A Very High Percentage Of Feminism Seems to be Highly Contradictory?

Poll

Do You Want Total Equality? i.e. Men boxing women, men and women using same toilets?

The overriding point from them seems to be they want equal rights. This by definition has to be regarded as a contradiction as men and women are physically, mentally and emotionally different. Note the key word here is different, not greater or less than.

An example is right now in the tennis world there is debate why women play 3 sets and men play 5 sets because Tennis authorities feel 5 sets is too gruelling for women and can cause injuries and fatigue. My opinion is I don’t really care either way and female tennis professionals should be the judge overall.

A more extreme example would be boxing. If feminists truly want equality between men and women, in the purest sense, then men would be boxing with women. Personally I don’t want to see that happen because I would find that distasteful.

There are many examples too many examples of these contradictions. Toilets being another one, if we are to be regarded as equal then there would be no such thing as separate toilets. I’m sure a lot of males don’t mind this but I mentioned this to a few girls I know and all of their reactions were the same – it’s something they don’t want.

Feminists often mention how women are objectified. However this brings to light more contradictions. Firstly one has to ask at what point does a compliment become objectifying women? If I say a girl a pretty, a feminist view would immediately say I’m objectifying her. So according to feminism, are we even allowed to compliment women on their beauty?

I’m sure everyone on Instagram has seen the picture above. Women have reposted it several thousand times, like it and comment on it. This is clear example of objectifying men. I would like to know how if a feminist speaks negatively about objectifying women then why are they not refuting the exact same thing happening to men?

Also if they truly want to achieve their objective then it is a two way mission. Many women use their looks, their bodies and their sexual promiscuity to get further in life. Why are feminists not educating these women as well as males?

With all these plus many many more contradictions feminists raise, it is halting their ‘progress’ as many people feel their demands are an unrealistic model in today’s or any day’s society. My feeling is whilst they are fundamentally different, we should embrace the differences rather than trying to encapsulate them into one gender.

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Reply 1

math42

Doublethink is very real it seems.

Reply 2

Unkempt_One

OP, do you believe there are any other innate differences in competency between men and women in fields besides physical strength? I look forward to your response.

Reply 3

Friend0007

Original post by Unkempt_One

OP, do you believe there are any other innate differences in competency between men and women in fields besides physical strength? I look forward to your response.

Of course I do.

As I mentioned at the start, the two are different from each other but for me that does not indicate superior or inferior, just difference. I passionately believe men and women are of equal worth in my opinion.

Besides strength, men are fundamentally different to women. They have different sexual organs, different biological structures, different chemicals, different hormones, they look and sound different.

In terms of academic intellect, although in history most of the famous scientists have been men, I personally would see men and women roughly equal, with women maybe achieving slightly more - this is going by the performance of exams in my university course of mathematics.

Women in general have different tastes and interests to men - that is why in marketing different products are advertised to men than women. In general that is.

What happens is people often in the name of equality try to overlook the differences and this in it self is a contradiction and raises several further contradictions.

For example, it is a biological fact women will experience their 'thing' once a month, and this has physical and emotional implications - for me that is fine, whatever, we are built that way it is a fact of life.

However the contradictions occur when say a colleague picks up on this. If he/she acknowledges this and tries to help, its gender discrimination as it is wrong to be understanding and thinking less of her because shes going through this monthly thing. Yet if he/she is not understanding of this woman and continues as if nothing has happened, then they are clearly a bad human being?

This is why I feel the way this subject is being approached is completely wrong. Wanting complete equality between men and women is an impossible task (as I pointed out in the opening point).

There can never be complete equality between men and women simply because of the fact men and women are fundamentally different.

Reply 4

KingBradly

Of course feminism is filled with contradictions. Any attempt to change a society's ethics which not only isn't based on pragmatism, but often decidedly rejects it, is going to be utterly filled with contradictions. Even when one takes the most pragmatic view of ethics you'll find a heap of contradictions, but if you don't even attempt to approach ethics in a reasoned and rational light, then essentially you'll just be left with a load of confused, senseless, contradictory, worthless opinions from people trying to change the world to suit their personality problems.

Reply 5

username878267

Feminism doesn't say women are as physically strong as men nor are they the same as men.

What it says is that women should be treated equally and given the same opportunities in society. That they shouldn't be discriminated against because they are women:

It took until 1994 for martial rape to become illegal for example.

Reply 6

math42

Original post by Bornblue

And we do not even define a women having sex with a man against his will as rape.

Reply 7

username878267

Original post by 1 8 13 20 42

And we do not even define a women having sex with a man against his will as rape.

Feminists are quite split on the issue. Bear in mind though that a woman who forced a man to have sex against his will would still be convicted of sexual assault and face a high sentence. It just wouldn't be called rape.

Can I repeat, until 1994 it wasn't even an offence for a man to rape his wife.

Reply 8

math42

Original post by Bornblue

I expect she would be a lot more likely to get off or get a more lenient sentence. But that speculation aside, I am in agreement with feminism on such issues as that; obviously it should be a crime. My issue is that the movement oversimplifies everything. In general men and women exert power over each other in different ways and have different advantages and different disadvantages. What I was trying to get across is that rape is not just a women's issue, and isn't just some symptom of the inequality of women compared with men.

Reply 9

username878267

Original post by 1 8 13 20 42

You're right in that rape is not just a women's issue, but it predominantly affects them far more then it does to men in terms of prevalence.

Cases of women forcing men to have sex against their will is far, far less frequent but that's not say it doesn't happen.

Also a man actually has to be 'up for it' so to speak so a man can't be raped when he is asleep or unconscious or too drunk to get it up whereas a woman can. That's just the biology of the offence.

The huge, huge majority of sexual assaults and offences are by men on women. That's not to say none others exist though.
You're right that the movement oversimplifies stuff but so too does every movement. Just think about how the main political a parties simplify economics for example 'do X and y will happen'.

Feminism is a broad movement with lots of different sects and ideologies within that.

Yes in some ways women have advantages but one only has to look to wonder society to see generally men are far more advantaged.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 10

AdjectiveNoun

Original post by 1 8 13 20 42

And we do not even define a women having sex with a man against his will as rape.

Um, that's because rape in UK law is dependent on penetration. Without penetration, it's not rape, instead it moves to be the still serious charge of sexual assault.

That's not direct gender discrimination, that's simply the way that the crime is defined

Reply 11

username878267

Original post by AdjectiveNoun

Agreed but it's penetration with a penis.
Penetration with an object other than that is would be non-penile penetration which would probably carry a similar offence.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 12

math42

Original post by Bornblue

True, and murder, workplace deaths, random assaults and suicide predominantly affect men. Feminism has a tendency, from what I have seen, to point towards issues that are more likely to affect women and claim they are symptomatic of the oppression of women; this is equivalent to saying that men are oppressed because they are more likely to be killed or to kill themselves. And anyone who tries to talk about these issues as is inevitably silenced with the excuse that it is unfair to talk about the problems of men as they are not oppressed (though there are probably countless feminists who detest that this happens, there is apparently a very vocal and influential subgroup that ensures it does). Yes, we should recognize the significance of gender, and that some problems affect one gender more than the other, but we shouldn't act like any one issue is a symptom of some oppressive structure and that everything must be viewed as part of this structure. Such an approach is very lacking in nuance and serves to shut down debate where it needs to be had. (I apologize if I am arguing against opinions you don't hold; I'm just trying to cover everything)

I dunno where you got that men can't be up for it while asleep (men get erections throughout sleep and can even orgasm with no stimulation during sleep, let alone with it) and I think men can also be pretty damn drunk and still get an erection (I am not sure where the limit lies though).

I don't think men are generally more advantaged. If anything from what I can gather, in Western society, men are more likely to be at either extreme. It's similar to the distribution of male and female IQs. Men are more likely to be in the range of mental retardation and also more likely to be in the range of genius. Also men hold more of the lowest societal positions, making up the majority of homeless people and having the majority of dangerous and laborious jobs, but they also hold more of the highest societal positions, making up the majority of CEOs for instance. (not suggesting that all homeless people and people with dangerous jobs have low IQs lol; just a comparison that came to mind).

Original post by AdjectiveNoun

I know. I'm not saying this is some great evil against men; I'm just saying you can point out "inequalities" anywhere. I was also referring to the connotations of the word itself though. In general when you say rape people think of the most prevalent case, male-on-female (I've heard this may not be the case in some countries due to prison rapes but it surely is true in general), and in comparison a woman "raping" a man is seen as essentially nothing by most people. There are reasons for this, this doesn't come from nowhere, but it's not exactly a good thing.

Reply 13

username878267

Original post by 1 8 13 20 42

Yes, murder, workplace deaths and random assaults predominantly affect men. However, they are not gendered crimes unlike rape. The vast, vast majority of rape cases or sexual assault cases are women being raped or sexually assaulted by men. The vast, vast majority of murder cases are men being murdered by men.

Rape and sexual assault more unique in they are very much crimes done by men on women. Yes talk about murder and suicide but these are not gendered crimes. That's not to say they are not as important, but feminism deals with the inequalities between men and women, not violence among men.

Yes, we should recognize the significance of gender, and that some problems affect one gender more than the other, but we shouldn't act like any one issue is a symptom of some oppressive structure and that everything must be viewed as part of this structure. Such an approach is very lacking in nuance and serves to shut down debate where it needs to be had. (I apologize if I am arguing against opinions you don't hold; I'm just trying to cover everything)

Maybe certain feminists go too far, but throughout history women have been oppressed by men. In almost every civilized country women were given the vote much later than men. In many women weren't allowed to take out a mortgage. Up until 1994, it was perfectly legal for a man to rape his wife. That was only 21 years ago.

I dunno where you got that men can't be up for it while asleep (men get erections throughout sleep and can even orgasm with no stimulation during sleep, let alone with it) and I think men can also be pretty damn drunk and still get an erection (I am not sure where the limit lies though).

Yes it's possible but far more likely. A man needs to be hard, the chances of a man subconsciously being hard and a woman having sex with him without his content is far, far less than the other way round. And yes men can get an erection when drunk, but it reduces the chances quite significantly. Whereas for women, when they get drunk it doesn't reduce the chances.

The vast majority of forced sexual encounters are by men on women.

I don't think men are generally more advantaged. If anything from what I can gather, in Western society, men are more likely to be at either extreme. It's similar to the distribution of male and female IQs. Men are more likely to be in the range of mental retardation and also more likely to be in the range of genius. Also men hold more of the lowest societal positions, making up the majority of homeless people and having the majority of dangerous and laborious jobs, but they also hold more of the highest societal positions, making up the majority of CEOs for instance. (not suggesting that all homeless people and people with dangerous jobs have low IQs lol; just a comparison that came to mind).

You've said it yourself, in almost every country men have the huge majority of the top jobs. 11 out of the 12 Justices on the Supreme Court are men. We've only ever had one female Prime Minister. There are far less women in Parliament than men. There are far less women CEOs and owners than men. Then you consider the pay gap between men and women.
Yet there is no evidence that men are any more intelligent. Societal oppression of women exists, not as much as it used to but it still exists.
Various studies have shown employers more likely to hire a man just because he's a man.
Even on a societal level, why is a man who sleeps with lots of women regarded as a stud yet a woman who sleeps with lots of men regarded as a slag?
It's not always our fault but we have been societal conditioned almost to trust men more in top jobs because that's what we're used to.

I know. I'm not saying this is some great evil against men; I'm just saying you can point out "inequalities" anywhere. I was also referring to the connotations of the word itself though. In general when you say rape people think of the most prevalent case, male-on-female (I've heard this may not be the case in some countries due to prison rapes but it surely is true in general), and in comparison a woman "raping" a man is seen as essentially nothing by most people. There are reasons for this, this doesn't come from nowhere, but it's not exactly a good thing.

A woman who forcibly has sex with a man against his will, will receive a similar sentence in similar circumstances to a man who rapes a women. Have a look at the sentencing guidelines.

Reply 14

The Blue Axolotl

(Third Wave) Feminism is a big joke, a bit like Communism its foundations are strong, but it'll always crumble.

Reply 15

sw651

Original post by Bornblue

Also a man actually has to be 'up for it' so to speak so a man can't be raped when he is asleep or unconscious or too drunk to get it up whereas a woman can. That's just the biology of the offence.

.

That is so wrong I cannot even begin to fathom, men often have six hour erections when they are asleep, that is biological fact, so this has no basis

Reply 16

sw651

Original post by Bornblue

Agreed but it's penetration with a penis.
Penetration with an object other than that is would be non-penile penetration which would probably carry a similar offence.

Its called rape with a foreign object

Reply 17

username878267

Original post by sw651

Its called rape with a foreign object

No it's not. It's calle assault by penetration.
Rape can only be done by a penis under uk law. Have a look at the statute.

Reply 18

sw651

Original post by Bornblue

No it's not. It's calle assault by penetration.
Rape can only be done by a penis under uk law. Have a look at the statute.

I stand corrected, that is American Law. But even so, that's hardly equality

Reply 19

username878267

Original post by sw651

That is so wrong I cannot even begin to fathom, men often have six hour erections when they are asleep, that is biological fact, so this has no basis

Men do not often have six hour erections when they are asleep.
Besides the prevalence of women forcing themselves on men and having sex when they don't want to is far far less than the other way round.

Especially when drunk, alcohol makes it much much harder for a guy to get it up. A woman on the other hand doesn't have to 'get it up' in order to be sexually assaulted or raped.