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Is feminism really so very reasonable?

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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.


Unless you have skills and qualifications that local women in those parts of the world lack I wouldn't suggest that. How does a Western women with little knowledge of the system make a difference that the local feminists can't?

Feminism in the West isn't all about equal rights before the law. There are real issues which are addressed by feminists here such as rape and domestic violence. Then there is the fact that there are girls over here having their genitals mutilated in secret and others who are being sent abroad and tricked into forced marriages. There is a need for feminism everywhere.

We are not all man-hating crazies screaming about why we can't have armpit hair or rebuking other women for taking their husband's surnames.
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by KingBradly
If you're genuinely interested how I can think that objectification isn't a problem, you can read about it here:




maybe later, I am suddenly reminded of how much revision I haven't done

Spoiler

Reply 62
Original post by ChaoticButterfly
I find there is a correlation between people who use the White Feather lot as a way to discredit feminism as a whole are often right wing and conservative when it comes to their views on world war one. i.e. it should have happened and men should have been sent to fight to defend Britain's interests as an imperial power. Which is bizzare when coupled with the objection to guilt tipping young men to fight, what about all the kind gorge posters and other war propaganda?


What does this have to do with the discussion? You're accusing me of hypocrisy because you are pigeonholing me as someone who thinks things which I don't, and even if I did it would be irrelevant and ad-hominem.

Original post by ChaoticButterfly

At the time the people who were actively against world war one were made up of a lot of international socialists which ha d strong feminist element.


Ok. So what?

Original post by ChaoticButterfly

Feminism like many over arching political philosophies has many branches. There were many feminists at the time that were totally against the UK even going to war never mind shaming men into joining up. Just compare Amelia Pankhurst to Sylvia Pankhurst.


Ok. I'm not denying that. But the suffragettes, who are considered as holy cows by feminists, were very unpleasant towards men who didn't sign up. That is what is important.
Original post by ChaoticButterfly
I find there is a correlation between people who use the White Feather lot as a way to discredit feminism as a whole are often right wing and conservative when it comes to their views on world war one. i.e. it should have happened and men should have been sent to fight to defend Britain's interests as an imperial power. Which is bizzare when coupled with the objection to guilt tipping young men to fight, what about all the kind gorge posters and other war propaganda?

At the time the people who were actively against world war one were made up of a lot of international socialists which ha d strong feminist element.

Feminism like many over arching political philosophies has many branches. There were many feminists at the time that were totally against the UK even going to war never mind shaming men into joining up. Just compare Amelia Pankhurst to Sylvia Pankhurst.


That's somewhat irrelevant though don't you think? Their views might be inconsistent but that being the case doesn't argue against the existence of early feminists who were happy to reap the rights that men had whilst maintaining an imbalance in responsibility that caused men to die in their millions

It wasn't all feminists of the time but it was some.
(edited 8 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.


You say that as if there is a body of feminists setting laws that all feminists adhere to. Some feminists are idiots, particularly in this current climate where everyone is a victim, but that idea itself is very simple.

Debating the meaning of equal is a good idea but that women earn less than men for doing the same job, that sexual violence is rife in all societies and certain places on the planet put women in a bag would suggest debating a word is not the most urgent need.
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.


I think, like with many things, there are people who take things too far.
I would call myself a feminist because I simply want men and women to be equal. I think feminism can be beneficial to both men and women.
A lot of people are anti-feminism simply because it is called feminism. People are ignorant and get so fixated on the name that they forget about the generally good purpose for wanting equality.
Maybe my type of feminism should be called 'equalism', but it isn't. Just like mankind isn't called womankind. We have to deal with the fact that things don't always have the best names and just look at what feminism is trying to achieve in society.
Original post by Damien96
You say that as if there is a body of feminists setting laws that all feminists adhere to. Some feminists are idiots, particularly in this current climate where everyone is a victim, but that idea itself is very simple.

Debating the meaning of equal is a good idea but that women earn less than men for doing the same job, that sexual violence is rife in all societies and certain places on the planet put women in a bag would suggest debating a word is not the most urgent need.


They don't and it isn't. The wage gap is a myth and while sexual violence does happen it isn't 'rife'.
Original post by sjohnson98
I don't mean every case. I think there are two problems:

1) If you accuse a celebrity, people think you just want attention. And if it happened some time ago, people say "why now?"


If anything, because of the Saville scandal the police went too far in believing any accusation that was made against prominent figures. There was that deluded man who was claiming he was assaulted by Ted Heath and also by the Chief of the Defence Staff. Even after it came out the man had been coached and that solid evidence showed the assaults could not have happened, the detectives investigating were still publicly claiming the allegations were "credible".

There is definitely a balance to be struck when it involves prominent individuals, I think we're still fumbling around to find it atm

2) Most women are assaulted by someone they know. It becomes very difficult to accuse your friend's brother or a part of your friend group.

I think you have to strike a delicate balance between believing a women and not automatically assuming a man is a rapist.


True. I would agree with that. I think this is part of the inherent difficulties with rape cases, and that so many times it comes down to one person's word against another in a situation where there is nothing except the victim's word to contradict the accused's claim it was consensual. But I do think the police and CPS are getting better all the time at investigating and prosecuting these cases
Original post by limetang
They don't and it isn't. The wage gap is a myth and while sexual violence does happen it isn't 'rife'.


Oh, well in that case I stand corrected, thanks.
Reply 69
In my opinion, third wave feminism/academic feminism is the type of feminism that is bad. Rather than focusing on real world issues women face (probably because western women don't face many of those), it instead focuses on how women are depicted in the media and entertainment and forces this idea into you that the way they are depicted somehow equates to women being oppressed in society. They complain when women are even remotely sexual in any piece of media, citing things like the "male gaze" and "sexual objectification" as a legitimate reason to police any piece of media that people choose to enjoy but they don't agree with. They fill young and impressionable people with false ideas of a "patriarchal society" and a "rape culture" and the "wage gap", and in turn fabricates this idea that western women are some horribly oppressed and misrepresented class in society. It a flat-out lie.

There is nothing that support these claims but third wave feminists believe it anyway. Hell, I know people who aren't even feminists who believe this stuff just because they heard someone else say it, and then proceed to take no time out of their day to actually check if they're true. Everybody wants to be on the moral high-ground, but nobody can be bothered to check if what they're parroting is even real.

Feminism was always close to falling into the deep end with its philosophy, it's only recently when it's actually done it and nobody seems to have noticed.
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.


on the contrary; i disagee with you. it isn't a movement that women be considered equal; as in all aspects of the western life, women are already equal. tell me, what are you trying to be considered equal as?

at the same time though, who are you to decide who is a genuine feminist or not? your colleagues are simply following the movement to the definition they've been given in google. they are every bit a feminist as you claim to be.

as someone else said on a different thread:
"It's beyond me how people can think egalitarianism and feminism are the same thing.


Here are the definitions:

Egalitarianism: a movement which advocates equality for all people.

Feminism: a gender equality movement which advocates equality for all women.


Please note that feminism isn't for 'women and men', 'both sexes' or vice versa. No where in that does it imply that feminism = men + women's rights. The fact that people try to change feminism's meaning simply shows how out of touch it is with our society's problems.


And if in any way feminism brings about equality for 'both sexes', it's by determining equality for males around female problems. A prime example of this is the issue of the majority of rape victims being female. (No matter whether feminist or masculist, there's no use trying to disprove this. The facts are laid out in front of you.)
However, ONLY BECAUSE this is a women-led issue will feminism act upon what you could call the 'male' side of the story. By definition, feminism will only focus on solving women's equality, and thus any other gender's equality will merely follow up from that women-specific issue.
What about the fact that the majority of suicides are done by men? That the jail time for the same crime is 3 times higher for males? What about the woman's privilege of custody over her child, no matter whether she is fit to take care of it? What about the 61% of homeless people being men? That only 2/5 of college graduates are male? All these issues which are male-led, but by definition feminism will have nothing to do with them. And don't forget that these problems are global, and not just reserved for first-world countries...

Egalitarianism will fight for the rights of all sexes, creeds, appearances or sexualities - or in other words, allpeople - equally, and so will be the movement out of the two that'll actually combat these problems.


"So if feminism (in its very essence) will not touch these aspects, what about the feminists who fight for men's rights!??"

Despite it being nice to see that even those in a very polarised movement (feminism) still are just as compassionate towards other sexes, it completely goes against the very definition of feminism. Do people not realise the irony of this? Having your own interpretation of feminism will not change what feminism is, and therefore will not qualify you as a feminist.
What people need to realise with labels like 'feminist' or 'egalitarian' is that you can't change what they are to suit your whims. If you want equality for both sexes, you can call yourself an egalitarian. If you want to then lean towards equality for women than men, then don't call yourself an egalitarian. Call yourself a feminist. You have the choice of labelling yourself, but it's not up to you to decide what they mean if they have a globally established meaning (like feminism or egalitarianism do).

"But people will naturally interpret things in their own way - it's called being human!!"

Of course. But the whole point of having ideologies is for them to be defined and followed according to those definitions. It's just as obvious as the fact that you can't be a Christian if you worship Satan. If you have a specific belief, idea or motive that doesn't quite exactly match any other - or, if you want to have your own view of things, then don't label yourself. Don't want to be labelled? DON'T LABEL YOURSELF. Just because you believe in equality doesn't mean you should rush with the hype and start calling yourself something. To believe in equal rights, you don't have to call yourself anything. As an example, if feminists say "if you believe in .... , you're a feminist", that's when you know you should steer clear of them.


"Now you're just contradicting yourself, bawww!!1"

How come? Because I basically said "If you want to ... lean towards equality for women than men, then you can call yourself a feminist"?

Do you notice that subtle little "can call" in there?

That means that I'm not directly telling you to call yourself a feminist - I'm giving you a choice. Like I already said, it's your choice whether you label yourself or not. I'm not telling you that you have to call yourself this the minute you fulfil the requirement, or patronising you if you're not one. However, it is not your choice to determine what feminism means. Feminism has been agreed on by many to be the definition at the very top of my post, as well as by the one who coined it. So no matter whether you call yourself a feminist or not, you won't be a feminist if you go against that definition. You'll be simply making a fool out of the movement and ultimately yourself, and you'll know that deep inside no matter how much you try to justify it.


"So how will people know what you believe in if you can't tell them with a simple definition!?!?!"

Let me tell you of a little quote that encompasses one of the reasons we have movements: Actions speak louder than words.

Actually doing something towards what you fight for would mean that you won't need to explain yourself to people. Call yourself an egalitarian all you want, but if you're not BEING an egalitarian then you're letting your movement down. Spreading awareness doesn't count. Why? Because anyone can do that. When criticising a movement, you're giving it just as much publicity as a radical would. (If anyone wants me to explain further, I will do.) And if someone asks you this despite everything, stop being lazy and just tell them. Being passionate about what you believe in is willing to find a way to explain your motives to people, EVEN IF they didn't have a term. After all, a reason for fighting for things is to get other people to join you."
Original post by limetang
That's somewhat irrelevant though don't you think? Their views might be inconsistent but that being the case doesn't argue against the existence of early feminists who were happy to reap the rights that men had whilst maintaining an imbalance in responsibility that caused men to die in their millions



Emmeline Pankhurst was basically a conservative feminist. She is feminism without all the left wing crap users on here seem to say they want. She ostracised her own daughter, Sylvia, when she had a bastard child as she was against the concept of marriage due to her much more radical left wing feminism. This feminist Sylivia was totally opposed to sending British men to fight and die in WWI compared to pro war none feminists.I don't think it the feminist of her ideology that is to blame, it is the rest of it that is the problem. Again, what about all the other pressures on men to sign up and conscription? Feminism isn't the issue.
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by BeastOfSyracuse
Why do I care about a major movement in society that relates to one of the most important relations (that between men and women) in society and affects so many facets of our civilisation?

Do you really need to ask that? KingBradly is making a serious point worthy of discussion. In reply you simply became abusive and hurled insults and patronising comments

No I just replied in the way that the thread will go. It never ends well on here it's not a sweet little ajudicated discussion. It ends up ********e. I just took a short cut their sweetheart.
Another thing I really don't get is the Teach men not to rape thing.
I mean I am sure that most people in Britain and America know that rape is wrong, pretty much all rapists over here do not do it because they did not know it was wrong they do it because they are evil, much like how saying oh by the way murder isn't good don't do it, it wont make a murderer reconsider his ways in most cases
Reply 74
Feminism is not reasonable at all, it is based on invalid views,accusations and narratives in order to justify their agenda which is to give special privileges to women and to demonise men because they have an anti make mentality.
Original post by Little Popcorns
No I just replied in the way that the thread will go. It never ends well on here it's not a sweet little ajudicated discussion. It ends up ********e. I just took a short cut their sweetheart.


The discussion doesn't have to be "sweet" and "adjudicated" to be worthwhile. I've found some quite interesting comments being made on this thread, if you don't like it then don't click on it but the rest of us are here because we do find it interesting.
Original post by AperfectBalance
Another thing I really don't get is the Teach men not to rape thing.
I mean I am sure that most people in Britain and America know that rape is wrong, pretty much all rapists over here do not do it because they did not know it was wrong they do it because they are evil, much like how saying oh by the way murder isn't good don't do it, it wont make a murderer reconsider his ways in most cases


That's because (believe it or not) many rapists do not believe themselves to be rapists. They are not properly educated on what does or does not constitute consent. Some may think that the victim consented because she/he agreed to go back to their place and have a few drinks. Or maybe the victim initially consented due to pressure then changed her/his mind. Do you think that some kid in secondary who is pressuring his girlfriend into certain sex facts knows how close he is to crossing the line? This is why I think that consent workshops should be introduced along with sex ed.

Then there are those who think the victim was "asking for it" or "provoking" them.
Reply 77
Original post by WBZ144
That's because (believe it or not) many rapists do not believe themselves to be rapists. They are not properly educated on what does or does not constitute consent. Some may think that the victim consented because she/he agreed to go back to their place and have a few drinks. Or maybe the victim initially consented due to pressure then changed her/his mind. Do you think that some kid in secondary who is pressuring his girlfriend into certain sex facts knows how close he is to crossing the line? This is why I think that consent workshops should be introduced along with sex ed.

Then there are those who think the victim was "asking for it" or "provoking" them.


Workshops would be pointless until the law comes to a concrete definition of "ability to consent."
Original post by WBZ144
That's because (believe it or not) many rapists do not believe themselves to be rapists. They are not properly educated on what does or does not constitute consent. Some may think that the victim consented because she/he agreed to go back to their place and have a few drinks. Or maybe the victim initially consented due to pressure then changed her/his mind. Do you think that some kid in secondary who is pressuring his girlfriend into certain sex facts knows how close he is to crossing the line? This is why I think that consent workshops should be introduced along with sex ed.

Then there are those who think the victim was "asking for it" or "provoking" them.


You're probably partially right in that there is some scope for young people in sex education at school to be educated on the boundaries of consent, on the importance of possessing it, on how to exercise common sense around consent, on the criminal penalties for rape and so on.

But that goes for everyone; you teach all the kids about it. This isn't about "teaching men not to rape" because that implies a kind of collective gulit simply for having the temerity to possess a Y-chromosome. That is unacceptable and sexist. It also ignores the fact that women also have sex with men without consent, and that men have sex with men and women have sex with women without consent. This is not a male problem, it is a societal problem

So.. consent education as part of sex education for all? Yes. "Teaching men not to rape"? No.
Reply 79
Original post by WBZ144
That's because (believe it or not) many rapists do not believe themselves to be rapists. They are not properly educated on what does or does not constitute consent. Some may think that the victim consented because she/he agreed to go back to their place and have a few drinks. Or maybe the victim initially consented due to pressure then changed her/his mind. Do you think that some kid in secondary who is pressuring his girlfriend into certain sex facts knows how close he is to crossing the line? This is why I think that consent workshops should be introduced along with sex ed.

Then there are those who think the victim was "asking for it" or "provoking" them.


Yes, because the people that deserve that speech on what consent is are undergraduate students who spent the vast majority of their life getting an education, only to be told they are too stupid to discern when a woman says no to them. The whole concept is incredibly patronising. Do you honestly think that some guy is going to walk into these consent classes ( especially now considering rape ads are all over the damn place) and genuinely learn anything that hasn't already been drilled into his skull by now? Also, how very inclusive that only men get this class. Very fitting too, because of course, women can't rape.

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