I have here is, again, not the statistic (even though it is unreliable and most likely inaccurate). The problem I have is the dishonesty with which it is constantly used. People mis-quote, saying "one in five women will be raped", rather than completed or attempted sexual assault. They forget to mention that most of these studies are focused on college campuses, or a specific age group, and are not representative of the entire population. They use it for scare tactics, and worse, I've seen it used to claim that one in five men must be responsible, which is complete and utter nonsense.


While to the objective, critical mind this twisting of the fact is easily unraveled, other people simply see or hear a stated statistic and run with it. Even government officials, organizations, and the president of the US himself, who has incorrectly represented both of these statistics in public speeches.

So, in conclusion, yes, the statistics are technically correct. The problem is that when viewed without bias or fact-twisting, they prove very little.

 

There.All of my words.

 

Really now...if so why is there this tendency to exclude males from everything...you even see it an early age..."guys have cooties"...etc.

Males, at young ages do the same thing, because they are mentally female before they enter puberty...so we can see that it is the female's natural tendency to exclude, and deny companionship...

There are only two circumstances when a woman cares, when she is paid to do so (as a nurse) or when it is her own young...And you better obey social norms or she will leave you to die...one female nurse left a transgender to bleed to death because she did not approve of the lifestyle...