Feminist Movement Discussion Con't

In the Feminist Fire Shows thread it was requested that people not debate the whole movement but instead help her figure out a presentation. Of course, it did not work out this way and the thread became way off track, so I am starting this thread for that discussion to continue without fettering the help Divi requested.

So far the spelling of Wymyn as such has been up for discussion, including the derrivitived of the original spelling of Women in the Christian somantic: meaning "Of the Man" because Eve was created from Adam's Rib
and of the derrivitive: meaning "Man With the Womb"
And from the thought to be of Celt origin: the term "Man" was extrapolated from "Woman", not the other way around.

This lead to a discussion of, what does the spelling really signify in the terms of the Feminist movement? And then does it gain less respect because of such obvious "anti-male" redderick. Are there parts of the feminist movement that are just as Chauvenistic as some men can be? Are the anti-male feminists just as bad as oppressive men? Do these solve anything.

The question of sensuality and sexuality in the feminist movement also came up, and shouldn't it be about embracing and celebrating being a woman, curves and all, and not hiding from it? Isn't that sensuality part of humanity instead of being anti-feministic?

So, these were some of the topics touched I believe. Please feel free to continue, or add, to these!
Cheers!
Pele

Well... I dont understand why people get so cought up over the spelling of words.

I think that a word is a word.

Why are some women offended about "female, woman, lady"?

It is pretty much the English language that has speelings like that. The french have totaly differnt words for male and female.

I dont comprehend the problem. Can someone explain this to me?


Okay, Ill just simplfy things, I dont understand the whole feminist movment. Like I said my ex was a feminist, and I didnt understand everything then, but she tried to explain things. Anyone up for a refresher course?

i think the reason people get so anti certain words, be it alaternative terms for 'Wymyn' or a swear word or any other word that someone may find offensive, is nothing to do with the actual word but entirely to do with the connotations that society puts on them.

Like the word 'Sweetheart' can be the most patronising, degrading word or a really sweet loving term.

Personally i try to distance myself from my feelings about a word and try to work out what the person saying it is actually trying to convey.


Marf. XxX

oh boy, i'm gonna have to come back to thread when i have much more time. i don't need to get started now.



beware the return of the raging feminist!

i think the feminist movement had it's time and place to be an angry, confrontational, "chauvenist" etc... That was when shock tactics were really nesceary to make people think they weren't just upset housewives and single women who could be made happy just by makeing a pie for their husband or finding a husband.

Things have changed, sure there is a legacy of the old. But theres still a legacy of things from the dark ages (example:someone sneezes you say bless you, originally this was because it was common belief that when you sneezed your soul was comeing out, without blessing it would be lost) Personally I think it's beautiful that our language still has ties to such old history, It's not because I believe in the reasons for the antiquated phrases and sayings of the past. It's because I think history is something all people should know, and our language is an example of living history.

Now I think english education should really concentrate on the derivation of words and compare the old meanings and associated beliefs of language with the current ones. So people can make up their own mind.

Also I think portions of the feminist movement better wake up and realize that men are just people and women are just people. Women objectify men, men objectify women. It just seems like women are a lot better at concealing it, ratioanlizing it away or just outright defensivly opposing the notion. Kind of like how men first responded to the early days of the feminist movement.

Personally from my limited experience with highschool girls it seems like girls are much worse then men are when it comes to sexism. All my friends and most of my peers would not go out with a girl if she wasn't pleasant and reasonably compatible with their personality. Theres all kinds of girls no one wanted to go out with just because they were impossible to get along with. But there were all kinds of girls who seemed to go out with complete scum bag assholes who were increadibly stupid, unfunny and genuinly unpleasant. Ive heard girls talking about these guys and they would be like "He's such a dork and a prick, but he's so hot" and they would go out with him. If that's not objectifying I don't know what is.

Now I realize other people have had diffrenr experiences so don't try to counter what im saying with some opposite experience. Ive seen examples of men doing worse to women (it seems in general men almost always do worse things to women then women do to men) but in my personal experience with people my age it's just not as common.

Okay.. feminism is so large, so all-encompassing that I could write a thousand books... but simplified:
Feminism is the struggle to end patriarchal oppression. I definately agree with Astar when he says that wymyn can be more sexist than men; my mother is one of the worst perpetuators of patriarchy i know!
I have many men in my life who are feminist, and who challenge their own male privilege and patriarchy daily. They have taught me things about feminism that I would never have known otherwise! Looking at it this way, my brand of feminism cannot be anti-male. (Again, there's lots that I would say around this, but alas, this is only a message board and not a dissertation..)

Next, we are in the third wave of feminism. This wave started in the western world very recently, and calls for wymyn to challenge and express themselves however they choose. It is extremely individualistic, and is broad enough to encompass people from all sexes, genders, classes, ethnicities, backgrounds, sexualities, etc. This is the form of feminism that I feel we should be debating.

Now, to defend my use of the words womyn, wymyn and humin.. I don't personally care where the words "woman" and "man" originated. *shrugs* The point for me is to demonstrate an active rebellion against the non-thinking & patriarchal majority. A shift in language definately makes people stop and think twice about what is being done to the words and grammar in front of them. This is what I do; I play with people's lack of questioning. I slyly ask them to think twice.

Oh, and BTW Astar, we as wymyn have come a long way, but we have done it on our own backs, and don't need to be told today "it's alright now. you can stop bearing your teeth", because there is still so much that has not changed. Did you know that EVERY YEAR, 100,000 wymyn are raped in the United States? And how do you account for me being sexually harassed twice AND queer bashed this past weekend alone? How do you account for almost every womyn I know being assaulted due to her sex, his/her gender or her sexual orientation? I will clench my fists and flex my jaw all I want, thank you very much.

(oh yes, you touched a nerve)

Till next time!

Divi, you're right about everything, except: why wymyn, instead of womyn? The extra y seems annoyingly unnecessary.

Do you know how in grade 8 my friends sister was sexually assaulted, and how angry I was about the whole thing (I infact spent some time looking for this guy with murderon my mind, so did most of the peopel in my school) Ands then because I was a bit of a freak, a bit depressive and a bit lonely I was labled as a potential rapist, firs tjokeinly but it grew into a serious stigma. The facts is I bever ever had's any aggresive fantasy or urges towards women, Infact I would benefit probably from a tiny bit of agrresion so I could alteast meet some women. Ivels also been blatanlty discirmintaed by feamle teachers because of my sex. Ive been sexually harassed, objectified, ive faced serious gay bashing from women and men.

So why are you so bloody god damn unique hey?

ps-im drunk.

The flalout from the feminist movment's mistakes is starting to becomes vis


visble.

riseing rates of genderdysphoria, Riseingg numbers of men internalizing their anger by self-loathing, self mutilation etc...

I have scars ive's given myself becauses ives been ashamed of mmy gender that will never heal.

I am an engineer, while working on an underground excavation in Norway there was no problemn with the sub-contractors listening to me and doing what I said, while back in the UK recently the (admittedly, Turkish) contractors wouldn't even talk directly to me, instead opting to take direction from a male student who was on placement with me. I know of many men who go out to the Middle East, work for a couple of years then buy their houses in cash, whereas there is no chance of me ever doing that as the contractors out there will not even contemplate taking orders from a woman. I'm a bloody good engineer, and it really, really f*cks me off when my work is not taken seriously.

Although I do not agree with man-bashing, while this attitude continues, not only in my field but in so many others I can't help but feel so angry that I want to hit someone in the nuts.

Right now equality in attitude feels a very, very long way off.

Equality of attitudes (and I do try and treat people based on their skills (and what I'm trying to do with them) not on who they are), is far off, and unfortunately people have had bad experiences, but ridiculous corruption of language to make a point isolates those who would otherwise be behind your cause.

Pele: I'm sorry for reacting to it in the other thread, but this is one of my buttons.

Divi: In order to make your cause useful (and I do understand what you're saying), you do need people of both sexes on board, you can't just say "we only need women", or you'll fail to change the attitudes of the men. By highlighting such things, you show yourself to be extremists and therefore not worth following from people sitting on the fence. You will thus completely fail to change the attitudes of those who you are trying to change. You've already isolated me from your cause, and I'm very much pro-equality.

I should explain that of both my exes, both hold PhDs in their respective subjects (one is also a Medical Doctor), and I got a 3rd in my BA. I have no illusions that they are both way more intelligent than me, and that at some things I am better, and at others they are better. That attitude is, I think, what you seek, but the way to do it is by being inclusive not isolating.

</rant>

I consider myself a feminist. However, some feminists believe that their goals will only be achieved when women make up 50% of the workforce and are equally represented in all levels of employment.

I disagree. I believe that their goals will be achieved when any woman can easily assume any job on any level with the same facility as any man.

An article recently came out about how a lot of women who are very well-educated (M.D.'s, MBA's, J.D.'s, etc.) are opting out of high-level work options to raise families and work part-time. But it's their choice to do this, because most of them formerlly held very high positions in various firms. I consider that to be fine, but it makes some feminists bristle.

okie.. looks like i've made some enemies... fine with me!

But please refer back to my previous post about third wave feminism. This wave is a much more creative and play-full form of wymyn's empowerment. Like I said, I'm playful with my words and thus get people to think them over twice (note how quickly my language became a topic in the feminist fire shows thread).

I don't know if I believe in equality per se, but I definately don't buy into the idea that wymyn and men are necessarily different as dictated by their genes.. this is a second-wave feminist binary that I have not yet created a solid stance on.
I think that third-wave feminism just allows for more fluidity in everything!
This is why I don't believe in calling it egalitarianism. I think that feminism has too much merit to just disgard. Plus, I find the word to be a euphamism which doesn't accurately describe the huge struggle that people must endure in order to systemically remove patriarchy from their lives. This is by no means an easy task; I'm still working on it!

And I don't know how much clearer I have to be in order to say that I don't hate men. (I think that people have some media constructs about feminism that they may not be challenging...) But, it is extremely easy for men to accept patriarchal privilege... and I see this everywhere. Even in my activist circles, I have noticed men interrupting & talking over wymyn, while wymyn accept jobs with lower visibility and recognition. (Just so that everyone doesn't pounce all over me, I'll throw in the qualifier saying that this is what I have generally noticed. There are, indeed great exceptions, but these are usually done very consciously, instead of having it accepted and acted out unconsciously the way patriarchy is. This is the essence of patriarchy's pervasiveness: it is subconscious and acceptable according to the mainstream's norms.)

I'm feeling suffocated in this discussion, like people are only reading what they want to read, and are disregarding everything else that I'm trying to say.
This is, again, privilege, but I won't get into that right now.

So, think about taking these views to heart, and if not, please think about what I'm saying before replying. I don't want to be put on the defensive and I don't want to see my words being skewed.

I hope that I have helped to clear things up.
Till next time!

This is aimed at divi's posts, I'm just going to do some point rebuttal here - please don't feel that I haven't read or are ignoring anything here, I've never studied Feminism And Modern Society or anything...

I feel you are guilty of a certain amount of misattribution of the idea of patriarchy. To take a couple of examples:

quote:

---

EVERY YEAR, 100,000 wymyn are raped in the United States?

---

It's disgusting isn't it? It's also attributable to "patriarchy" by only the flimsiest of logic; rape and sexual assault only make up a small portion of the ugly beast we call "violent crime", which includes a host of other sordid practices such as assault, car jacking and murder. In every crime excepting rape and sexual assault, males are more likely to be victims than females. A simple explanation would for the skew
when it comes to sexual crimes would simply be that most perpetrators are heterosexual males. Overall, 76% of victims of violent crime are male, although over the last 10-15 years the gap has been steadily narrowing. I'm not sure what this means for the feminist movement, but over all it doesn't seem like a very good example of patriarchal oppression.

As regards your mention of your male associates "slipping into patriarchal privelage" and talking over your female associates, I would think that the dynamic you've experienced has more to do with individual personalities than a conditioned belief in male superiority. If you do not believe in fundamental differences between male and female physiology (and by extension psychology), you at least have to acknowledge that individual personalities are not created solely through conditioning and that some people are simply more prone to try to dominate social situations than others. This is seen in small children and animals as much as modern adults, so again I think it a tenuous position to hold that patriarchal oppression is necessarily at play.

I won't argue with your fire, I think if more people had your passion for fighting the (often criminal) flaws in modern society the world would be a far far better place. But I do think the anger is slightly misdirected. Crime, arrogance and general idiocy are just obscene counterparts to sexism, not symptoms of it.

Also what makes you think the number of men being raped wouldn't be higher if women were very capable of rapeing men (Yes, say whatever you want men are stronger and bigger then women on average, and the penis can go flaccid pretty fast, makeing rape a much harder act for a woman to commit agaisnt a man)

Now I know this is really going to touch some nerves and I don't know how else to word it, I hesitate to try but here it goes.

I really think we as a society are very responsible for the pain and hurt associated with rape. I can't count the amount of times ive heard "rape is worse then murder, rape ruins your life, rape is the worst thing you can do to a person etc...."

Well no wonder it is the worst thing you can do to a person if you keep saying it is. If all the
misconceptions, outright lies, shame and stigma was stripped from our society about rape I think it would help rape victims cope a lot better. It's always going to cause a lot of psychological damage but any assault does.

Im just reall embittered by the whole thing and I mostly keep my opinions to myself because I really don't want to derail the movement or something. Divi im not argueing agaisnt you at all (well untill I touched a nerve for you, and you touched one of my nerves in response), although I may not be very responsive to your points. I see this thread more of a venue for me to vent my frustration with *SOME* feminists. I was jokeing about the groin beating comment in the original thread and I generally think your doing a great thing by putting a feminist message in your poi show.

To sum it up I just think by no circumstances should there be shame associated with your gender. Im getting vibes from more and more men that they are very ashamed of being men, which is a sign that something is going seriously wrong. But I admit it does seem like a lot of men are still in the mindset that makes feminists still want to fight their cause.

Oh yeah I would say when a man cuts you off when your talking he probably cuts a lot of people off. Probably other men who they judge to be dumber then they are (especially if these men seem to be "pushovers") That's aggresive behaviour and the belief that you can judge people's intelligence/merit/whatever very quickly. I think it exists equally in both sexes.

Also Im very upset to hear about how you can't do what you want with your engineering trade. It seems some areas of society are stil dominated by thinking from 1950. The only way that will change is if the people literally die off or get out of positions of power. It's frustrating that change can't happen faster then it does but I really think that's a fact of life.

[ 06. November 2003, 21:12: Message edited by: Astar ]

Divi, it seems you have a lot of blame headed in the direction of the general male population just because they are men. If a guy does something wrong it doesn't mean he's flexing his patriarchal muscles and dominating a woman, he's just being a tw*t in general! And yet you make no reference to the same pains caused by women. "100 000 women raped every year" yet it has been shown that of the reported cases (of course many are, unfortunately, unreported and can only be estimated) as much as 50% are false, WYMYM using their matriarchal power to gain position over men in a way they know will massivaly shame that particular guy in his community leaving him possibly the worst stigma possible.
And how can you not be a beleiver in equality per se, surely that was the base of Feminism in the first place?? To be able to stand on an equal ground with men, throughout the world, who have risen through many thousands of years to be a dominant sex. It certainly wasn't to 'overthrow the power' of men it was to join their position of power, stop the persicution of sexism and be recognised as being every bit as good at anything possible done by men.
Yes it is easy to accept Patriarchal privilege, just as it's easy to accept Matriarchal privilage....of which there are unarguably many in this world and any other privilage. !
Two wrongs and all that.....

It's a shame to read you're having trouble with your career as an engineer, I had that too and have now had to sideline away from engineering, but if some one were to offer you a great job tomorrow purely on the basis that you were a woman and they were trying to make up the figures would you accept?

oh, and one last point, I don't think you've made any enemies with your views here, it's a very interesting debate!

I am absolutely baffled by the degree of outright ignorance being displayed in this thread. 50% of reported rapes are false?! Where on earth did you find that bogus statistic? Institutionalized sexism is real, and it affects all aspects of women's lives, from the most profound (sexual assault, spousal abuse) to the most mundane (underfunding of girls' sports programs).

Are some women violent? Yes. Are some women manipulative? Yes. But they are functioning within a system that regularly demeans and devalues them. Here are a few (real) statistics, and I apologize for the heavy U.S. slant:

All else being equal, women earn 76 cents to every dollar a man earns. (http://www.aflcio.org/yourjobeconomy/ns04152003.cfm)

50-73% of men who use Viagra and other impotence aids are reimbursed by their health insurance, while only 33% of major health plans cover the birth control pill. (http://www.fwhc.org/health/viagra.htm)

In 2001, there were 249,000 victims of rape, attempted rape or sexual assault. (http://www.safecampusesnow.org/Statistics.htm)

And for the man who seems to think that rape is just like any other random violent crime:
In 1997, 68.3% of rapes were perpetrated by someone who knew the victim. (sa.rochester.edu/masa/stats.php ) In other words, not as a random act of violence, but as a premeditated assault that has everything to do with negative attitudes towards women and a cultural tendency to view them as inferiors, possessions, and objects.

This doesn't even begin to address all the countries where it's illegal for women to leave their houses without a male chaperone, where women can't drive, vote, work, or bare so much as their ankles without fear of violent reprisal. Where a woman can be sentenced to death for having sex out of wedlock, but her male partner can walk away scot free (see Nigeria and Amina Lawal).

I'm not looking to get into a big fight here. I'm just seeing a whole lot of misinformation on this thread, and I was so horrified to see men who have no firsthand experience suggest that maybe rape isn't that bad, and maybe women deserve it because sometimes they're bitches, and maybe rape doesn't even happen as much as those feminazis would have us think, that I couldn't let it go without a challenge.

None of this has anything to do with "hating men." Men should hate these statistics as much as I do, and the climate that fosters them. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

/end rant