How Much Do You Love / Hate Modern Feminism? (The TSR Feminist Scale!)

not to mention the fact that the OP represents a website fairly well-known by feminists for spreading misogynistic, anti-feminist views and conspiracy theories.

I believe feminism in principle is a 10; in its current form it's a 6. Were HeForShe to succeed I can see it reaching an 8, in the next several decades

Women have a uterus, men don't. Women are the limiting factor in reproduction. Women are far more reproductively valuable than men (while young and fertile).

Girls are therefore automatically very valuable to society. They don't need to achieve anything or do anything to be valuable. They just are valuable, because they have a vagina and uterus.

I think before people start making judgements on feminism they should be defining 'modern feminism'. So many people are making claims about what 'modern feminism' is as if it is one set thing. The defining factor of feminism nowadays is how varied it is. You can't base your ideas of feminism based on just one thing because feminism is has many different ideologies within it.

Feminism which is given attention by the popular media is not the only feminism out there, nor is it really the most popular. It is just what gets attention.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

It doesn't just apply to the media like the ludicrous Guardian or HuffPost feminist sections. Go to a forum like Mumsnet's feminist section, probably the biggest in the UK. You will find very little variation in opinion on most issues. Banning everything sex industry related is a must, the wage gap exists because of sexism only, 99% of male/female differences are socially constructed and pretty much every similar issue is hardly ever up for debate. That and most of the threads are completely irrelevant ''problems'', it's almost like they go around trying to find the tiniest thing they could be offended by. All this while completely ignoring real issues faced by muslim women in the UK or the pakistani rape gangs... never mind all the areas where men have it a lot worse than women , on average, in the UK or the West in general. Oh and **** forbid if you show up there with a different opinion, especially if you admit to being a man. Seriously, the venom and misandry in that place are off the charts. Actually, I've seen men agree with them and still getting hate just for being men.

One of my favorite recurring theories on that forum : ''men are better at sports because they invented them''.

Emma Watson's speech was about men and women being free from stereotypes, so they can be the person they are. So a man is allowed to be sensitive and a woman is allowed to be strong. And vice versa.

It's about freedom to choose who you want to be.

Just because her boyfriend is muscular you're in disagreement of her entire speech? How do you know he's not a sensitive soul, and even if he's not: so what?

Even if by some crazy chance Emma Watson didn't follow what she said (but I'm fairly certain she does agree with her speech).... She's still inspiring many to believe in gender equality.


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more men stay home and look after their children as equally as the mothers.

I'm sorry that you completely missed my point. I didn't claim that there aren't feminists who make such assertions or that there is a 'true feminism'. I stated that there should be a specific defined feminist ideology. Feminism is a very wide subject. There are many varying views on the same subject. So to find any 1 'true' feminist position is rather ludicrous.

In contrast to equity feminism, Sommers coined the term "Gender feminism" to describe what she contends is a gynocentric branch of feminism. Gender feminists typically criticize contemporary gender roles and aim to eliminate them altogether.

Sommers argues that gender feminism characterizes most of the body of modern feminist theory, and is the prevailing ideology in academia. She argues that while the feminists she designates as gender feminists advocate preferential treatment and portray "all women as victims", equity feminism provides a viable alternative form of feminism to those who object to elements of gender feminist ideology.

I didn't miss any points. Go talk to self-identifying feminists like the ones on the Mumsnet forum and you'll see what I mean. Almost all of them have radical opinions. When a group has such little variation in their beliefs then it becomes extremely relevant. You can't quote 1 or 2 exceptions then say just because 95% of the group's member behave a certain way it is irrelevant.

Almost every single self-identifying feminist I have ever seen in my life believes in the 2 big ones :

1. Patriarchy still exists in the West.
2. Gender is close to 100% or even 100% socially constructed and enforced by said patriarchy in order to oppress women.

These 2 are the base behind everything they believe in , whether it's women's appetite for casual sex or the tiny percentage of female engineers. Camille Paglia and Christina Hoff Sommers also identify as feminists yet they would be lynched if they showed up at a feminist meeting.

Unfortunately, 99% of feminists are gender feminists.

[Citation needed]

Since you clearly don't know what you are talking about and like wikipedia so much: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_movements_and_ideologies

You have found me a few groups who have certain views. And I don't even know how much I believe you as I haven't visited those sites. However, being involved in many feminist spheres and actually keeping up on feminist perspectives I have a fairly good idea that there are more than 1 or 2 exceptions.

Now as far as your points 1 - Its rather odd to say that patriarchy doesn't exist at all anymore. I would question your understanding of what patriarchy is... 2 - There is evidence on both sides of the issue of gender and its social construction however I tend to agree that it is a social construct. All things considered many things considered traits of gender are just behaviors which have changed over the years. Now if you are referring to sexes that different but there is also evidence that it has some social construction aspects to it as well.



I don't really give much credit to Sommers but I vaguely know her ideas which are...odd to say the least.

[from experience speaking with friends/family/too many reports to count and cite, who have children and say how everyone they know has to do it as childcare is too damn expensive!]

and when did this turn into an essay? got WAY too many of those booked in!

I don't think you can very often get away with giving as a citation "I know some people and the results from a tiny percentage of the population is representative of the whole and I'm not even going to say whether it's even a statistically significant [I'm inclined to say barely, at best] sample]
While I can expect that the number of people taking paternity leave will be higher than it was, I severely doubt that it's 100%, and even if it were I even more severely doubt that there will also be a significant shift of maternity weeks to paternity; after all, statutory paid paternity is only 2 weeks, vs 39 for maternity, and to get more the mother has to go back to work and given that in the average household the man will be paid more, logically in the average household this will not happen.

A woman is the de facto leader of the EU, the candidate with best odds to be the next US president, the chair of the US federal reserve, the head of the IMF, the president of the largest economy in the latin world, the CEO's of GM, Pepsi, Lockheed Martin, IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Xerox not to mention young women making more money than young men across the UK and the US.

If the West is still a patriarchy then it is because men and women are different by nature, just like males and females in all of our closest animal ''relatives''. It's also why the most gender equal countries (nordic and other euro countries) in the world have some of the most unequal results in terms of pay gaps or STEM careers or board of directors percentages. I like to call that the great nordic gender paradox. The more choice the 2 sexes have , the more ''stereotypically'' they act. That's biology. You can lead a horse to water....

Is there social influence ? Of course there is. Are there some men or women who deviate from standard behaviour? Sure there are. But to ignore everything from different hormones to different sizes of areas of the brain to the huge number of men with autistic conditions compared to that of women to the completely skewed ratio of high IQ men compared to women to spatial ability to women's brain reacting differently to babies crying even if they're not mothers yet...

x

I totally support what you are saying however, I would say that you're argument is less than convincing when you justify your position with 'oh the people I know'. Particularly for such wide claims. This is a debate forum, if you are going to make large claims you should be prepared to back them up.

X

I get what your saying, and can relate (most of us are students and have studies that we could be doing as well) and being an academic you should be able to understand that just because you say something on an internet forum doesn't make it have any value. Particularly in a debate forum it has 0 value unless you can show that it is credible.

Its not so much that people are taking this overly seriously so much as if it is to have any sort of semblance of a debate you should be able to back up what you say. Same as with most things in life. I understand that you take this as 'light debate' and I commend your commitment to your children and everything else, but in the time it took you to argue against providing sourcing you could have found sources. It really doesn't take very long. Again, its not about being 'narky' but having a meaningful discussion/debate.

I don't have children yet lol! I am currently writing an essay and dipping in and out of here, but I just find it so mind boggling that people are purely relying on resources they have found on the internet when there is an inherent bias in all published materials and therefore all debate is flawed due to personal opinion... I just skipped this step and then people got so angry about it... I wasn't trying to kick anyone off on anything... it was just a point that from real life experience and word of mouth - which apparently is no longer considered useful since the internet sprung up, (I had to do real research by travelling to use actual handwritten work!) even though written work is based upon this - of real life people on the ground and not nonsense cooked up by politicians to win votes and their self serving statisticians.... I am disappointed also that no one has used the Harvard referencing system and therefore all your internet links are officially plagiarism.... And it is evident that a lot of people on these forums are without 'life' experience with very 'youthful' idealism. Oh to be youthfully idealistic again.....

I don't think her dating someone is the problem. In fact, if she was dating the type of man she is trying to publicise would boost her reputation in this case. Its more the fact that she seems to be dating the opposite type of man she is trying to boost up is what's the problem.

Whilst she should be free to date whoever she sees fit, in this case its akin to trying to support equal rights for races (not such a hot topic but still) but dating a racist. Although this is a extreme example the concept is still there.