Feminism

[illram]

Is it a particularly productive argument to try and determine if it is better to be murdered with a chance of enslavement or enslaved with a chance of being murdered?

I think you quoted the wrong person.

 

[Farm Boy]

I think it reduces the whole "historical cannon fodder" argument to the idiocy it is. Both side had high odds of suffering from warfare. End of story.

Sure. Do you consider it irrational to claim, however, that there is nothing quite so undesirable to society as a poor, unconnected, single young male or an unconnected, poor, post-menopausal woman(bonus points if undesired minority ethnicity/religion)? That both of these members of society are about as low as it gets?

A Farm Boy quotes exactly whom he means to, thank you preez Esq. Illram!

 

[luiz]

I think it reduces the whole "historical cannon fodder" argument to the idiocy it is. Both side had high odds of suffering from warfare. End of story.

The number of men and women victimized by wars is not equal. I think the disparity is much bigger than the wage gap feminists go on about.

You don't get to declare end of story.

 

[Evie]

The war gap as you call it was a relevant issue in an era where it conflicted with such things as the "vote gap" and "property gap" and "being treated as an adult human gap" and "getting enslaved and raped by the victors gap". So yeah, not so much.

Given how scarce wars (and war deaths) have become in the west today, the notion that it,s still a relevant factor in male/female equality isn't much convincing. Especially since we're talking voluntary enlistment, increasingly open to women.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

After the male cannon fodder were dead and their side had lost what do you suppose happened to their women?

I also quibble with your history of female employment. Women have traditionally toiled in the fields, factories and coal mines along with their male counterparts.

Fields yes, factories probably (although different ones), coal mines... I'm sure some women did but I can't say I'd ever known that as anything other than a very male-dominated profession.

But this is where it turns into a class issue really. In the bottom rungs of society, the working classes, women never had the luxury of not having to work because there just wasn't enough wealth and sustainance to go around for the poor, so they worked just as hard as the men. But neither the men or the women in this class could ever be considered "priveliged" in any way. Meanwhile, at the other end of the scale you have the CEOs and the directors who earn loads of money, and their wives would traditionally stay at home and not work at all. And the women they had working under them would meet the "glass ceiling". All very real and unequal I grant, but both genders in this end of society always had it better than the vastly larger numbers of both sexes at the other end of society. Feminism has always been a predominantly middle class movement that paints all men as priveliged and essential CEOs-in-waiting. The whole thing has a skewed view of how society actually functions and where the priorities lie.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Historically, most men got the right to vote long before women (on the scale of WHEN people got voting rights). And women DID in fact toil under back-breaking condition for most of history.

Arguing women were "fully integrated" historically, especially the last few centuries of human history, is a display of either ignorance or lying.

Or you're just misconstruing what I'm saying. They were fully integrated in that they lived alongside men at all levels of society, made up 50% of all families at all levels of society, shared in the riches and priveliges at the top end, shared in the drudgery and poverty at the lower end. Yes they had different rights and different responsibilities to men, more restricted in some areas, offered benefits and protection in other areas. I never said they were the same, just that they were entirely integrated in society. They were never treated as pariahs, they were never physically separated and forced to live in slums, they were never a minority or subculture. Like I said, the whole thing is very complicated and can't be reduced to "men had everything, women had nothing, they were a minority".

Also note that I'm still not saying, and never have said, that women are in any way inferior and should be denied the vote or equal pay or anything along those lines. I've not said that because I don't believe that. So I'm not a chauvinist at all. You don't get to choose any derogatory term for me that you choose just because you don't share my view of history or society.

 

[Evie]

Okay, it's possible I misundertood your original point on that.

I see what angle you're looking at; and it's true that from that angle they were part of the broader white society.

But from the perspective of legal rights, they were legal pariahs, disenfranchised in every possible way (property right, contractual rights, voting rights, etc. Women simply put had little to no right as an individual - and it wasn't until well into the 20th that they were established to be "persons" in the legal sense).

To me (I suppose that may be professional bias; I'm on my way to being a lawyer), that amount of legal pariah status is anathema to the notion of being an integrated part o society.

 

[caketastydelish]

I think it reduces the whole "historical cannon fodder" argument to the idiocy it is. Both side had high odds of suffering from warfare. End of story.

Men overwhelming serve combat roles, not women. Nah, this time men have it worse.

 

[Senethro]

Why is it everywhere on the internet that the topic of feminism is discussed that men try to steer the discussion around to male issues? I mean, yeah, they exist, they're non-trivial and need addressing but whats that got to do with the necessity of feminism? Why isn't there there a wider movement for solving men's problems? They shouldn't be in opposition (although many so-called "MRAs" heavily imply that they are).

 

[caketastydelish]

With this you raise a good point. I'm not opposed to the ideas of women's issues as long as they admit there are men's issues as well.

 

[Farm Boy]

Why is it everywhere on the internet that the topic of feminism is discussed that men try to steer the discussion around to male issues? I mean, yeah, they exist, they're non-trivial and need addressing but whats that got to do with the necessity of feminism? Why isn't there there a wider movement for solving men's problems? They shouldn't be in opposition (although many so-called "MRAs" heavily imply that they are).

The problem, so far as I can tell, is thus: feminism's current big-ticket items in our cultural zeitgeist revolve around differences in wages(as compared to men), differences in education(as compared to men), differences in representation in film/art(as compared to men), and differences in representation in the highest halls of evilpower(as compared to men). Which means the discussion from the get-go is not structured in a "how does society become more equitable and healthy on a whole," which it should be, but is instead structured as "whose junk gets them a better deal in society." Which is really, when answered honestly, "it depends."

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Why is it everywhere on the internet that the topic of feminism is discussed that men try to steer the discussion around to male issues?

Because humans are self-centred and most message boards are sausage-fests.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

But from the perspective of legal rights, they were legal pariahs, disenfranchised in every possible way (property right, contractual rights, voting rights, etc. Women simply put had little to no right as an individual - and it wasn't until well into the 20th that they were established to be "persons" in the legal sense).

That's true (not that I claim to know the details of the law), but the societal forces and motivations behind that didn't (I don't think) come from a desire to subjugate and dominate. With slave labour, immigrants, other races etc it did come from that, from a desire to use those you saw as lesser beings. Women were never seen like that, they were seen as special, prized creatures to be won and protected. I'm not saying that's right or desirable, and it obviously led to them being treated in a rather childlike way and kept away from "men's business", but the motivations behind it are very different from subjugating minorities in the usual sense.

So while they may have had very fewer legal rights, there was a greater responsibility placed on society at large to look after them and protect them from harm. Men would have to defend them, or their honour. Men would be expected to sustain injury to protect them, to pay for them and submit to their whims in order to court them, to look after them when married to them, stand when they entered the room, pull out chairs for them etc. All very old-fashioned an unequal, but all arguably coming from a motivation of care and even reverance.

I'm glad society has changed a lot since then, and I'm glad things are much more equal in terms of legal rights and opportunities, but to my eyes I still see a lot of this reverance and protection offered to women that isn't offered to men, and I think feminism uses that to its own end, and hence we end up with discussions on rape and violence that entirely focus on protecting women and barely even acknowledge that these things happen to men too (even if the numbers aren't QUITE equal), shelters for victims of domestic violence that refuse to house men, disproportionate spending on healthcare drives for women, when men already die younger and more prolifically from the the biggest causes of premature death, a total disregard for the vastly larger numbers of men who are victims of street violence. If you even dare to speak about these things you get angrily shouted down and called a chauvinist. And that's not right. And that's why I think feminism isn't a movement/ideology that affects only women, or is only their prerogative to talk about. I'm all for equal rights and fairness and supporting everyone, but I think concentrating on the "fem" and nothing else is misguided, damaging, divisive and will just build resentment. Especially if even trying to talk about it gets you branded as a knuckle-dragging neanderthal.

From my own personal perspective, just in my life time, I grew up surrounded by women and girls all being treated equally. We went to school together, did all the same lessons together - be that science, history, cookery or metal work. At the end of it the girls all did better in exams anyway. Then I went to college and finally university, the most painfully politically correct environment in the world where no -isms were tolerated at all. And yet suddenly I found girls were getting a load of benefits that I couldn't get. The student comittee had its own "women's officer" to look after only the females. They got access to certain rooms or spaces that were women only. They had a free bus that would take them all home after a night clubbing, while the male students had to walk or pay for themselves - all still relying on the age old societal vision of them being more delicate and needing more protection, while the strong men could fend for themselves. The free bus I found particularly galling as not only are men far more likely to find themselves a victim of violence on a drunken night out than women, but the young male demographic is the most vulnerable of all. So if a man like me can grow up in a world where he personally sees women as having all the same opportunities and rights that he has, but sees them also get handed extra things on top of that, and all in the name of redressing some historical imbalance that he has neither experienced nor played any part in, this just leads to resentment. Perhaps even to a false and undeserved (but nevertheless real and understandable) sense of victimhood. And when there's such a bigger disparity in pay and opportunities between different social classes than there is between men and women in the same class... it just seems entirely the wrong emphasis.

So there is still disparity in society, and not all of it is against women. Indeed, they have many benefits and priveliges that men do not. When all the effort goes into raising the fates of women in the areas where they suffer the most, and there's no reduction in the priveliges they receive; where issues of rape and domestic violence against men are almost entirely sidelined on the grounds that they are in a minority (and since when is dismissing the concerns of a minority the right thing to do); and where issues of social justice and equality are only spoken about when a title that starts with "fem" is applied to them... then that's just bad. That's not how to do things. That's why I think feminism is just harmful and divisive in the modern world.

Apologies for the long and rambling post. And I don't hate women

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Why is it everywhere on the internet that the topic of feminism is discussed that men try to steer the discussion around to male issues? I mean, yeah, they exist, they're non-trivial and need addressing but whats that got to do with the necessity of feminism? Why isn't there there a wider movement for solving men's problems? They shouldn't be in opposition (although many so-called "MRAs" heavily imply that they are).

Because feminism talks about men, male roles, and the problems with and priveliges of men all the time. In fact every major issue or point within feminism is defined in term of a disparity with men. It's not like men are muscling in on a private women's club where they have no reason to be. The whole thing affects men just as much. You can't enact mass societal change without men noticing or being affected by it.

 

[daft]

I once heard that "Women are stronger/tougher mentally, men physically (with exceptions of course)". Do you think it being true?

 

[AdamCrock]

Women make better soldiers and that is a fact ! Man make better cook's and that is a fact too ! There is nothing we can make different to say differant about those facts. The fact is : Woman is a better soldier than man and man is a better cook than woman and that's that.

PS>
It is all a point of view anyway , just think about it and You will know that I'm right

 

[Narz]

A reasonable discussion?

A reasonable discussion on whether we ned feminism by its very nature must include a reasonable number of women.

Unrealistic for civfanatics.

men imagining that they can determine what women need.

Sometimes I can determine what women need.

 

[Senethro]

That's why I think feminism is just harmful and divisive in the modern world.

Your post was pretty reasonable right up until this line at the end. Are you saying that feminism is a cause of any male issue or is your petty resentment just really that great?

 

[AdamCrock]

Never the less I would like to see a woman perspective on all of this So far I've only seen the male perspective , a woman would be a welcome addition to the discussion

 

[AdamCrock]

Because humans are self-centred and most message boards are sausage-fests.

Geben Sie bitte eine wurst mit beer ! xD

You can tell all about the Germans but They sure know what is good ! ^^

Read this post as a male perspective