RE: Can we have an honest, balanced, down to earth discussion about feminism?
August 26, 2012 at 9:17 am
(This post was last modified: August 26, 2012 at 9:26 am by Creed of Heresy.)
Feminism...
You know, I ruminate on this every so often, and I've observed something interesting; groups that are unaccepted are eventually accepted via rational, level-headed pursuits of equality and justice for themselves. We take for example black Americans [no. I'm not saying African-American. Nobody calls me Nordo-Franko-Germanic-American, and all humanity ultimately came from Africa anyway so that would be far too broad; I refer only to approximation of skin-tone, and I place no derogatory undertone to the word] who lived in segregation from the white American population. Were they outspoken? Did they protest? Sure. But it was the cool-headed individuals who ultimately brought segregation down; women like Rosa Parks who nonviolently protested by simply sitting in a section of the bus and refused to move, men like Martin Luther King, Jr. who promoted peace and harmony and spoke of the truth that we are all human beings and should all be accepted equally without discrimination. We think of the Civil Rights Movement and we think of those kinds of individuals with respect. But then you hear about the "hardcore," in-your-face groups like the Black Panthers and we snigger, roll our eyes, or generally don't put as much respect on them as we did for those who were much more passive...because it was the ones who were passive, not aggressive, in their pursuits of acceptance that reminded us of their equality as individuals...rather than trying to shove it down our throats.
Same goes for Womens' Suffrage, which leads, today, into feminism. We see the same also happening with the LGBT community. We look at the gay-pride parades and rather than feel a kinship, we feel...well, annoyance. Of course, doing NOTHING will not help acceptance, either, since if you're TOO passive, people will trample on you.
Think of it like this.
When pushing for acceptance in a group, do you:
A: Put on the most brightly-colored clothing you can find and dance in the streets dry-humping other individuals
B: Scream in someone's face that because you are not like them and they've been discriminated against by others who share your orientation/opinion/race, that therefore you're just as evil as they are
C: RUN AWAAAAY
D: Calmly but passionately remind that group that you've done nothing to harm anyone, you have no intention of harming them, and that you only want to be able to be seen as a human being, deserving of equal rights, responsibilities, and acceptance as the rest in the group, nothing more, nothing less.
If you answered anything but D...you are doing it very, very wrong.
I have zero problem with feminists. I like independent women. A woman who is my equal, where we don't have to deal with some slavish tradition-forced ritual of "girl does X, boy does Y, and that is their duties, PERIOD, end of discussion," is far more enticing than having to submit to some traditional ideal that is born of no rationality or reason but rather of millenia-old tribal ideas that serve no real purpose in modern society. But the moment a femiNAZI [key difference] gets in my face saying shit like I am a rape-supporter for going to a strip club, or I have to listen to some bitch stating that all the world's problems can be dumped on the feet of men or other such shit? I start losing my ability to really care about the plight of women.
Eventually, of course, I care again when after the spark of ire goes away and I remember not all or even most feminists are like that, but still my point stands that it doesn't benefit women at all for such individuals to do that. Their passion and energy and hatred is entirely misplaced and they are extremely counterproductive towards gaining total acceptance for women.
I'd say "same with the LGBT community" except the whole rampant hardcore-gay-sex-in-the-streets thing [embellishing a bit there; inb4 people start bitching at me that such things never happened...cuz apparently nobody on this forum knows how to understand exaggeration or sarcasm] has largely stopped...and, lo and behold, you notice that suddenly acceptance of the LGBT community is becoming far more widespread? Funny, that.
I suppose the hardcore drive is good for firing up the masses and getting attention for the issue if the issue isn't very commonly discussed or touched upon, but once that attention has been given, the hardcore crowd needs to shut the fuck up, calm down, and let the level-headed members speak up and begin the process of undoing the bias and bigotry. Keep up the furor too long, and you only build animosity and drag out the process of acceptance beyond the point that it needed to go.
Tl;dr: Once you've got my attention about the bigotry you are enduring, lower your voice and calmly explain what needs to change and why, and I'll be completely open to the idea. But keep screaming at me and I'm going to have a hard time fighting the urge to clock you. And the same goes for the majority of society.
It's worth noting that, no, you're never going to get 100% acceptance, there's too many fringe groups who pride themselves on being ass-backwards, but you can't please everyone, so don't bother.
Besides, nobody really gives a fuck what the rednecks think, anyway...nobody is even convinced that they DO think.
Basically: You can't force an idea, you can only convince others of it.
You know, I ruminate on this every so often, and I've observed something interesting; groups that are unaccepted are eventually accepted via rational, level-headed pursuits of equality and justice for themselves. We take for example black Americans [no. I'm not saying African-American. Nobody calls me Nordo-Franko-Germanic-American, and all humanity ultimately came from Africa anyway so that would be far too broad; I refer only to approximation of skin-tone, and I place no derogatory undertone to the word] who lived in segregation from the white American population. Were they outspoken? Did they protest? Sure. But it was the cool-headed individuals who ultimately brought segregation down; women like Rosa Parks who nonviolently protested by simply sitting in a section of the bus and refused to move, men like Martin Luther King, Jr. who promoted peace and harmony and spoke of the truth that we are all human beings and should all be accepted equally without discrimination. We think of the Civil Rights Movement and we think of those kinds of individuals with respect. But then you hear about the "hardcore," in-your-face groups like the Black Panthers and we snigger, roll our eyes, or generally don't put as much respect on them as we did for those who were much more passive...because it was the ones who were passive, not aggressive, in their pursuits of acceptance that reminded us of their equality as individuals...rather than trying to shove it down our throats.
Same goes for Womens' Suffrage, which leads, today, into feminism. We see the same also happening with the LGBT community. We look at the gay-pride parades and rather than feel a kinship, we feel...well, annoyance. Of course, doing NOTHING will not help acceptance, either, since if you're TOO passive, people will trample on you.
Think of it like this.
When pushing for acceptance in a group, do you:
A: Put on the most brightly-colored clothing you can find and dance in the streets dry-humping other individuals
B: Scream in someone's face that because you are not like them and they've been discriminated against by others who share your orientation/opinion/race, that therefore you're just as evil as they are
C: RUN AWAAAAY
D: Calmly but passionately remind that group that you've done nothing to harm anyone, you have no intention of harming them, and that you only want to be able to be seen as a human being, deserving of equal rights, responsibilities, and acceptance as the rest in the group, nothing more, nothing less.
If you answered anything but D...you are doing it very, very wrong.
I have zero problem with feminists. I like independent women. A woman who is my equal, where we don't have to deal with some slavish tradition-forced ritual of "girl does X, boy does Y, and that is their duties, PERIOD, end of discussion," is far more enticing than having to submit to some traditional ideal that is born of no rationality or reason but rather of millenia-old tribal ideas that serve no real purpose in modern society. But the moment a femiNAZI [key difference] gets in my face saying shit like I am a rape-supporter for going to a strip club, or I have to listen to some bitch stating that all the world's problems can be dumped on the feet of men or other such shit? I start losing my ability to really care about the plight of women.
Eventually, of course, I care again when after the spark of ire goes away and I remember not all or even most feminists are like that, but still my point stands that it doesn't benefit women at all for such individuals to do that. Their passion and energy and hatred is entirely misplaced and they are extremely counterproductive towards gaining total acceptance for women.
I'd say "same with the LGBT community" except the whole rampant hardcore-gay-sex-in-the-streets thing [embellishing a bit there; inb4 people start bitching at me that such things never happened...cuz apparently nobody on this forum knows how to understand exaggeration or sarcasm] has largely stopped...and, lo and behold, you notice that suddenly acceptance of the LGBT community is becoming far more widespread? Funny, that.
I suppose the hardcore drive is good for firing up the masses and getting attention for the issue if the issue isn't very commonly discussed or touched upon, but once that attention has been given, the hardcore crowd needs to shut the fuck up, calm down, and let the level-headed members speak up and begin the process of undoing the bias and bigotry. Keep up the furor too long, and you only build animosity and drag out the process of acceptance beyond the point that it needed to go.
Tl;dr: Once you've got my attention about the bigotry you are enduring, lower your voice and calmly explain what needs to change and why, and I'll be completely open to the idea. But keep screaming at me and I'm going to have a hard time fighting the urge to clock you. And the same goes for the majority of society.
It's worth noting that, no, you're never going to get 100% acceptance, there's too many fringe groups who pride themselves on being ass-backwards, but you can't please everyone, so don't bother.
Besides, nobody really gives a fuck what the rednecks think, anyway...nobody is even convinced that they DO think.
Basically: You can't force an idea, you can only convince others of it.
