"Feminism is useless in the first world"

See above, please outline exactly how women are discriminated against in the workplace and answer my question whether its fair for me to expect to be paid the same as you if I take 2 years off work.

Women are discriminated in the workplace the same way they are discriminated against in the street. I am not prescribing to the belief of a corporate system poised against the success of females in male dominated business sectors through company policy, I am prescribing to the belief of a society poised against this with subconscious thoughts of inadequacy and sexualisation underpinning this. (Men are over sexualised as well a lot in professional careers, I am not discounting that fact either.)

Those two years of maternity are hardly spent sitting back and relaxing, so firstly let us destroy that idea. Secondly, this is not the root of the issue nor am I proposing for it to be tackled.

Concerning pregnancy, it is a natural thing that women will want to have children: you are raised in a home with a mother and a father and siblings (following the blueprint of the nuclear family at least.) therefore from such a young age we are geared (even males) to seeing family as the end goal. Yet in this we also gear the females to the more submissive position in the relationship and the male to the more dominant.

My proposal is not that a woman should go on maternity leave for two years and then come back and be at the same stage in her professional career as her coworkers who have been present the prior two years. Not at all, instead, again what needs to be tackled is the expectation of the woman as the carer.

Furthermore, it is not the men being in majority that is the main cause of issue here. It is, why are the men in charge and in majority here? Again linking back to my original point. You can't have a little girl taught to be demure and caring and then question why she doesn't want to lock horns with the big boys.

The solution I had already stated in the paragraph before your question, to quote Adichie again (she's my favourite I can't help but do so): "we must raise our daughters differently, and we must also raise our sons differently." In the developed world we are past the point of legislative means to tackle inequality in society: the vote is won, equal pay for equal work is secured etc etc

The fight now is in the hearts and minds of people.

This not only counts for feminism, but also for the issues surrounding racism and homophobia as well. Laws only get you so far, particularly in liberal western society.

PS - supporting a legitimate cause is not wrong, of course it isn't: the proclamation of a fundamental belief in an ideology when you only cited one specific issue you support however, was wrong - or ineloquently expressed at least, since we seem to be in agreement over most things.

PPS - omfg that article on the AC pains me 😂😂 I'm hoping it was supposed to be some type of satire or parody, but if it was actually serious please don't think that's the point of all this 😱

The short answer: no
The long answer: To say that feminism in “the 1st world” is no longer needed shows a clear lack of understanding of what feminism means or entails. Feminism is the movement which fights for female liberation and, as you might’ve guessed; equality. And while at first glance women and men do /seem/ equal, with a smidge of critical thinking and a few minutes spent actually listening to women, you’ll soon find feminism is still sorely needed by women all over the world.

I do need to point out though that if you are a man, your opinion on feminism doesn’t mean s**t. You’re not a woman, so you will never be able to fully understand the experiences of women. What you can do is sit down and listen, and if you actually care about women you’ll trust their stories and respect their experiences.

Female oppression has definitely lessened in the past hundred or so years, that’s very true. We can vote, work, divorce an abusive partner, have abortions when we need and want to(Sadly not everywhere, not even in the “1st world”) and many other basic human rights! Thing is though women are still facing oppression on every level of society. We have the classic example of women earning less than men even though they’re doing the same job and have the same amount of experience (in sweden it has been reported that women earn around 17% less than men, for example), this a clear injustice, and yet it’s still happening.
In Sweden it was estimated(based on calls to women’s helplines and law bureaus) that 70 rapes a day go unreported. Why do they go unreported? Fear and lack of knowledge. “What did you wear? Did you drink? Did you lead him on? Is he your boyfriend/husband?” pretty much every rape victim that comes forward is shamed, humiliated or just plain not believed. This is what is often called rape culture at work. Rape culture says that a woman doesn’t know when she’s been assaulted, that it’s the victim’s fault because it’s “their responsibility” to not do anything that could EVER put them at risk, instead of men’s responsibility(A vast majority of rapes are committed by men, no matter the gender of the victim) to not ****ing rape. (this website explains it in a really good way, and provide lots of good links to examples!)

This is probably getting a bit to long for a simple forum post so i'll just finish by saying that as long as every single woman i've ever met has a story in which men touched them without permission, yelled something at them in the street or simply refused to take a no because they have been taught they are entitled to women and their bodies, then i'd say feminism is pretty ****ing needed.

(also like?????? oppression isn't a contest?????? "they need feminism more"????? it's entirely possible to fight for women in for example saudia arabia and sweden at the same time????)

Ensuring an accepting quality of living for all through legislatures , right? You are openly admitting that you want the state to be your mum and dad and your boss

That is wrong. What you mean is that a man earns more than a woman on average.

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Disappointing. Dull. Uneducated.

Disappointing. Dull. Uneducated.

It just proves you are no different to religious nutcases who wants to repress human nature

You are thinking about the concept of a pay gap on too much of a narrow level. Many economists may not take it seriously, but there's an abundance of psychological research out there attempting to identify why women are less likely to earn as much as a man in terms of the career fields they enter, in terms of promotions, pay rises, and opportunities within the work place.

To say that there is no pay gap because it is against the law, is as narrow as saying there is no sexism because there is no sexist law. You need to think of it on a different level.

There may not be a pay gap when you control for many factors, when you only look at the women who have entered the exact same career as their male counterpart, who have received the exact same opportunities, and goals, the women who have fought harder to achieve the same.

But by controlling for such variables you are erasing the explanatory variables into the pay gap in the first place. The fact is there are much less women in those types of roles with those types of opportunities in the first place. The fact that you look at the small minority of women who are in such roles and say they receive the same as their male counterpart is irrelevant. The issue is that they are a minority.


People are thinking too narrowly here. There is a pay gap. In that the average man earns more than the average woman.

Calm down.

Given the fact that in my first month of living in Cologne I had 6 derogotary comments (at least) made towards me and was even grabbed, and invited back to a random mans house whilst sat on the tube minding my own business, I do not think its pointless. At all. We live in such a backwards society.

I am so triggered by what you wrote, and I'm a female. The pay gap is a myth, no serious economist takes it seriously. It's illegal for a woman to be paid less than a man, and if she does, that needs to be dealt with as an individual case.


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You are thinking about the concept of a pay gap on too much of a narrow level. Many economists may not take it seriously, but there's an abundance of psychological research out there attempting to identify why women are less likely to earn as much as a man in terms of the career fields they enter, in terms of promotions, pay rises, and opportunities within the work place.

To say that there is no pay gap because it is against the law, is as narrow as saying there is no sexism because there is no sexist law. You need to think of it on a different level.

There may not be a pay gap when you control for many factors, when you only look at the women who have entered the exact same career as their male counterpart, who have received the exact same opportunities, and goals, the women who have fought harder to achieve the same.

But by controlling for such variables you are erasing the explanatory variables into the pay gap in the first place. The fact is there are much less women in those types of roles with those types of opportunities in the first place. The fact that you look at the small minority of women who are in such roles and say they receive the same as their male counterpart is irrelevant. The issue is that they are a minority.


People are thinking too narrowly here. There is a pay gap. In that the average man earns more than the average woman.

For a start, the pay gap thing is bull ****, there are numerous laws in place protecting people from being paid less for the same work. What you're talking about is average pay in a work sector which is effected by numerous factors, not just gender.

Now we have to get on to you being completely deluded and showing how naive you are

"pretty much every rape victim that comes forward is shamed, humiliated or just plain not believed"

What do you expect, should everyone who claims to have been raped be instantly believed?
I presume you havent read figures which anywhere from 2% to 12% of rape reports are found to be false. Whether it is 2% or 12% doesnt matter as it is known that false rape reports are made. If you're so moronic that you instantly believe that if someone claims to have been raped with little to no evidence you should join the group who bullied Jay Cheshire, a 17 year old who killed himself after being harassed over false rape reports.

Please grow a brain
Lots of Love
Everyone

hey babe wanna know what else is illegal

murder

wanna know what still happens

murder

also like??? you do understand that the studies on pay gaps adjust for that kind of thing, right? like if you actually look it up you'll see things like "adjusted for experience, education etc.etc." this is basic stuff, my dude, basic stuff that anyone conducting a study is capable of. and guess what? the pay gap is /still there/

WHAT

A

SHOCK

the thing about rape is that false rape accussations don't happen more often than most other crimes, but we don't harrass and abuse ever goddamn person who claims their bike got stolen.

but what really worries me here is you seeming to think there is NO POSSIBLE MIDDLEGROUND between "harrassing and yelling LYING HARLOT" and "immediately believing no questions asked THROW HIM TO THE SHARKS", how about we treat rape victims the way we treat other victims??? that is, with compassion and support????

anyway, i get that you don't actually care about any of this, but this is a really good piece on false rape accussations.

"please grow a brain"

And murder is dealt with.