Single Men and Bachelors: Feminism is not for you.

[thesummerqueen]

I told my boyfriend when we first got together that I didn't expect him to be perfect - merely accountable and willing to work towards a compromise or to fix his mistakes. So far, it's working quite well.

I think that's the best way to work any sort of relationship.

But I stand by my shithead comment.

[Hovik]

There are other possibilities, you know. Try treating people as equals, not objects of scorn or damsels in distress. I heard that it works.

That would mean giving up my personal values, and my values are part of my identity. Why do you want me to change myself?

Probably because your personal values suck. Your argument is ultimately extremely weak. Bad people have bad values; that doesn't validate them. Hitler had values, and they were undoubtedly part of his identity. You'd be nonetheless hard-pressed to convince yourself that his values were somehow validated by simple virtue of them being his. In short, yes, you should change your shitty values because your values make you into a huge, misogynist dick.

Let me ask you a simple question: do you hold men and women to different codes of morality? Why?

Edit: Your rep comment is really cute. For posterity: "Beta male. White knight. Pathologically gets himself friendzoned. Also, another one of those new age liberals who like to prove how superior they are on the basis of being more "tolerant" (while not displaying much tolerance of his own)."

First of all, I'd like to state that I'm definitely no white knight. I think the modern feminist movement has by-and-large evolved beyond itself in the worst way; it has ceased to be egalitarian. White knights are far from egalitarian, and are ultimately misogynistic themselves as they imply women are incapable of defending themselves. I hold no such belief.
Secondly, I find your ability to deduce so much about me from ultimately so little to be astounding. I say astounding, but I really mean complete bullshit considering I'm engaged to someone and get sex regularly.
Lastly, I have no tolerance for assholes like you who think they're better than other people. Apparently you're only capable of evaluating others in terms of preconceived labels. Have you no originality?

[TaraJo]

This. I don't like attention whores, nor do I like women who use their sexuality to manipulate men. Basically, women who dress and act slutty want affirmation, and they are going about it the wrong way.

Thanks for telling me that. I'll go back to my puritanical ways of being ashamed of my sexuality and my body so I can achieve your approval. /sarcasm

No, fuck that shit. I'm proud of myself, I'm proud of my sexuality, I'm proud of my body and I worked damn hard to get the body I want. I'm not going to hide it because some misogynistic asshole thinks I should adhere to his standards of modesty.

[Rhizomorph13]

Hitler? Really? Why must we go there. Godwin is not pleased, or maybe he is because according to his rule you lose the internets.

Anyway, I'm all for equal rights, but I do think men and women are typically better at certain things. It shouldn't limit things for individual females, but I find too often that feminists seem too bent on correcting past evils rather than moving forward to an equal future. That being said, I do realize the fact of male privilege and worry about how to raise my daughter to find happiness without being subjugated by a man nor subjugating men around her. Or really any of the permutations of warped sexual identity that cause women and men to act so fucked up toward one another.

On an aside I work a compressed work week so I always have Thursdays and Fridays off. I like to cook so I do most of the cooking around our house. This means that I do all of the shopping and, now that we have a baby, I drag a carseat around with me wherever I go. I am super amused by the reactions I've gotten from people. They are mixed between looks of sympathy that a single father (I'm happily married) would be so brave as to take his baby shopping *small tear runs down my cheek* and looks that show that I'm awesome for being a stay-at-home father (I'm fully employed). I've been complemented for going shopping on several occasions, which seems just crazy to me, but I work around enough married women to know exactly how little most men do around the house, so I guess it makes sense.

[festive1]

Anyone brave enough to go shopping with little ones gets a kudos in my book.

[Rhizomorph13]

Well, thank you! He really isn't any trouble. Driving puts him to sleep in about a block.

[thesummerqueen]

This is what I'm saying about working parents sharing the load - why should they assume that because you're helping, you don't work OR you're a single parent?

Women can be as sexist as men in some ways.

Also, I think Spectrum has done a class-act job of proving he's a twat to the general public - don't get yourselves worked up over him.

[Rhizomorph13]

Society is funny that way. What came first; women being good at raising kids or men deciding that they don't like raising kids? Do little girls like dollys because society hands dollys to little girls or does society think little girls should like dollys because history has born out that fact?

How come, when I'm in a conference with my children's teacher, the teacher seems to be focusing on my wife and barely pays me much attention? Can prejudice ever be truely eradicated? Moreover, should prejudice be eradicated, or should we realize that we all have different roles to play?

I honestly don't know the answers for society, but for myself, I take a very active role in many typically feminine roles and see nothing wrong with my choices. I try to maintain a neutral stance when it comes to other people's choices.

[festive1]

I got my oldest a doll, at his request, when I was pregnant with #2, he wanted his own baby. He promptly stripped it naked and turned it's head around and dragged is all around the house by an arm. My youngest shows more natural nurturing instinct, but is still rather rough. Nature or nurture, it's hard to tell.

[TaraJo]

Society is funny that way. What came first; women being good at raising kids or men deciding that they don't like raising kids? Do little girls like dollys because society hands dollys to little girls or does society think little girls should like dollys because history has born out that fact?

How come, when I'm in a conference with my children's teacher, the teacher seems to be focusing on my wife and barely pays me much attention? Can prejudice ever be truely eradicated? Moreover, should prejudice be eradicated, or should we realize that we all have different roles to play?

I honestly don't know the answers for society, but for myself, I take a very active role in many typically feminine roles and see nothing wrong with my choices. I try to maintain a neutral stance when it comes to other people's choices.

It's an interesting question worth looking at.

Me, I have some ideas on it. You look at our closest evolutionary relatives: primates. Their society is pretty damn patriarchial with men in power positions and protecting the group and women primarly tasked with taking care of children. Me, I think we never botered to drop that as we developed civilization. In fact, early on in civilization, it paid off. Keep women in these nice, safe cages to be breeding stock and them men haved to sacrifice their lives to protect that breeding stock. Sucks for both sides. However, we evolved those behaviors and one important factor to evolution is that the creature that can change to adapt to a new environment will prosper while the creature that doesn't change to adapt to the new environment doesn't prosper. So look at today's world: do we need women to be breeding stock anymore? I mean, sure, women can give birth and men can't, but there isn't the same kind of exclusive pressure for women to reproduce as much as they can for the sake of their society. Our environment is changing and our society is evolving to adapt to those changes in our environment.

I got my oldest a doll, at his request, when I was pregnant with #2, he wanted his own baby. He promptly stripped it naked and turned it's head around and dragged is all around the house by an arm. My youngest shows more natural nurturing instinct, but is still rather rough. Nature or nurture, it's hard to tell.

Heh. I was pretty darn hyper active as a kid but I still pretended to be pregnant with and breast feed my stuffed animals when I was little. My parents should have known all along. :p