Can we have an honest, balanced, down to earth discussion about feminism?
August 25, 2012 at 6:06 pm
I've run into this conflict at other places. Quite simply, I don't really get it and I don't think I will. It's frustrating, though, because I want to be able to come to some kind of agreement with this philosophy. I also know it's kinda broken into the atheist community, at least on youtube. If anyone pays attention to Thunderf00t, he's been in conflict with a lot of feminists.
For the record, though, I don't want to say I'm anything like idiots like Todd Akin or Rush Limbaugh or even Andrew Dice Clay (the last of which was a satire character anyway). I think they're full of shit. I'm for equality all the way and unless she wants to donate sperm or grow facial hair, women can do anything men can do and should be afforded the opportunity. I wind up in conflict when people go into a kind of extremist feminism; and maybe that's where the conflict is, in that extremist viewpoints are usually full of shit.
But it's really frustrating for me. I used to always think of feminism as empowering but now I'm seeing feminism with a victim complex. Instead of saying "Women can do anything men can do" we get told "No, women can't do anything men can do and here's the social structure that causes that." I hate being told I have to be a victim like that! It gets worse, though, in that I'm a transsexual webcam model and many self described feminists attack me for doing sex work, others attack me for being transsexual and even more often, I get attacked for both. Even within the transsexual community I don't feel safe because radical feminism has broken through there, too, and taken a strong foot hold and most of their beliefs are held as the status quo only without the transhphobia and, usually, without the radfem label.
The worst part is, I don't even get to respond to them! So much of the feminism they subscribe to is dependent on obscure feminist terminology that makes me feel like I need to take advanced women's studies classes just to understand and that it's impossible to translate those same ideas into terms that can be understood by every day people.
It's even worse when I try to understand it. When I attempt to understand something I'm unfamiliar with, I start by relating it to something in my every day life. For me, the biggest single incidence of sexism in my life revolves around my children. I came out and started transition in 2008 but my nightmare with family courts started in 2003. Truth is, the court treated me, and still treats me, like they would anyone else they see as a father. While many feminists claim they support gender equality, when I discuss the sexism in that situation in these feminist circles, I'm quickly shut down and labeled a misogynist. It's even worse for my boyfriend who was raised in a religious fundamentalist environment with very strict gender roles. He can't find a safe place that will let him, as a male, say that the gender roles he was raised with are wrong and that they hurt him.
I wanted to see what the other people here think of the issue. Does feminism tend to get batshit insane? What do you do when it does?
For the record, though, I don't want to say I'm anything like idiots like Todd Akin or Rush Limbaugh or even Andrew Dice Clay (the last of which was a satire character anyway). I think they're full of shit. I'm for equality all the way and unless she wants to donate sperm or grow facial hair, women can do anything men can do and should be afforded the opportunity. I wind up in conflict when people go into a kind of extremist feminism; and maybe that's where the conflict is, in that extremist viewpoints are usually full of shit.
But it's really frustrating for me. I used to always think of feminism as empowering but now I'm seeing feminism with a victim complex. Instead of saying "Women can do anything men can do" we get told "No, women can't do anything men can do and here's the social structure that causes that." I hate being told I have to be a victim like that! It gets worse, though, in that I'm a transsexual webcam model and many self described feminists attack me for doing sex work, others attack me for being transsexual and even more often, I get attacked for both. Even within the transsexual community I don't feel safe because radical feminism has broken through there, too, and taken a strong foot hold and most of their beliefs are held as the status quo only without the transhphobia and, usually, without the radfem label.
The worst part is, I don't even get to respond to them! So much of the feminism they subscribe to is dependent on obscure feminist terminology that makes me feel like I need to take advanced women's studies classes just to understand and that it's impossible to translate those same ideas into terms that can be understood by every day people.
It's even worse when I try to understand it. When I attempt to understand something I'm unfamiliar with, I start by relating it to something in my every day life. For me, the biggest single incidence of sexism in my life revolves around my children. I came out and started transition in 2008 but my nightmare with family courts started in 2003. Truth is, the court treated me, and still treats me, like they would anyone else they see as a father. While many feminists claim they support gender equality, when I discuss the sexism in that situation in these feminist circles, I'm quickly shut down and labeled a misogynist. It's even worse for my boyfriend who was raised in a religious fundamentalist environment with very strict gender roles. He can't find a safe place that will let him, as a male, say that the gender roles he was raised with are wrong and that they hurt him.
I wanted to see what the other people here think of the issue. Does feminism tend to get batshit insane? What do you do when it does?
