Can we have an honest, balanced, down to earth discussion about feminism?

[TaraJo]

Shellerby, you just reminded me of how much not fishing much this summer hurt. Thanks for that

I used to go to a GLBT organization in the local college. Too many feminazis, and too many people saying the shittiest things about (straight) men. Couldn't stand it, so I left. Luckily for me, a much smaller trans-centric group was formed, and I no longer had to visit a massively crowded room full of assholes to feel like I had a social life of any sort

Oh, God, you have no idea how nice it is to finally meet other trans people who aren't all caught up in the feminist extremism! I was part of a few online groups that had started out fun enough, but they started moving more and more feminist, starting out fairly moderate. I can handle moderate feminism; I can talk about it and discuss it and everything. Then it kept moving and evolving and getting more and more extreme. At this point, I'm dealing with people who will openly say they hate men just for the sake of being men and I think I've reached the point where I just want to move on with my life. I don't need trans support anymore and I don't want to be associated with extremists like that. As of a couple of days ago, I finally up and ditched them and here I am, trying to move on with my life.

I also like a lot of what Shelly is saying here. While there are social influences on what we do and why we do it, ultimately, responsibility falls on the individual who makes those choices. If a woman laments that not enough women are in male dominated fields, she has a legitimate complaint. If she's going to forego science or math degrees to get a degree in women's studies so she can make that complaint, I'm allowed to point out how she's contributing to the problem. But if you're going to see lose social standards that suck and still abide by them, you're the one giving those social standards the power. For example, if a woman doesn't get into automotive repair because she thinks nobody will take her seriously as a mechanic, what she probably doesn't realize is that people don't take women seriously as mechanics because they don't see women mechanics and she would be contributing to that invisiblity.