Feminism

[Manfred Belheim]

You think history is history but it is most definitely white history for the most part. European recorded history is male history because of the paucity of female viewpoints.

It's also, for the most part, about Kings, Queens, leaders, politicians, and people in charge.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

We're not disputing the fact, we're disputing his conclusion of sexism not existing in history.

Well maybe if you actually read what he said you notice that that wasn't his conclusion and that he actually said the opposite.

 

[luiz]

This is why the analogy with racism is used. Racism is very visible and so easy to find examples of. It is easy to say that a person in historical or modern times has been oppressed in this situation or that one because of the colour of their skin.

Sexism is thousands of years old rather than mere hundreds and you are unable to see it in the same way fish are unable to see water. You have been brought up in the water and have internalized the water. Analogies have to be used in an attempt to get you to see the water. This is why you can look back at the massed ranks of men in history and get no error messages.

Aristocratic and class based oppression feature largely in history and in some situations were the primary cause of oppression. But you are most definitely trivializing the role sexism, thus continuing it.

Again, I'm not trivializing anything. I'm saying that women were not historically viewed as non-persons in the way slaves were. I'm saying arguments like "they were not allowed to vote!" are only really relevant in the relatively short time span in which men could vote but they couldn't, since throughout the vast majority of history neither men or women could vote (that is, the great majority of both genders had no political power whatsoever). I'm saying that while women had it worse in some regards, men also had it worse in others.

This is exactly where you're wrong. This is why a black history month is necessary. You think history is history but it is most definitely white history for the most part. European recorded history is male history because of the paucity of female viewpoints.

This is a common viewpoint among "multiculturalists" but it strikes me as silly. It's not only women who didn't record history, but rather the vast majority of the population. There is no "peasant's viewpoint" either. In fact for a very long time in European history there was not even a "noble's viewpoint", since the nobility was largely illiterate. For centuries virtually only monks recorded history. And yes, they were men, but they don't represent all men everywhere. They're a very small subset. It's not like women had a monopoly in non-representation.

 

[Traitorfish]

You people are terrible, and I am done.

 

[Zack]

If anything you're the one trivializing the suffering of the human race by saying that "some men had it bad too". How about "the overwhelming majority of both men and women had it bad?"

Unlike your trivializing statement, that one is actually accurate.

You're being ridiculous. This thread is about feminism, and all you want to talk about is - "hey, a lot of men have had it bad too!" It's not relevant to the topic at hand, and it trivializes the struggles women have had to, and still do, deal with.

Spoiler :

I know, I'm just a man, so I shouldn't have an opinion on this, but here goes:

I agree with many of the espoused "feminist" values. Equal pay, equal rights, equal representation. These are all great! People are people are people. It has done much in the last 50 years to help women achieve parity with men in many spheres of society.

What really gets me, however, is when feminists claim to also fight for men's issues and rights as well. The common feminist refrain that I keep hearing is that "feminism is for everyone, and will liberate men just as it has for women". I believe this to be incredibly wrong.



Then, we have this gem of an article, arguing that paternity tests should be illegal.



Unbelievable. I guess a man is supposed to be happy having a cheating whore wife and whatever other man's kids she chooses to bring him, because that is "best for the woman".

Also, it appears Swedish feminists are so afraid of men, they even want to control how they sit in public places.

But what really pisses me off, is when feminists excuse abuse of men because "it's not as bad as when it happens to women". Like what prominent German feminist Alice Schwarzer says in this article promoting male genital mutilation while excusing the female variety.



I hate this woman so, so much. How dare she excuse the genital mutilation of infants, simply because they are male and she is a misandrist. How dare she tell me how I should feel about having the most erogenous part of my body cut off without my consent.

So, in conclusion, I agree with many, even most of the arguments feminists present. Equal rights, equal pay, equal representation. Hell yes! However, I simply can't call myself a feminist and associate myself with a group of people who see me as inherently inferior.

I continue to be baffled why people only focus on the extremists when feminism is discussed. It's like bringing up Stalin and the atrocities he committed whenever someone mentions communism.

 

[Senethro]

So why are you devoting so much damn energy to saying "Women had it bad but not that bad really"? The implication, born of repetition, seems to be that because women didn't have it as bad as slaves, were recipients of some small benevolent sexism at times and that not all men were oppressed less than all women, then it wasn't so bad really!

Otherwise it looks like the height of pedantry.

 

[luiz]

You're being ridiculous. This thread is about feminism, and all you want to talk about is - "hey, a lot of men have had it bad too!" It's not relevant to the topic at hand, and it trivializes the struggles women have had to, and still do, deal with.

I continue to be baffled why people only focus on the extremists when feminism is discussed. It's like bringing up Stalin and the atrocities he committed whenever someone mentions communism.

It is relevant because it puts things in context. Like saying "women were denied the right to vote for centuries / thousands of years" is misleading because so were men. And comparisons with slaves, or characterizing males as a sort of oppressive class... all those are to be found in feminist discourse, and it's simply wrong.

And people discuss the extremists in part because others praise the extremists, or refuse to accept extremists even exist. See: Perfection saying there is no such thing as a ********. Seems to me those women Dawgphood quoted all abundantly deserve the label.

So why are you devoting so much damn energy to saying "Women had it bad but not that bad really"? The implication, born of repetition, seems to be that because women didn't have it as bad as slaves, were recipients of some small benevolent sexism at times and that not all men were oppressed less than all women, then it wasn't so bad really!

Otherwise it looks like the height of pedantry.

I'm trying to put the discussion within a proper context. To repeat myself: "It is relevant because it puts things in context. Like saying "women were denied the right to vote for centuries / thousands of years" is misleading because so were men. And comparisons with slaves, or characterizing males as a sort of oppressive class... all those are to be found in feminist discourse, and it's simply wrong."

 

[Manfred Belheim]

You're being ridiculous. This thread is about feminism, and all you want to talk about is - "hey, a lot of men have had it bad too!" It's not relevant to the topic at hand, and it trivializes the struggles women have had to, and still do, deal with.

Of course it's relevant. Feminism and women don't exist in a vacuum. Feminist ideals don't exist independently of the things they object to. Stating if and why you think those ideals are based on flawed logic is entirely relevant. You're free to disagree, but it doesn't make sense to ban discourse on topics so obviously related.

 

[Senethro]

Again, why are you spending so much energy in misquotes from this thread or outright strawmen? Or quotemining from a small number of extremists among wider feminist thought?

Because the repetition suggests an objective in mind.

 

[Zack]

It's not relevant because "a lot of men had it bad too, so it doesn't matter that women had it bad" is an absurd argument to make. All it does is trivialize. And for how bad all those poor men had it, women still had it worse, which you both keep glossing over.

 

[useless]

An associative form of guilt? Is that parsed correctly?

I didn't mention guilt. I just said that whilst men were also screwed throughout history, you'll find that more often than not they're the ones also doing the screwing.

You people are terrible, and I am done.

Indeed some of them are, but not all of us...

 

[Manfred Belheim]

It's not relevant because "a lot of men had it bad too, so it doesn't matter that women had it bad" is an absurd argument to make.

That's not the argument though. The argument is (if you insist on boiling it down to a single sentence) "a lot of people had it bad, so concentrating on only one gender is the wrong tack to take". Or "insisting that women have been oppressed by men since the dawn of time is a false and misleading statement, and any arguments or viewpoints that stem directly from that statement are inherently flawed". To interpret it as, essentially "screw women", you have to be selectively ignoring a lot of what's being said.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I didn't mention guilt. I just said that whilst men were also screwed throughout history, you'll find that more often than not they're the ones also doing the screwing.

This is just a stupid argument. Association by gender. Essentially dismissing the individual altogether. A man hurts another man - it doesn't matter because they're both men!

 

[Zack]

"a lot of people had it bad, so concentrating on only one gender is the wrong tack to take"

Are you being facetious? Just... what a silly thing to say. A lot of organisms had it bad, why should we concentrate only on humans? There are so many interesting things to discuss, why concentrate on a single topic in a thread?

 

[useless]

This is just a stupid argument. Association by gender. Essentially dismissing the individual altogether. A man hurts another man - it doesn't matter because they're both men!

No I am saying that disproportionately the suffering that people have endured has been meted out by men, not women. I didn't dismiss any goddamn suffering and i wouldn't think that just because men are just as likely to be the perpretrators that somehow the male victims of said act are in any way harmed less/deserve it more.

What a pathetic thing to say, seriously. Could you strawman any more? Would you seriously think that i'd believe male rape doesn't matter if i pointed out that females are more likely to be victims of rape? Really?

Is this the level we're at with this discourse? No wonder TF said he's done with this.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

No I am saying that disproportionately the suffering that people have endured has been meted out by men, not women. I didn't dismiss any goddamn suffering and i wouldn't think that just because men are just as likely to be the perpretrators that somehow the male victims of said act are in any way harmed less/deserve it more.

What a pathetic thing to say, seriously. Could you strawman any more? Would you seriously think that i'd believe male rape doesn't matter if i pointed out that females are more likely to be victims of rape? Really?

Is this the level we're at with this discourse? No wonder TF said he's done with this.

Okay then what point were you making? Because there doesn't seem to be any other obvious point you could have been making.

 

[useless]

That throughout history women are powerless in comparison to men, because men have wielded the power in which to screw others through law, religion, war etc.

And that yes, men too have been screwed, but they have also been disportionately the ones DOING the screwing. Jesus, is that so hard to understand?

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Are you being facetious? Just... what a silly thing to say. A lot of organisms had it bad, why should we concentrate only on humans? There are so many interesting things to discuss, why concentrate on a single topic in a thread?

No I'm not being facetious. The thread isn't about discussing some of the bad things that happened to some women at some point, it's about feminism as a whole. Feminism routinely prioritises issues that affect women, and sidelines or dismisses issues that don't. And indeed is largely built upon the premise of "women = opressed (by men)". It's entirely in keeping with the topic to discuss whether or not you think this world-view is valid as it informs everything else in the discussion.

I'm hardly expecting world peace to break out in this thread and a mass consensus to be reached, but it seems bizarre that 16 pages into the thread people still aren't even understanding the basic premises that other people are putting across, never mind actually addressing them.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

That throughout history women are powerless in comparison to men, because men have wielded the power in which to screw others through law, religion, war etc.

And that yes, men too have been screwed, but they have also been disportionately the ones DOING the screwing. Jesus, is that so hard to understand?

Well you've just said the same thing again. Equating the screwees with the screwers just because they're both men. Therefore the suffering inflicted in the screwees must somehow be more justified when they share the gender of the screwers. If you're NOT saying that then what possible relevance does it have? I have no inherent affinity with other men just because we share genetalia, and I don't share any responsibility for anything they do. Particularly if I'm part of the vastly more numerous screwees, then I share no responsibility for what the minority of screwers do to me (or women, or donkeys).

You say I'm making a strawman, but what the hell else can you be saying other than that?

 

[useless]

Quote me when i said that the suffering inflicted upon men is justified by the inflicting suffering upon others, historically.

Goddamn quote me.