The Student Room Group

Is feminism really so very reasonable?

It has become considered, by many, the sensible position to defend feminism. Saying that they are all a bunch of man haters will usually result in one being placated about how one should stop looking at tumblr as the source of all feminism, and should actually read some feminist texts.

Well, actually I have read a quite a lot of feminist texts, and I have to study many for my course. Some of them aren't terrible, and a very few of them are even quite good. But the idea that feminism is on the whole a quite reasonable, levelheaded movement is just total rubbish.

Let's look at the roots of the movement; the suffragettes. A group which had a very worthy film made about them recently, presenting them as brave and right-on to the core.

People seem to conveniently forget, though, that the suffragettes would send white feathers, symbolising cowardice, to conscientious objectors during WW1. Not so reasonable, in my opinion.

Or shall we look at some of the most foundational feminists texts? For example, the famous and widely respected (among feminists) The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution. The writer, Shulamith Firestone claimed that men cannot love, that male culture is "parasitical", and that “All men are selfish, brutal and inconsiderate". This is a woman who has been praised by writers as a feminist "hero" in publications as mainstream as The Guardian.

Then we have Andrea Dworkin, another feminist who is considered by many in the movement as foundational, and a hero. In fact, Shulamith Firestone and Andrea Dworkin, along with Germaine Greer and Simone de Beauvoir, are perhaps the most respected and popular feminist writers ever. People just getting into feminism will often read the works of these people first.

Here are a few Dworkin quotes: "Seduction is often difficult to distinguish from rape. In seduction, the rapist often bothers to buy a bottle of wine."

"Feminism is hated because women are hated. Anti-feminism is a direct expression of misogyny; it is the political defense of women hating."

"The civil impact of pornography on women is staggering. It keeps us socially silent, it keeps us socially compliant, it keeps us afraid in neighborhoods; and it creates a vast hopelessness for women, a vast despair. One lives inside a nightmare of sexual abuse that is both actual and potential, and you have the great joy of knowing that your nightmare is someone else’s freedom and someone else’s fun.”

Hardly sounds level headed to me. Sounds more like insane hyperbole and baseless conjecture.

Feminism has very small number of reasonable, intelligent adherents. It has some intelligent, unreasonable adherents. But to say that there is a REAL feminism, aside from the tumblr brand, which is very intelligent and very reasonable, and not man-hating at all, is utter rubbish. Tumblr feminism arose because there has always been a large section of feminists who really do hate men, either implicitly or explicitly, and who really are totally bonkers.

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I still don't get why there are so many feminists in the West to be honest. We have almost equal rights to men and in some cases, even more rights.

You want more rights for women? Go to Africa, the Middle East and South Asia and make sure young girls get an education instead of being forced into work or marriage or face torture for just wanting to learn.
Reply 2
No.
Depends on the type of feminism.
Reply 4
Feminismis a awful movement, there are some things that I think are wrong and need to be equal for women, but a lot of the stuff they rant and rave on about that can and has been debunked by many people, they also fail to see that men can be targeted too and we have some things that are wrong and need to be equal.

While I can get behind 1st and 2nd wave as they were figting for something I cant say no to as It is logical, now they just disgrace the name feminism.
Not all feminists are man hating loonies quite a few are willing to defend them as they have fallen for the lies, such as the pay gap. they try stop freedom of speech and create "safe spaces" and no men allowed places to make themselves feel accomplished, they also have been the spearhead behind many problems at places of learning.

As my grandmother said.
What a load of ********, they scream about things that they know nothing about.
Original post by MrsSheldonCooper
I still don't get why there are so many feminists in the West to be honest. We have almost equal rights to men and in some cases, even more rights.

You want more rights for women? Go to Africa, the Middle East and South Asia and make sure young girls get an education instead of being forced into work or marriage or face torture for just wanting to learn.


We need more people like you.
Original post by AperfectBalance
We need more people like you.


Thanks :biggrin:
Reply 8
Original post by KingBradly
It has become considered, by many, the sensible position to defend feminism. Saying that they are all a bunch of man haters will usually result in one being placated about how one should stop looking at tumblr as the source of all feminism, and should actually read some feminist texts.

Well, actually I have read a quite a lot of feminist texts, and I have to study many for my course. Some of them aren't terrible, and a very few of them are even quite good. But the idea that feminism is on the whole a quite reasonable, levelheaded movement is just total rubbish.

Let's look at the roots of the movement; the suffragettes. A group which had a very worthy film made about them recently, presenting them as brave and right-on to the core.

People seem to conveniently forget, though, that the suffragettes would send white feathers, symbolising cowardice, to conscientious objectors during WW1. Not so reasonable, in my opinion.

Or shall we look at some of the most foundational feminists texts? For example, the famous and widely respected (among feminists) The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution. The writer, Shulamith Firestone claimed that men cannot love, that male culture is "parasitical", and that “All men are selfish, brutal and inconsiderate". This is a woman who has been praised by writers as a feminist "hero" in publications as mainstream as The Guardian.

Then we have Andrea Dworkin, another feminist who is considered by many in the movement as foundational, and a hero. In fact, Shulamith Firestone and Andrea Dworkin, along with Germaine Greer and Simone de Beauvoir, are perhaps the most respected and popular feminist writers ever. People just getting into feminism will often read the works of these people first.

Here are a few Dworkin quotes: "Seduction is often difficult to distinguish from rape. In seduction, the rapist often bothers to buy a bottle of wine."

"Feminism is hated because women are hated. Anti-feminism is a direct expression of misogyny; it is the political defense of women hating."

"The civil impact of pornography on women is staggering. It keeps us socially silent, it keeps us socially compliant, it keeps us afraid in neighborhoods; and it creates a vast hopelessness for women, a vast despair. One lives inside a nightmare of sexual abuse that is both actual and potential, and you have the great joy of knowing that your nightmare is someone else’s freedom and someone else’s fun.”

Hardly sounds level headed to me. Sounds more like insane hyperbole and baseless conjecture.

Feminism has very small number of reasonable, intelligent adherents. It has some intelligent, unreasonable adherents. But to say that there is a REAL feminism, aside from the tumblr brand, which is very intelligent and very reasonable, and not man-hating at all, is utter rubbish. Tumblr feminism arose because there has always been a large section of feminists who really do hate men, either implicitly or explicitly, and who really are totally bonkers.


Feminism is very reasonable, it's simply the position that women should be considered as equals. That doesn't mean all feminists are reasonable, or even that those that claim they are feminists are genuine.
Social media and the obsession with being offended (by that I mean the left taking everything as a personal attack and the right taking everything as an affront to their convenience) has pretty much destroyed objective reasoning. The actual response to "they're not all like that" is "but they are all like that". Which isn't true, but people don't listen.

I'll probably just listen to Justin Trudeau.
Original post by Damien96
Feminism is very reasonable, it's simply the position that women should be considered as equals. That doesn't mean all feminists are reasonable, or even that those that claim they are feminists are genuine.


~this is all~

Spoiler

Original post by KingBradly

Feminism has very small number of reasonable, intelligent adherents. It has some intelligent, unreasonable adherents. But to say that there is a REAL feminism, aside from the tumblr brand, which is very intelligent and very reasonable, and not man-hating at all, is utter rubbish. Tumblr feminism arose because there has always been a large section of feminists who really do hate men, either implicitly or explicitly, and who really are totally bonkers.


Very interesting post, and great that you went through some of the source material of the major feminist icons.

I think this operates on two levels; the first is that mainstream feminism of today is quite a negative and confrontational movement, even a bigoted one. There's a particularly ugly strain of feminism dominant on social media; a braying, lynch-mob mentality prevails, as I found to my annoyance when I dared to express the opinion that not all prostitution is exploitative and that always talking about prostitution in terms of women is quite heteronormative anyway (something the feminists hated to be accused of)

The second level is the fundamental idea of feminism; that women are equal to men, and should have equal rights under the law and as far as possible we should strive to give women true equal opportunities that take into account their particular issues as a sex. But I think that fundamental idea has been long left behind; for modern mainstream feminists the simple idea of equality between the sexes has been buried under countless layers of theory and abstraction.

How can the two levels ever be reunited? I don't know the answer to this, but I shall observe with interest as some feminists seem to be staunchly opposed to any societal consideration of male issues and problems that are particular to my sex (which is genuinely dangerous; young men have very high rates of suicide, for example, and some feminists seem to want to block any consideration of that and oppose acceptance that men also face issues particular to their sex)
Original post by Sad Beta


What does that mean? Perhaps it would be clearer if you expressed yourself in, you know, words. Communicating (or purporting to communicate) in images and gifs can come across as snide and patronising, and ultimately puerile, if it's not well expressed and the image isn't totally apt for the situation
Reply 13
Original post by Damien96
Feminism is very reasonable, it's simply the position that women should be considered as equals. That doesn't mean all feminists are reasonable, or even that those that claim they are feminists are genuine.


Original post by Milzime
~this is all~

Spoiler



But in reality this is actually a bit intellectually dishonest. Because feminists have very particular ideas about what equality means, and most of the time it doesn't just mean that men and women should be treated equally by the law. If that is what feminism was about, there would be no need for feminism to exist in this country anymore.
no one cares OP geralife

edit: what i meant was too long did not read... I thought we were through the childish slatting feminism stage of tsr's ever revolving door.
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by Little Popcorns
no one cares OP geralife


Actually some of us do care. Your post is snide and unworthy, if you can't contribute positively then find other threads to post on
Original post by KingBradly
But in reality this is actually a bit intellectually dishonest. Because feminists have very particular ideas about what equality means, and most of the time it doesn't just mean that men and women should be treated equally by the law. If that is what feminism was about, there would be no need for feminism to exist in this country anymore.


I think there are a great many 'reasonable' feminists (ergo excluding the Twitter/Tumblr 'SJW' crew) that would disagree on that point. There is a way to go, and I say that as a man and observer.
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by KingBradly
But in reality this is actually a bit intellectually dishonest. Because feminists have very particular ideas about what equality means, and most of the time it doesn't just mean that men and women should be treated equally by the law. If that is what feminism was about, there would be no need for feminism to exist in this country anymore.


It's not just in the law, it's socially etc. and an awkward cobbling together of all the people in the world who want to work towards a more gender-equal society. It's just annoying that the (inevitable) extreme or non-reprasentative 'feminists' and those who keep trying to call them out are hindering the overall movement towards a better world *shrug*

Spoiler

Original post by BeastOfSyracuse
Actually some of us do care. Your post is snide and unworthy, if you can't contribute positively then find other threads to post on

tell me why you care please
Original post by rockrunride
I think there are a great many 'reasonable' feminists (ergo excluding the Twitter/Tumblr 'SJW' crew) that would disagree on that point. There is a way to go, and I say that as a man and observer.


Christina Hoff Sommers is great.

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