Feminism!

[Pale]

Ok, so, I was linked to a little blog by a friend of mine. More accurately, the archive of an old blog, but it remains very interesting indeed.

You must be registered to see the links

Title, "A Woman Against Feminism, And For Men's Rights".

Now, this suddenly struck chords with me, even before I'd read a single post. A woman who dared to argue against feminism as it stands today - against the insane levels of man-hating I've seen some friends devolve to. I know a girl who genuinely wants to, as it was once put "reduce the male population of the Earth to 10%".

My personal view is that feminism is a great movement that has come rather too far. Like a train that's carried on past the end of its line, and no one on it has any clue as to where they are, so they just keep going. More, I feel it becomes an outlet for the irritating "We're all winners" modern attitudes. Some things women can not do as well as men, on the whole. Some professions are going to have higher percentages of males. Others, females. I feel that it's time to accept this, move on, and stop spouting this crap about how women are better than men in every way, including their capacity for manual labour.

But that's just me. Poll below, and leave your thoughts! As the kids put it, though, "In before" - Women should just get back in the kitchen and give up on this feminist lark altogether, hurr hurr. There, it was funny, we all laughed.. Onto the actual points. Open to you, ladies, gentlemen, and Mobe!

P

(But not SirOni. Your opinion counts for nothing here.)

 

[Sinfulwolf]

Re: Feminism!

While I may consider myself a feminist of sorts, I'm all for equal rights, not that women are better than men. So yes, I agree in that feminism is going a bit far these days.

As a soldier, I was happy to know that every man and woman there would be able to drag my sorry ass out of the shit should I lose a leg. Many women would not be able to do that, as most women are generally not as strong as men. That said, women are very well capable of gaining the strength to work in the infantry well, and this goes for firefighters, police and so forth. Like I said though, the majority can not. I always grimace when I see a whip-thin female working security somewhere, knowing in my mind that she would not be able to do the physical aspect of her job and that she's only there as a representative of the female population. The icing on the cake is when they wear lipstick and eyeshadow in these positions...

I still can't stress enough however, that a woman can do these jobs if she puts her mind to it. Some of the best soldiers I've worked with have been female, and some of the best best leaders and officers I've been under have been female. The combat arms trade however, is still predominantly male, and it always will be. It's a fact, and men in today's society tend to be stronger and so better suited to the job.

I think I repeated myself a few times in this post, but for a recap, I believe in equal rights. If a woman can do the job let her, but don't let her in just to fill a quota to appear non-sexist.

 

[Incubus]

Re: Feminism!

Ah, this old one.

This sort of debate always reminds me of a certain thread back on another forum with a very low male population I used to moderate. The thread was called "Down with sexism". It should have been titled "All men are pigs".

And attempting to diffuse the situation was something I took one shot at before passing the pass to a fellow female mod.

 

[handofdoz]

Re: Feminism!

i treat women equal to men already, but every time a woman asks for special treatment it really pisses me off. i don't understand how you can ask to be special and equal. and anyone who even hints at being better than me is about to get themselves into one shit-storm of an argument.

women are where they place themselves. if they wanted to be better than men they need to act it, not demand it.

on a side note, ill treat a woman like a queen, empress, or goddess if the sex is worth it.

 

[Lucas]

Re: Feminism!

I am 100% a feminist, but not by the standards that have been put in place today. When the feminist movement started out, it was about getting gender equality and casting away the shackles of gender roles that society tends to place on women. This was done with such symbolic gestures as burning bras and such. This movement was focused on the gender as a whole improving, and therefor it would give better opportunities in life to an individual. I agree with this movement very much.

Today's feminist movement has morphed into a sad parody of what the original movement started out as. It's more concerned with the wants of the individual over anything else. And, like most any subculture that manages to become popular, it has become undermined by corporations (think how underground Punk music was; most everything about it is now sold at Hot Topic for the masses) and political groups who use it to their advantage in order to make a buck or get votes. Once many of these groups saw that the old style of selling things via their sex appeal towards women, they shifted to marketing via a more feminist strategy.

Gone were the old ads for lipstick claiming how your husband would love the color, only to be replaced by how the same product makes you feel like a real woman. Without a negative stigma attached to things like that, which women were fighting against in the first place, it allowed for feminism to be transformed from the ideals of gender equality to getting allowed to be a complete bitch and just say it's because you're a strong-willed feminist.

Feminism is about the genders being EQUAL, not one getting special privileges when it suits them.

 

[Chibichibi]

Re: Feminism!

Bah. The only thing I'm still ticked about is the fact that there STILL isn't equal pay in a lot of places.

Fix that though and we're good to go.

I do my best to make sure that I'm treated equally. I pay for my own food, I don't expect men to open doors for me or give up their seat on a bus (Though if they do it gives me warm fuzzy feelings. Chivalry isn't dead xD ) and It's in my nature to be just as crass as the boys. It amuses me to no end to see the shocked look on their faces when i wolf whistle at a hot chick or something equally "masculine" .


That being said, I do LIKE being treated like a lady, but I'm not going to demand it.

 

[aika]

Re: Feminism!

When there's a pay gap for men and women performing the same job at the same level of performance there's a problem.

There is also a problem, however, when a company chooses to hire a woman over a man simply because they don't have enough women.

The thing that some modern day feminists forget is that while we do need women and men to be treated equally, they are different, and this means they are good at different things.

Most women's lingerie shops only hire female sales staff. Of course, this makes sense, people feel more at ease purchasing from and discussing women's underwear with women. In the same way, men are on the whole more physically capable and therefore more suited to jobs in which performance is a direct result of physical capability.

 

[Nunu]

Re: Feminism!

feminism still has a way to go, as chibi said, things like equal pay and ingrained bias need to be worked out in many areas of society. however i think the major problem is that people from a more sexist time are yet to be completely phased out from these position. that and i large proportion of assholes the world over.

That being said i've had my friends tell me stories of them getting chewed out for opening a door for a woman and i think we all agree that the majority of feminists (or the most vocal ones) today are these pop culture children looking for a reason to be angry at a man kinds. They are a disgrace to feminism, end womens sufferage now!

also aika be a bit more careful in your wording, men are GENERALY more physically capable (lest ye forget darkfire).

 

[Pheonix Alugere]

Re: Feminism!

One of the things that I'm starting to think will happen is that the laws and regulations being shoved into place to cause equal rights are going to bite people in the ass in the future. Not only the stuff that will push people into jobs others are more capable of, but a lot of the ones meant to deal with bias. Simply put, I heavily doubt that once the 'problem' is resolved, people will remove those laws. This would then cause the situation to go further to make a female dominant society. While many would not see that as bad, things would eventually reach the point where a male rights movement would replace any female rights movements. From here, things would just start to seesaw unnecessarily for possibly centuries which would cause more harm than simply making all gender laws be the same for both genders. (If there is a law saying you must have X amount of women in the workplace, there should be one saying there must be X amount of men as well) That way, things should more easily balance themselves out.



Essentially: there is still a bit to go, but it isn't being dealt with in a manner that will make sure it stays dealt with.

 

[Cactuses]

Re: Feminism!

I'm not much consernet about political and other thoughtfull movements like this.

Feminist has good points and all, specialy when it was about equality, can't argue with that. Now if they could just stay in that line without moving here and there..

 

[Pheonix Alugere]

Re: Feminism!

I just found something interesting:

You must be registered to see the links

It isn't a recent editorial, but it still brings up an interesting point: the wage difference isn't necessarily because of discrimination.

The main two things that struck me are that, a) women seem to be more likely to take lower paying jobs in order to have more flexibility in their schedules, and b) the surveys that calculate wage difference often look at the average wage across jobs and not the average wage in a single job position.

 

[DarkFire1004]

Re: Feminism!

Feminism... I'm going to take a different approach from the rest of people here. I feel that the movement's gained a lot of power and it's a great thing. Power to the people, you know? I guess it's just because I'm a minority too, so I can kind of understand why. But then these days, it's really just been them flaunting their influence to deter people away from them in order to get their way. Who's ready for another look into Darkfire's sad and wretched life? I know I am.

The whole "holding a door for a lady" story where a guy gets bitched out for not respecting a woman's rights... Has never happened to me. You could say I'm lucky, but I just say I traded that bullshit in for another kind of bullshit. Instead of being a pig who doesn't respect a woman's rights, I'm just looked down upon as if I were inferior whenever I do it. Yeah yeah, I already hear you guys making the jokes. "Darkfire being looked down upon. That's nothing different." Tell me something I don't know.

Me being chivalrous just leads me to being a doormat. Just because I'm nice to a stranger, I'm immediately labeled as a pushover. Women tend to try to take advantage of me. Of course, I'm that anti-social creep you always see muttering to himself, so I normally just scare them off anyway with my regular behavior.

Maybe it's just because I seem meek or something, but every feminist I've ever met hasn't demanded for more rights. Instead, they feel that they're already all-powerful and that everybody should be bowing down to them. I'm not saying feminists are the bane of progress, but... Just tone the ego down, will ya?

 

[Newbie]

Re: Feminism!

It's dated september 2004, but I imagine the message keeps unless we've somehow become more misogynistic over time.

I am of the opinion that we should treat people like people. I am upset by douchenuggetts inclined to take offense at the drop of a hat in the belief that they are advancing a cause. Take from that what you will.

 

[Pale]

Re: Feminism!

Well, first off, it's nice to see we've got mostly level-headed folks here. I half expected a few joke votes on the two extremes, but seems people are mostly going for moderation.

Things that occurred to me while reading through other people's posts..

Firstly, we don't have this working on a global scale. Definitely not. There's still oppression of women going on in LEDCs. Or whatever the politically correct term is these days. (Maybe we could mail the feminists to them..?)

Secondly, Lucas is awesome. He pretty much encapsulated a lot of the points I was trying to make.

Thirdly, I call attention to some of the comments on the blog posts in my link. t's not simply that this woman took the chance to speak out - some people have basically said she deserves to be raped and not be able to confront her attacker under the law because she doesn't like feminism.

.....This kind of knee-jerk reaction makes me unhappy. Deeply unhappy. It reminds me of the way some homosexual groups can (sadly) throw their weight around. If you say no to them, you're a homophobe. Every minority seems to be getting in on it. Racism is another big one. Seems people really like their prejudices these days..

EDIT : And, a side note having read that "wage gap" link.. A lot of -women- are still living in the past. I went to a pretty damn privileged private school, all-girls, and every one of them that didn't fall for this "power woman" bullshit wanted to get married, get a husband and start being a housewife as soon as they could. Seems like fewer of the women I know actually have professional high-power, high-pay jobs. I know a lot of intelligent women in low-paying jobs because they're primarily housewives. And funnily enough... happy doing that!

P

 

[SomCr]

Re: Feminism!

Well, this is fairly difficult, I can't figure which poll choice is closest to my answer. Which would be, 'I think that modern feminism is still a needed institution however, not by itself and not in it's current direction.'

I wind up looking at society and seeing men and women being on average equal. Meaning that their advantages and disadvantages, either intrinsic or constructed, balance out. There are some areas where, when taking an average, either is better or worse. I got a rather rude awakening to both sides of this coin when I arrived at college.

The reason why I say it's(feminism) not useful by itself is that many supporters I've encountered seem to care more about "Bringing men down to our level." than "Making men and women equal." I use advantage and disadvantage because I find privilege to be a buzz word that fails to accurately describe the situation. I try to look for the base line of what the expectation ought to be and say that those above have an advantage and those below have a disadvantage. For an off topic example I look at extroverted v. introverted people(I'm using business/psychological definitions here). US society favors extroverts, due to many groups preferring group discourse of ideas as they form, and not taking the time to allow the introverted members to fully process their thoughts while the extroverts get their ideas out, even if they aren't formed and have little to no support.

In short, I think that the feminist movement and men's rights movements ought to have more joint actions in order to reduce both group's disadvantages and doing the best they can to mitigate the other's advantages; at least those they can, biology isn't exactly fair. Rather than fighting each other trying to reduce the other's advantages and decrease their own disadvantages and making far less progress as a result.

 

[Wonderboy]

Re: Feminism!

I think one of the best examples I know of feminism getting too much power is here in Norway. We actually have laws in our school system that attempt to make the genderlines blur out, problem is, the approach the state is taking is absolutely retarded. The way the system works is that if a girl submits an application at any of the norwegian universities, if that application is for something sciency, then her grade average gets a boost of 0.2... Doesn't sound like a lot I know... But these are the most coveted subjects, and your average needs to be perfect. This resulted one year, in ONLY girl getting accepted, because it wasn't possible for guys to get in because they needed the extra points. That is when it's gone too far.

 

[Cappy]

Re: Feminism!

I think I'm with Pale on this one, the trollocoaster of man-crushing madness is quite enough thank you. Not that I don't agree with certain feminists in the ideal that some men are idiotic and sexist, but I don't agree with others that all men are idiotic and sexist, and that there's a large amount of sexism in todays world.

I'm sorry, but, I can't say that I honestly enjoy the thought of somebody getting more rights , and expect to keep special treatment.

I believe in the whole, "Opening the door" "Never hit a woman" thing, with certain exceptions depending, if somebody hurts a child of mine, they're about to catch a fist fight, despite race-gender-orientation-culture, but really, women already have a substancial amount of power over men, especially men influenced largely over infatuation, or chivalry.
It's gone too far already, put a stop to the mass-scale protests, it's just an excuse for the idiots to spout out man-hating garbage, rather get a small group of friends, friends you know well, and protest outside a place where you know sexism is actually taking place, ya know?

Oh, and a good way to actually spot out the difference between a feminist group that may actually be truthful, or the over-the-top man-haters, you may actually see men protesting along side the women for equal rights for sexes sometimes, but not when the women are too busy spitting at them or trying to punch them in the nose for coming too close.

 

[Kusanagi]

Re: Feminism!

I've been told that being Chivalrous is sexist. I've been told that not helping a perfectly healthy and strong young woman carry two bags of groceries onto the bus is asshole-ish.
So if I help a girl, I'm sexist, and if I don't, I'm an asshole.

. . . . .


I think the original premise of Feminism is great, I really do. Women were being treated like shit, and that's not right. Most anybody can do any job, so long as they train themselves to do it. I hate what it's become today: just another reason for women to be total asshole bitches, and get away with it by saying they believe in Feminism.

I really don't agree with the 'fair labor' bullshit that gets put through. Not the 'you can't discriminate' stuff, that's actually needed (sadly); I mean the 'you need X amount of this race/gender/religion of worker' bullshit. All that does is get more qualified people passed up for a job, simply because they don't happen to be a 'minority'. FUCK. THAT. Basically what you're saying is that you don't care that this other fuck-head is going to financially ruin the company, as long as he's black/latino/asian, you'll hire him - or her - over the white guy who's obviously infinitely more qualified, and would actually put your company in the top 5 'wealthiest companies' list? That's fucking retarded. Yet that's what happens, all because the people decided to bitch out the Government for these laws. Well, we've got them now, boys and girls. Now you can sit back and watch the shit hit the fan, hard. And you know what? Like Christopher Titus might say, all the 'normal' people are going to amuse the fuck out of me, because they won't know what to do.
And then there are the people who use the law as an excuse to hire people for less than they could normally. 'Well, you're not as qualified as these other people, but if you'll take X amount less pay, we'll gladly hire you!' That way, they can afford to give themselves big, fat bonuses for doing 'such a good job' at obeying the law. Fuck-heads.

Of course, you can't forget why these laws were enacted, and why they can still be argued for today. There are still people in power who won't hire somebody, simply based on gender/race/religion. These people are fucking stupid. They'll hit financial ruin, but at least they didn't hire that black person!
=.=
Fuckin' A. These sort of people need to just get on with it already and decrease the surplus population of biggoted douchebags. I know why it is that some people can't move on, but nowadays it's more often than not simply because their mommy/daddy was a biggot, not for any real debatable reason; and hating black people because your adopted black sister read your diary does not count.

Unfortunately, the places that really need these laws, don't have them; that's the really shitty part of all this. All because nutjobs who believe in discriminating by race/gender/religion are the ones in the most powerful positions.
Back on topic a bit, it really burns me up when some bitch here in the U.S. uses those places as an excuse for being a femi-nazi. YOU DON'T LIVE THERE, BITCH. You have no right to treat me like shit just because someone in another country doesn't have your level of freedom. You want to help them? Fine. Go over there. See how far your attitude gets you.
I'm all for helping out minorities in other countries, but for fucks-sake, don't use their suffering as your excuse for treating all men poorly. Just be honest: you're a bitch, and you hate men.

ANYWAYS.
Yes. Feminism has gone a little too far.
/rant

 

[Copper]

Re: Feminism!

I'm not really contributing, since a lot of what I feel has already been said. I, do, however, have to laugh at the comments about the whole 'equality' in the workplace, simply because, out of the 30 or so people that we have working at our store, 5 are men. The store is managed by women and pretty much all but the morning shifts and one or two evening ones have all female crews. I don't think they planned it that way, it just happened, but it's always a point of amusement to me.

Also, surprised no one called Nunu on this one.

That being said i've had my friends tell me stories of them getting chewed out for opening a door for a woman and i think we all agree that the majority of feminists (or the most vocal ones) today are these pop culture children looking for a reason to be angry at a man kinds. They are a disgrace to feminism, end womens sufferage now!

I like my right to vote, thank you. I pretty much picked it out because it's been a point of discussion at our D&D group about, I believe it was the Man Show, that was going around with a petition to "End Women's Sufferage" and getting WOMEN to sign it. It was more to prove the point that people don't pay attention to things like that and how most don't think through what someone's asking. They just hear what they want to hear. Although I do believe they got bitched out by a few people that realized what they were asking.

 

[Nunu]

Re: Feminism!

your forgetting the pair who knew what it was and signed anyway.