Da Feminism Thread

[Subotan]

Feminist activism is important in places where women actually ARE being mistreated.

The work Western feminists can do in providing help to feminists in developing countries is really quite limited, for all sorts of reasons.

In the USA, at least, the real prejudicial divisions are Rich vs. Poor and not Men vs. Women or Whites vs. Blacks vs. Whatever.

There is a word used to describe the overall system of systems of oppression that overlap: kyriarchy. Being poor and white means you get all kinds of bad things, including lower life expectancy, worse education, less social mobility etc. but being, say, poor and black means you get all of those things and more. Social privilege is multi-faceted, and it is by means possible for you to be privileged in one area and very disadvantaged in another.

Sensationalism to keep the cause alive long after it has served its usefulness is not, and I believe most Americans who claim to be the victims ofwide-spread prejudice at this point are really just lazy good-for-nothings, regardless of race or gender

Some interesting statistics:

80% of white people in 1960 in America believed that racism was not a problem in their community
90% thought that white and black children got the same standard of education

Now, in hindsight, that's obviously wrong. But it's symptomatic of a much longer trend of white people, not necessarily intentionally or maliciously, completely misjudging just how rubbish it has always been to be non-white in the United States. In light of this, I would be very cautious about similar statements to the one I quoted.

As an ardent feminist this is a sentence that I have a real trouble with. The mere fact that we can easily categorise some topics of debate as male and some as female is at the discursive base of the problem. Until all pressure to be 'feminine' or 'masculine' or to define things as such is removed from language through a natural process of linguistic evolution then I believe the prospects for true gender equality are bleak.

Sure, and I didn't want to imply that somehow some topics are reserved for men and others are for women. The comment was a facetious criticism of the current content of the backroom and the lack of discussion about feminist issues. Sorry if I messed up.

This is another problem with the discourse surrounding feminism (and indeed race, sexuality, etc). The fact that so many people consider it to be men against women. That does not play into it at all. Rather, feminism is about a group of people who have a greater deal of linguistic pressure placed upon them to fit into engendered stereotypes attempting to break free of this pressure and to thus have a true equality of opportunity and will.

As for the argument that feminism in the West is pointless now, there are still huge areas in which feminists have a lot of work still to do. One such example is marital rape:

Completely agree.

I consider myself a feminist. I think some people get a bit caught up on the sound of the terminology, that feminism is somehow emasculating or anti-men, when it's not. Tiaexz defined the term Egalitarianism, as it encompasses feminist issues among others. I consider myself an egalitarian as well, but as most of the principles and spirit of the two are the same I use them interchangeably, and don't particularly stress out on the distinction.

As a man, it doesn't even occur to me that when I use the term "feminist" self-descriptively that it could mean anything to me but the equivalent of egalitarianism. That said, I refuse to describe myself as an egalitarian, as I feel that using a qualifier to describe myself to people who wouldn't describe themselves as feminists could cause them to think "Hey, if Subotan is an egalitarian feminist, does that mean that all the feminists who don't explicitly call themselves egalitarian are crazy?" By showing to other men that men can be feminists, despite being male and sane, is probably one of the few unique contributions men can contribute to feminism.

I am fine with the idea of stay-at-home dads, it is a valid choice they are free to make, but i imagine it would have an impact on their careers just as it does with mothers.

Why does anyone care? Some women want to be stay at home moms, some don't. Some men want to be stay at home dads, believe it or not.

I don't really like using cartoons instead of actually writing, but this image presents my problems with that statement pretty succinctly.

And you say that it doesn't compare to the number of rapes, but how do you know? Being a male accused of sexual harrassment or sexual assault is like being a 1940s Black Man in front of an all-white Alabama jury--anything but fair.

A black person in the scenario you described would likely end up dead. Most rapists aren't even charged, let alone convicted.

There's no more need for a movement. If women are discriminated against, then they don't need to start a movement, they need to use the tool that is already at their disposal: the law.

That's nice in theory, but implementation of the law can be a huge challenge. It took years and multiple rulings by the Supreme Court and federal government intervention to desegregate schools in the aftermath of Brown vs. The Board.

Throwing a stone in the water: the existence of feminist movements in modern Western societies is an insult to women, as it implies that women are not strong enough to come up for themselves; as if women are too weak to demand for their rights to be respected.

That seems rather backwards. Why does women standing up for their rights imply that women are not strong enough to demand their own rights?

This idiotic fuzzy line between consensual and non-consensual is directly working against that

How do you define rape if not by consent?

I'm not ever going to say that rape should go on, or be justified, but there are an awful lot of women out there that need to learn the difference between feeling guilty about a fling and being raped.

This is straying really close to victim blaming.

Accusations like that ruin careers, destroy families, and in some cases get you put on a list.

If a rapist rapes somebody, then he/she should face the consequences of their decision.

Allowing false accusations to go on only cheapens the ability to punish real rapists.

Nobody is "pro-false rape accusation", or wants them to continue. But the injustice caused by under-convictions of rapists is much greater than any caused by conviction of innocent men and women for rape.

If those rapes are not reported, then how do we even know they happened? I'm going to be very blunt here: rape is a terrible crime so it seems like a no-brainer to me that anyone who becomes victim of it, reports it. Those who claim that they have been raped, but never reported it, probably weren't raped at all. I simply have a very, very hard time believing that women who are being raped, just let it happen without reporting it.

If you talk to rape victims/survivors, most will tell you that a huge part of the trauma, if not the majority of it is from the reactions of people after the rape. For example, I met a survivor who was raped, and went and told her grandmother that she had been raped, and the first thing her grandmother asked was "What were you wearing?". Her grandmother later apologised, but it was still extremely hurtful. Of course, that's just anecdotal, but it's a good illustration of the way in which the aftermath of a rape can be pretty nasty, and it's not surprising that many survivors/victims want to get over the whole process as quickly as possible, especially if conviction rates are low.

What feminists don't understand is that nobody likes ugly lesbians.