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

[TaraJo]

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?

[Categories+Sheaves]

These sorts of discussions don't go well for you because you're a fully-indoctrinated pawn in the phallocratic paradigm of oppression (I jest)

tbh I haven't gotten close enough to these sorts of debates to see one blow up.

[5thHorseman]

Feminism goes nuts when it gets to Germaine Greer. She is a cretin.

I like liberal feminism, it recognises that fathers like me miss out on time with the kids in the same way my partner misses out on furthering her career. We both lose.

Feminists that say everything is the fault of men, like radical feminists, are cunts.

[TaraJo]

These sorts of discussions don't go well for you because you're a fully-indoctrinated pawn in the phallocratic paradigm of oppression (I jest)

Ugh. That sounds a lot like the bs they espouse, except they're more likely to tell me I'm 'internalizing misogyny' and to 'check my privilege' and that if I'm not using the approved feminist terminology, I can be simply dismissed.

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Feminism goes nuts when it gets to Germaine Greer. She is a cretin.

I like liberal feminism, it recognises that fathers like me miss out on time with the kids in the same way my partner misses out on furthering her career. We both lose.

Feminists that say everything is the fault of men, like radical feminists, are cunts.

Yeah, I've had to deal with a whole fuck of a lot of the cunts (and I'll use that word, even if it is incredibly misogynistic). I like equality that deals with issues that hurt both men and women. People like to say men aren't discriminated against, but if you watch what happens to guys who try to be nurses or secretaries or boys who try to baby sit to earn money in high school or, really, if you want to be a male that has anything to do with children, you see a different story.

The feminism I seem to be encountering the most still sees this problem, but instead says "This problem with men is only there because women have this other problem even worse." Personally, I find that incredibly dismissive of real concerns by real men.

However, I am starting to see something else that I like as a result of this: progressive men's groups where they talk about the place of masculinity in our culture and how sexism effects them. The extreme feminists still label them as misogynists unless they focus exclusively on sexism that hurts women. But sites like The Good Men Project are very good places and need to be part of equality. If anything, the radfems are pushing men away from gender equality.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Feminism goes nuts when it gets to Germaine Greer. She is a cretin.

I think she is brilliant,with one the best minds of my generation,hardly a cretin. I often agree with her,but not always. Not so much with with some of the more extreme, such as Andrea Dworkin ( " all hetero intercourse is rape")

Feminists that say everything is the fault of men, like radical feminists, are cunts.

That has never been my understanding. I also concede that the worst aspects of female oppression have indeed been caused by men.

[TaraJo]

Feminists that say everything is the fault of men, like radical feminists, are cunts.

That has never been my understanding. I also concede that the worst aspects of female oppression have indeed been caused by men.

I blame it more on culture, or the patriarchy if you want, and while men have generally had more over all power within the history of our culture, it's been shaped by both men and women. So, yes, most sexist gender roles were created, either directly or indirectly, by men.

However, who originally caused cultural norms really isn't important to me and it's kinda irrelevant. Fixing the fucked up gender roles we have now is important, and that means fixing fucked up gender roles for both men and women. I despise the one sided view of gender politics that says everything is peaches and cream for the guys or outright demonizes them.

But I think Valerie Solanas is the single, biggest example of feminist extremism. I can't really hold her completely responsible for her actions, though, because, from what I've learned about her, I'm pretty confident she had paranoid schizophrenia. However, the extremism came in that she wrote her The SCUM Manifesto, with SCUM as an acronym for "Society for Cutting Up Men." She had no trouble finding someone to publish her work and if you bring her up in feminist circles today, many feminists won't hesitate to defend her. If we're going to acknowledge that the Bible is barbaric for demanding we kill anyone who wears clothes made from more than one fabric or who works on Sunday, can't we also acknowledge that when someone suggests destruction of the entire human race simply because they're born with a penis is also barbaric? And when a radical feminist tries to defend those ideas, can't we realize they're just as absurd as the Christians who try to defend Old Testament law?

[Shell B]

Oh, I think women created some of the bias themselves. I have met plenty of women who are capable and behave as if they are not. It is convenient to be perceived as weak. Of course, I'm sure there are men who do it too.

Now, I have to say that one can be aware of the horrible treatment of women in history as compared to men without being a balls out man hater. Just because some men contributed to oppressing women does not mean some poor guy in an elevator needs to be the recipient of a crazed blog post by Miss Nutbag. Insulting and oppressing men in return is not the answer. Being a fucking cunt to men who have done nothing is not the answer. Hating men in general is not the answer, either. If I suggested enslaving whites as revenge for the history of American slavery, I doubt I would get the ass-kissing some of the feminists get. Why be a fucking feminist at all? I appreciate the beauty of femininity. I appreciate the strength that comes with being a woman, but when someone tries to suggest that women are more important, I remember to appreciate the strong arms that made me feel comfortable flying from tree branches, the gruff voice that told me what the difference between a lathe and a drill is, the guy who I can thank for feeding me for 16 years. Yeah, fuck anyone who disrespects good fathers.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Oh, I think women created some of the bias themselves.

Classic Marxist position. IE that victims contribute to their own victimisation,in part by accepting the values and world view of their oppressors. (false consciousness)

False consciousness is the Marxist thesis that material and institutional processes in capitalist society are misleading to the proletariat, and to other classes. These processes betray the true relations of forces between those classes, and the real state of affairs regarding the development of pre-socialist society (relative to the secular development of human society in general).

In Marxist theory, false consciousness is essentially a result of ideological control which the proletariat either do not know they are under or which they disregard with a view to their own POUM (probability/possibility of upward mobility).[1] POUM or something like it is required in economics with its presumption of rational agency; otherwise wage laborers would be the conscious supporters of social relations antithetical to their own interests, violating that presumption.[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_consciousness

[Shell B]

No, no, no. I'm not victim blaming. Being oppressed in the sense of abuse or limited rights is absolutely no fault of women in general. Hence why I say "some" of the bias.

However, when women in the public put more emphasis on clothing choice than a job well done, they are creating a problem. When a woman in the media talks about what brand she is wearing instead of what she is accomplishing, she is contributing to the problem. When women feed into the money gobbler that is women's periodical "literature," they are exacerbating an existing problem. Women bombard themselves with oppressive shit all the time. They do it on purpose. I see women that absolutely love being useless. All they want is someone to buy them things and to pick what they want bought for them from some shiny pages. All the more power to those women. It is their right. However, we should not pretend that men put them in a position to be slaves to the pretties. They made those decisions themselves. When a women decides that children trump education, she decides to earn less than a man of the same age later. The list goes on. Are you a woman and want to be on the same footing as a man in the same trade? Act like a man in the same trade. It's that simple. I was in a man's industry for about a decade. I made more than every other man I worked with for most of that career. I went to school for metal fabrication, industrial technology and welding. I did not see anyone stopping me. I was the only girl in my shop. Where were the rest? Cosmetology. You know what that is? Hair and makeup. Yeah, no one put them there. They like being pretty.

[Violet]

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