Forums > Social Chat > Feminist Movement Discussion Con't

Posted: 4th Nov 2003
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?

Wisdom calls aloud in the street, she raises her voice in the public squares; at the head of noisy streets she cries out, in the gateways of the city she makes her speech:

Posted: 4th Nov 2003
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

I had a dream that my friend had a
strong-bad pop up book,
it was the book of my dreams.

Posted: 4th Nov 2003
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 was always scared with my mother's obsession with the good scissors. It made me wonder if there were evil scissors lurking in the house somewhere.

Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.

**giggles**

Posted: 4th Nov 2003
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.

Posted: 4th Nov 2003

quote:

---

Originally posted by Astar:
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.

---

Astar

You said what I was going to say.

I was discussing this with onewheeldave a while back in this thread, actually.

E pluribus unum, baby.

Posted: 5th Nov 2003
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!

Posted: 5th Nov 2003
Divi, you're right about everything, except: why wymyn, instead of womyn? The extra y seems annoyingly unnecessary.

Posted: 5th Nov 2003
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.

Posted: 5th Nov 2003
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.

Posted: 5th Nov 2003
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.

There is a slight possibility that I am not actually right all of the time.

Posted: 5th Nov 2003
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.

Luv 'n' Lemons
purity :: clarity :: balance

Posted: 5th Nov 2003

quote:

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the Christian somantic: meaning "Of the Man" because Eve was created from Adam's Rib
and of the derrivitive: meaning "Man With the Womb"

---

Don't forget that the bible was translated (very poorly) predjudicially (SP?) and with sexist attitudes at the time (which was a very long time ago). The whole meaning 'of the man' was probably just added in by some 60 yo priest with nothing better to do than put down women.

quote:

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Also I think portions of the feminist movement better wake up and realize that men are just people and women are just people

---

How true Astar, how true.

I think one problem with Feminism is that by it's own term it concentrates on promotion of the feminine sex in a patriarchal society, and not what it's true meaning should be....equality for all regardless of sex. It should be known as Equality not Feminism and any oppression of any sex in any society for any reason should be stopped.
I think the change of spelling ie Wymyn is just pedantic, uneccesary and juvenile. Be proud of the title Woman, Women, Lady, Female, not scared of it because it happens to have three letters that are associated with the other sex. Why not use a word from another language to express yourself such as the French term Femme or the Portugese Mulher? (and then you can have HER in it as well to keep you happy!) It just leads to expanding the divide between the sexes by using your own language to denounce the other....ie being sexist!!!

[ 06. November 2003, 01:57: Message edited by: Custom Bug ]

Let's relight this forum

Posted: 5th Nov 2003
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.

-Mike

Certified Mad Doctor and HoP High Priest of Nutella



A buckuht n a hooze! -Valura

Posted: 5th Nov 2003
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!

Posted: 6th Nov 2003
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?

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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.

Posted: 6th Nov 2003
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 ]

Posted: 6th Nov 2003
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!

Let's relight this forum

Posted: 6th Nov 2003
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. (https://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. (https://www.fwhc.org/health/viagra.htm)

In 2001, there were 249,000 victims of rape, attempted rape or sexual assault. (https://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

this little light of minei'm gonna let it shine...

Posted: 6th Nov 2003

quote:

---

I think one problem with Feminism is that by it's own term it concentrates on promotion of the feminine sex in a patriarchal society, and not what it's true meaning should be....equality for all regardless of sex. It should be known as Equality not Feminism and any oppression of any sex in any society for any reason should be stopped.

---

OK, I don't like saying this, but - WORD!

The trus aim of the original Feminist movement was equality of the sexes. For example a male and a female go for the same accounting job - idealogically their sex will have no bearing on the interviewers perception of their ability to do the job. It won't even cross their mind.
Historically it would have been a case of "the male can do the job better" which is untrue.
However, in my opinion, feminists are trying to push a little to far to the extent that they want the thought to be either "the woman can do it better" or, even worse, "lets give the job to the woman or she'll sue us for sexism".

If the sexes were ever to be percived as truely equal, it would never crop up as an issue. Currently I agree that on the whole the world is a male dominated place, however it would be just as wrong for it to become a female dominated place.

I don't usually involve myself in the political discussions on HOP as I never feel I can get my point across how I mean it, but feminism is one of my "things that niggle me"

Burner of Toast
Spinner of poi
Slacker of enormous magnitude

Posted: 6th Nov 2003
"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" I suggested that rape doesn't have to be as bad as it is now. And I never said anything about deserving it, no one here did. I never suggested there was any justification for it. And the statistics about false rape accusations may not be as high as 50% but they are high, and they are climbing as people realize just how much damage they can cause with a rape accusation. Truely I think this is worse for women who are actually raped then it is for men who are accused, either way it's bad news and It's sickening. It's a product of a society that places almost all evil squarely on the shoulders of it's male population.

And I don't give a **** about all these statistics about incomes and stuff. If women continue to choose to be mothers and raise their kids at home etc.. the numbers will be low. Why do feminists thing that women should be out working unhealthy hours greedily gobbling up money just so they can balance out the income statistics? Someone has to raise the kids and it's up to every couple to decide.

It seems volition isn't part of many feminists agendas.

On the other side of the coin how many cases of women beating men do you think go unreported? I know several people some of them in my family who were assaulted by women and wouldn't fight back because either they didn't believe in hitting women or they knew the moment they laid a finger on them they would loose any court battle over it, even though it was self defense. They also didn't report it because of the shit they would go through for being beat up by a girl, and the fact that all that would result is a restraining order anyways.

Also I hate statistics about violent crime. It saddens me how much it happens. I think it's time to stop Looking at the gender, ethnic background, creed, region, income etc.. of violent offenders and really try to figure out what's causing violent crime. I see no diffrence in blameing everything on some intangible patrichal heiarhy of evil doing men then blameing
crime on blacks and hispanics because they are blacks and hispanics. It completly ignores why people attack main and kill people. And your approach to preventing it doesn't allow for people being people.

Also did you ever think that viagra receives more financial assistance because of the way drug companies are pushing new drugs?

[ 07. November 2003, 10:27: Message edited by: Astar ]

Posted: 6th Nov 2003
Let me change the direction of the discussion:

How do you suppose that women ever got into the mess that they were in come, say, 1800? Completely subjugated to men, barred from any profession except for a very few (nursing, etc.), practically not allowed to leave the house, etc.

And the thing is that in Western civilization, it had been that way for 2,000 years. Even Ancient Greek women were expected to stay in the home and weren't allowed to participate in public life. Why is it that the world over, in almost every culture, the patriarchy is the way of doing thing? How did women manage to get so subjugated like this?

-Mike

Certified Mad Doctor and HoP High Priest of Nutella



A buckuht n a hooze! -Valura

Posted: 7th Nov 2003
I'd argue more on the rape thing but Astar pretty much covered it - it's a crime. It's perpetrated by someone who's wrong in the head, maybe some of them use "patriarchal privelage" as a justification to themselves, but if it's not that it'll be something else. Have to fix the person to stop it happening, convincing them to re-label their twisted impulses doesn't achieve anything.

Actually, many indigenous cultures are / were matriarchal. Celts are the most obvious and many Australian Aboriginal cultures feature a women's council which has power of veto over the men's council, and most hunter / gatherer societies had a matriarchal structure centered around fertility goddess worship. Somehow the move to agrarian societies seems to have been accompanied by monotheism and patriarchy. Anyone know anything more about that?

Posted: 6th Nov 2003
This discussion is already out of hand...

Divi, you came in with a defensive attitude in your first post:

quote:

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PLEASE do not send me any ignorant responses (ie. asking why my fireshow has to be feminist, or telling me to get over it, or telling me to check out the sex and poi discussion below).

---

I think that if that line were deleted, and if you had simply asked how you could add a feminist message to your fire shows, no one would have had any cause to politicize the discussion. YOU came in bristling, and when people naturally bristled back things got heated on both sides (not saying the issue here is your fault, but bringing it up in the first place caused people to immediately consider it was part of your discussion). I'm not trying to fight, and from that same earlier thread you can see that I offerred a response to hopefully help you enhance your show the way you would like to, but I refuse to believe that the opposing viewpoints here have been made without any initial provocation on your part.

Moving on...

The Wage Gap discussion had me do some searching on ifeminists.com (a wonderful site) and I found this interesting article on it:
https://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba392/


Here's another HIGHLY interesting article (with many scholarly references) that has many things to say about feminist movements in the legal systems of Canada and the US, with evidence and sources to back them up. It's incredibly long, but you can scroll around to whatever issue interests you and see what the author had to say... the "conclusion" I would definitely recommend to everyone if it's the only thing you read:
https://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-256.html


I'm not trying to fight with anyone, but I'm SICK of all the hate being slung around over this type of stuff (by BOTH sides). We have to learn to get along if we're ever going to have success in equality for the genders.

What hits the fan is not evenly distributed.

Posted: 7th Nov 2003
Alleykat, Well I guess you read one statistic and I read another, but of course yours must be correct without shadow of a doubt cuz you read it.

quote:

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Men can claim more back for using Viagra than women for the pill

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...hello?!...Viagra is pescribed for BOTH sexes as it works the same way on each sex, by re-establishing lost connections with the right parts and the brain, it doesn't cure impotence it gives the brain back the lost ability to tell the (male or female) genitals to become aroused, it's as simple as that. So what does this have to do with taking Birth Control? Since when was taking BC a medical condition??? Can I presume that by this point (being the equlitarian you are) you must think that all men who buy condoms to act as BC barrier should be able to claim their money back from their health cover?! Hardly a comparable statistic really now is it.

quote:

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249 000 vistins of rape/assault

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. You do realise this is talking of ALL people not just women of course. Men are raped/abused too, the statistic doesn't discriminate on sex.
Generally less men are abused/raped because generally they are physically bigger/stronger, Some one who is weaker will always have more potential to be a victim to some ass hole commiting a crime against them. Be they male or female.

quote:

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In 1997, 68.3% of rapes were perpetrated by someone who knew the victim"

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Again this is rapes of both sexes isn't it?!
But most murder vistims knew their killer, in fact almost all personal crimes are commited by people who know each other, it doesn't mean it's sex oppression, IT MEANS THE WORLD IS FULL OF ASS HOLES OF BOTH SEX. Not that they are all because of male negative attitudes towards women but negative attitudes by various people towards everyone they consider weaker...men, women, kids, elderly commiting crimes agains men, women, kids, elderly because they think they can get away with it.

The point that needs making is that all crime should stop, be it theft, rape, assault, murder, burlary etc etc and that the angry feminist view (well in this thread anyway) seems to be that men are the cause who deliberately commit their crimes against women.
We should fight for Equality, for equal rights in society, the home and the workplace. Not looking to tag one sex for any crime that happens to be commited against the other as sexist. But work to educate all people so they don't want to commit crimes in the first place.

And yes their are countries where women are oppressed, and it's incredibly dissapointing that this happens but it's their culture that hasn't developed as far as popular western cultures have. They education to continue to develop into an equlity based society, not punishment for their 2000+ year old beliefs and the methods used by their elders to raise them into adulthood.

"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem" You sound like G Bush before the Iraq invasion, unfortunately life isn't that straight cut but if it were wouldn't it be "If you're not part of the problem, you're already part of the solution"?!

I believe in equlity, abuse of power no matter what it is or how you come about it, shouldn't happen. I guess I'm just an old hippie who believes we're all just people, living in a world full of other people who should get along and not fight each other. I wish there were less angst and pain but there isn't...that's life.
We need to unite as a whole not divide 50/50. Look at all the posts in this thread, nobody here agrees with oppression, nobody seemingly wants to promote oppression either be it deliberate or not. The divide isn't sex based, it's personal attitude towards fellow humans.

Now lets have a big kiss....come on.....smooch up.....guys and girls all give me a big wet one on the cheek.... Now isn't that better

now it's time for a I think, I'm exhausted after all that typing!!

TTFN!!

Let's relight this forum

Posted: 7th Nov 2003
In terms of the statistic about how much women earn, there's a real problem in this. If a couple decide to have a child, then it seems obvious to me that just from anatomical and a biological point of view, this is going to impact on the woman more than the man. There is, unfortunately, no obvious way of getting round this, and the feminists can be as political as they like about it, but it isn't going to help the underlying biology.

Given that the original statistics posted to this thread were on how much men earn as compared to women in the US, it is worth pointing out that the US earnings are heavily skewed by a very few people at the top earning absolutely vast amounts of money. (this is why the Bush tax cut statistics work, but the reality is that it mainly helps his cronies).

Now, to get back to my original point. Any length of time away from a job impinges on your ability to do that job properly when you return, and given the impact of having to take maternity leave (because there are things in the pre-natal, and early post-natal stages that the father just cannot do, biologically), then you'll never be able to rise to the top if you're a woman who has a child in the middle of all of this, because you need to keep pushing and pushing all the time, and the time lost to the maternity leave is vital.

There are an extremely small number of women (though probably rising) who resist the urge to have children, and, as a result, at a vital point in their careers, they have to choose. Thus they never get to the outlier payscale jobs that were mentioned above, and as a result, on taking the average salary, they appear to earn less.

I'm not arguing on the goodness or badness of this effect, but merely pointing out that statistics are only useful if you understand what the underlying data looks like, and that such a statistic on its own doesn't help anyone.

I do suspect that for equivalent jobs, women may on average be paid less than men, and that is definitely something that has to be sorted out. It's worth noting, though, that a lot of salaries in companies are confidential, and workers (regardless of sex) don't necessarily get the same pay, more so as roles diverge.

Divi, I wanted to say to you that you've not made an enemy of me, but that I think that your cause is, at best, misguided. If you're not after equality, then you're just proposing a different problem, and the intentional misspellings don't help anyone, they merely impedes communication.

As to everyone who's talked about violent crimes, they are just that. And entirely tangential to the discussion. I am concerned about a situation, however, where someone could use an accusation of rape as a method of revenge (and there has been at least one case of someone who did just that), in order to completely ruin the accused. Since it often comes down to one person's word against another, we must also be careful not to be punishing the innocent.

Luv 'n' Lemons
purity :: clarity :: balance

Posted: 8th Nov 2003
alrighty...

first i would like to address the workplace issue... i said in an earlier post that i wasn't over the gender equality/ gender difference debate. this specifically refers to the workplace.
(liberal) wymyn who fight for equal pay and benefits do not fight (necessarily) for maternaty leave. wymyn who believe that there is a natural sex divide believe that there is a natural maternal instinct and will fight for maternaty leave. i, as a (very) young womyn, do not know how i feel about the equality vs. difference debate. i simpy do not know! i believe that there should be paternaty leave and that the people (person) involved in the parenting should have the abilty to choose for themselves what is right for them (i recently witnessed a birth at my university where there was only ONE WEEK allowable for paternaty leave. this, i think, is unacceptable).
keep in mind that it is generally the wymyn who take on the initial parental burden (and thus the economical backlash) for children.

second, in terms of sexual assault... i see sexualized violence everywhere (think.. house of 1000 corpses..), and i also see images of wymyn being made theoretically available for men's sexual pleasure in mass media. if you do not think that this attributes to men's sexual agression, then you are wrong. (sorry i couldn't put that in better terms)
there is definately an expectation of wymyn to be available for their male partners. i was in a relationship for 3.5 years with a guy who refused to believe that sex was anything other than penetration. i suffered the painful (physical and emotional) consequences of my (undiagnosed and still suspected) vulvodynia.
there is definately a patriarchal powerplay happening when a womyn can says that she wants sex but doesn't want penetration (does this ring true to any other wymyn out there? it was an absolute consensus in my female sexualities class).
and, in my experience, wymyn don't lie. i have been accused of it, and have lost many friends because of it... and yes, the shithead had some social backlashes, but i doubt that his were even comparable to mine. it wasn't my choice to make the incident public (or even to have the incident happen at all, obviously), but i wanted this guy out of a performer's party (where he wasn't a performer) and the whole thing erupted. i lost my best friends as well as my partner's best friends. i almost quit my job because some of my co-workers were supportive of him, and would bring the discussion into work. there was no evidence, no (visible) scars... but i would not have put myself though that (very) public scrutiny if it didn't happen. (and believe me; people were much more willing to assume that there was a liar than a sexual assaulter in their midst.) it is not an easy thing to endure. yes, there have been cases based on lies, but current attitudes have made this nearly impossible. (this year, "our" provincial police closed a case on the rape of an aboriginal womyn because "all girls lie" - quotation from an investing officer) 50% of wymyn lie? i sincerely think not, and will actively oppose this assumption (keep in mind that i am an anarchist and my asault thus went unreported- don't bother scrutinizing this fact; i have made up my mind) i cannot and will not believe that wymyn will put themselves in such a vulnerable situation (the one that some wymyn refer to as a "second rape") if they were not being sincere.
otherwise, on the topic of male sexual assault, i do find it to be absolutely trajic that there are no support systems out there for you. however, it is not wymyn who should be fighting for these services. you should organize yourselves (there are others like you and it is possible.. dare to take a leap! all feminists who i have met would support you in such an endeavor).
however, this is NOT up to wymyn. sorry, but we have our own (extensive) shit to deal with.

third, (and i can't believe i have to re-iterate this) i am not an enemy of men, but an enemy of patriarchy. in my experience, men are more willing to combat their privilege than wymyn are willing to combat their patriarchal assumptions of themselves (think: how many wymyn have you known that would rather "the man" make up the decision of where to go out for a date than herself?). i mostly hang out with men.. i mostly work with (and date) wymyn (although not in the same atmosphere)... it's a good balance for me. i love my guy friends to no end. they are my best friends, and deserve every little bit of loyalty and love that i lavish upon them.

guys, come on, quit picking on little phrases that i put up. it's the message that i'm trying to get across, and it's the message that i expect you to read.
otherwise, it's not worth posting in here at all.
and thank you for all the rawking ladies who chose to be so brave as to post in here! you grrrls are awesome! (and i empathize with your frustration that your words get picked apart)

see y'all around

Posted: 8th Nov 2003
Divi: perhaps, if you want other people to "read your message, and not pick up on little phrases", you ought to read and understand the posts you're trying to pick holes in.

I'm not going to try and re-explain to you about how statistics work, and therefore, why I'm not convinced that your 76% average US earning difference has to be taken with at least some salt. I'm also not going to re-explain why I feel that biology plays a rather large part in the difference in paternity and maternity leave.

I am, however, going to pick up on one thing that you said, which is:

quote:

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and, in my experience, wymyn don't lie.

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Such a ridiculous generalisation undermines your entire argument. My ex-fiancee was, quite frankly, a complete cow. She treated me like dirt, and it took me several years to get over, she played power games and she lied to suit her cause. So, my experience differs. Hugely. And that one sentence undermines everything you're trying to say, because what it's showing is that you don't really understand the people you're claiming to represent. You believe something, and your faith is what is driving you, and you cannot see different from that.

As I said, I don't dislike you (I have no reason to feel either way), so don't take this as a personal attack, because it's not meant as one. But I feel that the cause you're fighting for is one that is fundamentally going to cause a different set of problems. If you're not fighting for equality in rights regardless of gender, then you're only going to create more problems if your cause is ever achieved.

I still want equality in gender. I certainly do not want to end up with as much of a matriarchy as you believe we currently have a patriarchy. That is just a different problem. So you've gone from frying pan to fire.

Luv 'n' Lemons
purity :: clarity :: balance

Posted: 8th Nov 2003

quote:

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however, it is not wymyn who should be fighting for these services. you should organize yourselves

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So by that token, men shouldn't take any actions to promote equality or help in ending the rape problem for women?

quote:

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sorry, but we have our own (extensive) shit to deal with

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No, the women in the 60's had extensive shit to deal with. Compare your struggle to your mother's and tell me how different it is.

quote:

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i believe that there should be paternaty leave and that the people (person) involved in the parenting should have the abilty to choose for themselves what is right for them (i recently witnessed a birth at my university where there was only ONE WEEK allowable for paternaty leave. this, i think, is unacceptable).

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This is where you're making more sense and I think the real nature of your argument is coming out. This is definitely correct and I'm glad you think that way.

You stated yourself that you're very young and have admitted to not being in the know about several issues, which is why I AM taking your rhetoric with a grain of salt. However, I think you're latched onto an issue without knowing the full extent of it, and are instead violently defending your chosen philosphy in a spirit of naivete and youthful ignorance. I did the same when I was younger and still trying to define myself - I found something I could identify with on at least some level and explored it as far as I could... looking back now I see myself as young and foolish for making giants out of windmills (yes, I listened to Rush Limbaugh).

I'm glad you took the time to at least think about the maternity/paternity leave issue, maybe that's a good start for you to realize that maybe this big struggle you see yourself in really isn't that big of a struggle. I would really like to meet you someday and actually discuss these issues face to face, as you definitely seem intelligent and inquisitive. Just be careful not to become ignorant, because those feminists give the women's movement a bad name.

What hits the fan is not evenly distributed.

Posted: 8th Nov 2003
yo peeps.

first, i think that gender is VERY much a social construct. (note: gender is different than sex. sex is what's between your legs. gender is the behaviour that is formulated between your ears.) yes, there are biological difference that affect behaviour, but these are neither concrete nor absolute. some men are more feminine than some wymyn, and some wymyn are more masculine than men. some men make better parents than some wymyn, and some wymyn are more aggressive than some men. when i crossdress, i instantly develop a tougher persona. this is an example of how we actually (consciously or not) influence our own gendered behaviour.

next, someone argued that wymyn have come a long way. well, yes we have and thank you for noticing. however, i am still sexually harassed almost every time i go out. (in fact, in my first year of university, it took two months before i was accosted by a group of men on campus.) this is unfair, no matter where i go, what i look like or how i dress. men still do not seem to understand that wymyn are not sexual property. this is an example of how present patriarchy is. another example of the current state of patriarchy is the employment situation. in canada, the majority of students graduating from post secondary educational institutions are wymyn, and yet, a disproportionate number of wymyn occupy low paying, entry-level jobs. even in occupations where the majority of workers are female, those who advance quickest are males. take the nursing profession, for example. at our local hospital, almost the entire executive is male. wymyn have a very hard time advancing, even though the majority of the employees are female.
yes. we have come a long way. i didn't get kicked out of high school for not wearing a skirt every day. i have voting rights. i have (albeit limited) access to wymyn who have made huge strides. but there is still SO MUCH to be done.

and in terms of the "wymyn don't lie" comment, i was specifically referring to sexual assault. please do not take my words out of context again.

and my age.. guy... i may be young, but i have more life experience than some people twice my age. i am a critical thinker, and contrary to what you seem to think, i have not just "swallowed" feminism as an idiology. my self-defining as a feminist was a long journey. yes, my ideas are still evolving, but they will continue to evolve until the day i die. there are some topics that i admittedly will never have an opinion on, and others where my opinion may change drastically. i have to accept my fluidity as well as my limitations in order to be able to grasp the critical distance that is so necessary in critical thought.

and in terms of wymyn organizing for men... okay, i admit, i phrased it badly. but still, i adimently oppose the idea that wymyn are done their struggle and should now move on to take care of men. this is patriarchy's view of wymyn in relation to men; she is the silent (and often unrecognized) supporter.
there are some wonder-full male allies in relation to the wymyn's (ongoing) movement. but don't forget that these allies generally play only a supporting role. (the greatest exception to this is the "white ribbon campaign", the men's campaign to put an end to violence against wymyn.)
this type of setup was the one that i was suggesting for male survivors; organize yourselves and i'm sure many feminists would support you as allies. feminists, i'm sure would be willing to play a major allied role, since many feminists recognize that all violence (excluding self-defence which i do not consier to be an act of "violence" per se) is a detrimental phenomenon in today's society. plus, men are accepted for counselling at most wymyn-run sexual assault clinics.
feminism is soo large, and so all encompassing, that it includes men.
keep in mind, however, that 95% of sexual assaults are perpetrated against wymyn, and that 98% of assaulters are male. i REALLY don't want to minimize or trivialize sexual assault perpetrated against men (my heart goes out to you; it really does), but statistics show that there is a specific sort makeup for the crime of sexual assault, and feminists and counselling centres thus recognize that there is an overwhelming pattern of violence against wymyn that must be dealt with.

i hope that i have made my argument air-tight enough so that we can move beyond arguing the semantics into actually debating feminist issues.
for example, gender difference in relationships could be discussed. or maybe we could hash out the equality/difference debate.
this arguing of semantics rather than the subject at hand is a method of argument used in many debates around feminism. it is a way to argue without actually touching on the issues being raised. this has happened in other threads on this board, and this is why i threw in my qualifier in the "feminist fire shows" thread. i did not post for my politics to be debated, but rather to get advice on my fire show. i did not go in with boxing gloves on, but rather put that segment in out of exasperation. (so thank you again, pele, for picking up on this and moving this heated discussion into a different thread)
along the same line, no one has picked on my anarchist values. thank you for this. i was actually fairly nervous that people would criticize my method of going about my assault (i was criticized by people i knew at the time), and i'm glad to see that people are, at worst, willing to keep their views to themselves, and, at best, supportive of my choices and methods of proceeding around it.

so those are some of my clarifications. take them how you want!

till next time

Posted: 8th Nov 2003

quote:

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and my age.. guy... i may be young, but i have more life experience than some people twice my age.

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Divi, I got nothing but respect for ya but if I had a nickel for every time I've heard that phrase from someone your age I'd be a very rich man... hehe just giving ya a hard time. And what's the emphasis on "guy" supposed to imply?

I get what you're saying (as a result of one-on-one talk) and I accept that perhaps you're just not being heard quite right by some - though it does take two to tango and you may want to avoid the anarchistic "stir things up by messing with people a little bit" at first if you see yourself doing that.

Also, the "wymyn" thing I think has generated some opposition because the groups most notorious for using that are also the ones who make feminism look like a crusade to cut off every penis on earth... presumed guilt by association I guess, so I apologize for jumping to conclusions but it's not totally unfounded reasoning. Just whatever you do, I implore you not to take on the attitude of "if you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem." Many men are just simply unaware of the issues at hand and are good, decent people when given the facts...

Relationship dynamics... woo that's one I am a seasoned pro with. I liked what you had to say about attacking the socialized norms... I too have a problem with girly girls and despise their being taught to behave a certain way because it's "ladylike." It's one of the major reasons I dig my current girlfriend (Mistress Aurora), in fact - she grew up with all brothers and doesn't cater to the "ooh, I broke a nail" philosphy that turns so many nice girls into pathetic whining wastes of space. My room here on campus is shown to tour groups and it's actually pretty pathetic seeing all the highschool girls who come in and are carbon-copy clones of their mothers, eager to jump into the first sorority they come across (I hope you don't consider THOSE groups in favor of feminine empowerment) in order to flee the responsibility of thinking for themselves... Mothers who raise their daughters to be that way are just as guilty as the men who would want that sort of behavior out of a woman.

I honestly think that with each generation things are getting better... I actually had my girlfriend's dad tell me I should "break that in" (referring to his own daughter and making her fetch me food) and was completely dumbfounded. But I guess the best way to counter that one is to treat her with nothing but respect (aside from picking on her occasionally, but that's playful romanticism) and not cater to his manner of thinking. This sort of behavior is what I see making the difference in the future, because I know I'll lead by example (and have, in several cases). The three younger brothers, I'm gonna have to sit down and re-educate though... they're growing up under that influence and I can see a danger in that, but hopefully they'll see how much more successful I am through cooperation versus discrimination... either that or I'll just have to open a can of whoopass

The same story goes for racism though... many of our generation are just simply letting the old ideas die out as they should. The remnant that still follows older, more discriminatory philosphies is not going to be around much longer and when they're gone I believe we'll see a dramatic shift in principles. But, we have to realize that that group is also the one that remains in the higher positions (positions they've attained over the years, specifically in corporate circles), and while they are there (before they retire/die off) there will be that pattern of thinking. It's our job as the future leaders of society to see that message doesn't get into our own heads... preventative maintenance is going to show its effects very soon.

The sexual assault thing... well, I approached that one my own way and have actually taught several women's self-defense and rape awareness seminars in the past. After seeing the effects of rape on someone in your life, nobody can deny that it's a disgusting crime and I personally feel it merits capital punishment. Even within the prison system, people convicted of sexual crimes are often brutalized by their own fellow inmates, so it's not like that type of crime is being permitted or condoned... and more and more women these days are getting the courage to report it. I would like to know what the local crime statistic in your area is, anyway... here at my University we have a very low incident rate of sexual assault compared to other places, so perhaps I'm not seeing how bad it actually gets.

One thing that struck me today as rather salient (or should be)... why are things like co-ed video fighter games (like street fighter, etc) demonized as encouraging violence against women, while I hear next to nothing about gangsta rap groups from those same activist sources? One would think that an unrealistic fantasy cartoon video game would pale in comparison to the material you get exposed to by the lyrics in that genre of music. Thoughts?

I honestly am not sure what to think of the whole equality in business thing... half my bosses were women and the other half were men at my job last summer... seemed like a very professional atmosphere at my candy factory The only sexism I ever saw go on was when the mechanics would harass the shop secretary, and I usually put a stop to that behavior if I caught them, but it seems like among at least the educated professional levels of business (requiring college degrees), there's less discrimination/harassment.

What hits the fan is not evenly distributed.