Thunderf00t vs. Feminism

[Bad Wolf]

There are more insidious forms of inequality than just outright oppression, like, say, the wage gap between men and women, for one.

The wage gap doesn't exist. It's a myth perpetrated by the rad feminists, they are literally lying. Women get paid just as much as men for the same job.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oqyrflOQFc

Or the fact that harassment is still commonplace in many areas. In fact, what I find particularly interesting is that I'm sitting here watching you fall into the same kind of logical fallacies you'd be chastising a christian for using, like the argument from ignorance: "I haven't seen it, therefore it doesn't exist," or the deeply simplistic view of oppression you're espousing.

How are women oppressed then? What is this complex view of oppression that you seem to have but haven't actually elaborated on? The wage gap? That's the only thing you've come up with and its wrong.

A woman can do anything a man can do... while getting paid less,

Not true.

in a society that in many ways commoditizes her looks, keeps her body open for public comment at all times,

Men face the same problem, unrealistic expectations and all that, women just seem to care more about it.

and can treat her in ways that we wouldn't think of treating a man.

Treated how, specifically?

I am exactly saying that it's society's fault: social constructs like gender roles are built within societies, and they are built from both the interactions of the individual members and the circumstances they find themselves in. The origins of this can't be drawn to a single gender, or even a single time period, and when you leap from the observation that such gender roles exist to a strong statement that it's "men's fault" based on nothing within my post that would hint at that, then I'm sorry, but you are being ridiculous.

I'm sorry, its common to hear from rad feminists that everything is mans fault. I just wrongly assumed you were going for that too.

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The cause is cultural, not gendered. It was probably even factual at one time; human progress is a continual straight line, not a stratified set of eras where we instantly forget the past the moment we enter a new one. No doubt there was a time in the past where it was beneficial for women to take on that nurturing role, and I'm willing to bet that this gender role finds its origins in that simple practical observation. But somewhere along the way it got ingrained and became "the way it is," even when the reality no longer necessarily fitted that. We're all human, we're conditioned to accept social norms that we're brought up with as static, and changing them is hard. This isn't about apportioning blame, just about recognizing that ancestral thinking can really get soaked into us without us realizing it.

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But I'm interested, now: what do you think is the origin of women getting preferential treatment in custody hearings?

Pretty much the same as you, social norms and the biases they create.

But the other question that comes to mind, for me, is why would it be favoritism? What sequence of events or thinking would lead to this kind of widespread favoritism for women in this specific section of the legal system? Seriously, if you've got an answer for that I'd like to hear it, as I suspect our positions might not even be that far off, just phrased differently.

I don't know the answer to that, but it could just be our culture.

Objectification. Just having sexual content, or sexual characters, isn't bad on its own. It's when that content is demeaning or reduces the characters to nothing but body parts posing for the male/female gaze that it becomes problematic.

And I would agree with that, but who gets to decide whether its demeaning or not? In this video, Sofia Vergara is put on a rotating platform and everybody stares at her. There was a huge backlash from feminists saying it was objectification, yet Vergara didn't think so, she liked the attention, it was all pre-planned and it was just fun. So is it objectification if the person on display agrees and likes it? Who gets to decide? Because at the moment, almost anything can be seen as objectification of women but there never seems to be any of men, even the half naked models who stand outside designer shops with their shirts off.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrR3XMWWm4A

I agree: the radfem movement is ridiculous, aggressive, overbearing and often transphobic. I dislike them, they do not represent my opinions, nor should their movement be given the oxygen of public discourse. But I can't stop them from saying stupid shit, and there are better things to do than waste time dealing with them; christians don't need to spend all their time dealing with the Westboro guys, why should any other group have to devote the majority of their energies fighting with the extremist ends of their own spectrum

Because the rad feminists are getting more attention than the actual feminists, that's why there should be some kind of division, something to tell everyone, 'we're not with those guys'.

The loudest voices aren't necessarily the most numerous, and my head certainly isn't in the sand: feminism can be a shitshow at times, there are a whole bunch of idiots that I'd really rather would calm the fuck down, but I hope you can see why just doing what I think is right would be more appealing than sticking my head in that tank full of rabid voles time and again just to clean up individual flecks of vole shit, right?

I do see your point, but couldn't you just delegate the work off to someone else, there has to be feminists that hate rad feminists and want to take action to silence and discredit them.

[Little lunch]

The wage gap doesn't exist?
So you looked it up and despite the overwhelming amount of information supporting the existence of a wage gap, you zeroed in on the myth article.
I find that very telling of your mindset, Bad Wolf.

[Bad Wolf]

Oh there is a gap, but it's not because of unequal pay.

[Madness20]

Both men and women have their own priviledges, and it's not like anyone is really to blame here and it's not going to change anywhere soon. Western societies do not really "limit" opportunities for women any further than it does to men, and if there's wage gaps between both genders is mainly because men usually engage on more workload and are more valuable/productive workers then women overall on those professions, and this is just a capitalistic approach, not based on sexism. On the other side, women have tremendous social support compared to men, it's extremelly rare seeing an homeless women, and it's exceedingly common for men to not have "reliable" support during unemployment.

[Bad Wolf]

The wage gap doesn't exist?
So you looked it up and despite the overwhelming amount of information supporting the existence of a wage gap, you zeroed in on the myth article.
I find that very telling of your mindset, Bad Wolf.

I was going to let this go because this was a nice discussion until you butted in, but what you said is so stupid.
Where is all this information? All this evidence? Couldn't you have posted a link instead of just asserting it exits?
And pray tell psychic Little Lunch, what is my mind set here? I'm a misogynist? I want to oppress women? I think women aren't as clever as men?
I'm pretty sure it's going to be along those lines.

[Brakeman]

While I have heard generalizations criticizing thunderfoot, I have not seen any actual citations of misogynistic mis-steps, certainly not a trend in them.
He continued with follow-up videos and comments because of the wave of vitriol aimed at him because he dared pick on the idea's of a cute little girl. Despite his very academic and logical critiques that were not slanderous at all, he was viciously booted by PZ & his buddies from the blogosphere they shared and lately attacked by a twitter campaign. It is the pro-feministic crusaders that are keeping the shit storm flying, not thunderfoot.

The problem with so called "feminism" is not the ideas, but the inability to effectively challenge those ideas without a wave of "chivalric" men running to the rescue to protect women's ideas.
It follows the standard formula:

You can't critique the history of the holocaust without being a "denier."
You can't critique the history of racial inequality without being a "racist."
You can't critique the NRA without being a "gun hatin' liberal."
You can't critique the actions of Israel without being a "anti-semite."
and so on..

We should force ourselves to examine closely all opposing arguments to our world-view to understand the reason and experience that leads others to espouse these ideas and not automatically pigeon hole them into our presupposed prejudices.

[Little lunch]

The wage gap doesn't exist?
So you looked it up and despite the overwhelming amount of information supporting the existence of a wage gap, you zeroed in on the myth article.
I find that very telling of your mindset, Bad Wolf.

I was going to let this go because this was a nice discussion until you butted in, but what you said is so stupid.
Where is all this information? All this evidence? Couldn't you have posted a link instead of just asserting it exits?
And pray tell psychic Little Lunch, what is my mind set here? I'm a misogynist? I want to oppress women? I think women aren't as clever as men?
I'm pretty sure it's going to be along those lines.

I just think you should dig a little deeper then a Christina Hoff Sommers video.
Telling me to go back to my women's studies professor and calling this all hysteria came directly from that video. It leads me to believe that maybe you haven't checked all the facts and might have been a little one minded in your research.
I honestly don't think any of those things about you or that you'd be stupid enough to voice some sought of anti-woman campaign here, and that goes for everyone else.
My view is that sexism is so enmeshed into society that many of us, including some women, can't see it.
Let's agree to disagree. I don't want a fight with you.
I provide some links then you provide some that disagree with my links and so on.
That's a waste of time. How do I provide links to that which I've seen firsthand throughout society my whole life? Gender pay gaps, rape, violence and women treated as second class citizens.
My belief is that by supporting feminism we also support ourselves, men.

[KentuckySkeptic224]

Who! I never meant to get people this worked up! Can't we all just hate the republicans?

[Jenny A]

And pray tell psychic Little Lunch, what is my mind set here? I'm a misogynist? I want to oppress women? I think women aren't as clever as men?
I'm pretty sure it's going to be along those lines.

I'll speak up for you Bad Wolf. There is a wage gap. But I agree that these days, as opposed to 20 and 30 years ago, it's not a gap based on unequal pay for equal work. Equal pay for equal work is as far as equality takes us. Push beyond that and you are looking at reverse discrimination.

Dispassionate discussion of the facts should never be considered a sign of sexism or racism either one.

[Brakeman]

Where is all this information? All this evidence? Couldn't you have posted a link instead of just asserting it exits?

That's a waste of time. How do I provide links to that which I've seen firsthand throughout society my whole life? Gender pay gaps, rape, violence and women treated as second class citizens.

You are just asserting again that it exists without even bothering to name the examples.

Your claim that gender pay gaps are prevalent should be examinable. Give us some examples. Tell us your first hand experience with gender based wages.

I have seen first hand gender based wages in Peru when I worked there in the '80s, but I haven't seen anything at all like that in the US in today's environment. I think we're talking about the last 5 or 10 years or so. It would be trivially easy to find examples for our parent's generation and back.

What role does rape and violence play in this discussion? Is there debate on those topics?

Name some rights that women don't have that makes them describable as second class citizens. In the US there are none I'm aware of unless you want to argue some of the military's combat roles. Even that would apply only to and extreme few.