Feminism thread

[Dan]

Also, libertarian in falsely assuming the market is ahistorical shock.

 

[Swingpanzee]

Weird thread tstl.

It's a feminism thread. Can't see how people didn't expect it to become weird and personal.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Yeah, because you're apparently aren't capable of reading a dictionary.

You are the embodiment of everything that is wrong about men. Literally. ****ing. Everything.

Kind of unnecessary.

I disagree with him too, so knock some sense into him if you can, that's the objective of the thread. But driving him out of the debate like this does no one any good.

 

[OverratedSanity]

It's a feminism thread. Can't see how people didn't expect it to become weird and personal.

View attachment 22207

Didn't expect the personal bits to be interspersed with a strange conversation on whether a poster wants to take fashion lessons with hendrix, though

 

[sledger]

Kind of unnecessary.

One suspects it was the use of the word "beta" that inspired this reaction tbh.

Which is perfectly understandable, of course. It is a wretched notion.

 

[Ikki]

Yeah, because you're apparently aren't capable of reading a dictionary.

You are the embodiment of everything that is wrong about men. Literally. ****ing. Everything.

If you're going to hammer someone for reading, at least fix that atrocious sentence. And that is the dictionary you idiot. Pretending like feminism is equality for all is nonsense. It's equality for females based on their perspective of equality. Otherwise, they should start owning the word 'egalitarians'.

You're asking the wrong question.

Does biology impact our social relations? Yes, because we've constructed gender in such a way to do so.
Does biology inherently define our social relations? No, apart from the obvious 'women give birth' difference.

No, that's the wrong interpretation of the question. If you have a penis you are also born with several other differences in your biology related to that main difference. "Does this biology not affect the way you live and hence the way you interact with society" I guess is a better version of the question. I'm not convinced gender construction was simply that voluntary or straightforward.

I find nature vs nurture arguments so troublesome that I don't think I've ever come away with an either/or as most of what I've read suggests a bit of both. I find getting to an answer is filled with plenty of traps. But I am happy to learn something from hendrix or anyone who knows more. At the least it will pique my interest.

I guess for now I kind of side with zorax's view on this. Maybe when as a society we've gotten to the point where the gender assumptions of the past no longer apply we will get to more equal levels (particularly in terms of employment in certain fields) but I guess I'm yet to be convinced this will account for everything and that there probably exists an underlying biological factor. Of course, not based on any research I've done.

 

[hendrix]

I see, so are you saying that the science on this is settled? That our biology in terms of gender has no impact on our to-and-fro with society? Again, not my field; but I've never even heard it stated like this. Always seems to be an ongoing discussion and how much each factor may play a part.

what are you talking about? I was simply explaining what imprinting is.

Nothing to do with the topic at hand.

 

[Dan]

If you're going to hammer someone for reading, at least fix that atrocious sentence. And that is the dictionary you idiot. Pretending like feminism is equality for all is nonsense. It's equality for females based on their perspective of equality. Otherwise, they should start owning the word 'egalitarians'.

lol at there being a 'female perspective' of equality. I thought you were all about treating individuals as individuals, not groups? Surely each individual feminist has her (or his, since, y'know, men can be feminists too) own conceptualisation of what gender equality looks like.

But that doesn't change the fundamental definition of 'equality'. Which is what the fundamental definition of 'feminism' is all about. It really isn't that ****ing hard to understand.

 

[Spark]

"I support female equality! (so long does it involve me having to do anything mildly uncomfortable)"

 

[Teja.]

Ikki,

The point you're missing is that you can't ignore deeply entrenched positions in society and move forward from a random point in time and say we all have equal rights, we live in an enlightened age. You have to acknowledge them. Women in a lot of places in the world have equal rights in law, that doesn't mean feminism is unneeded in those places.

You can't ignore hundreds of years of history and the unequal positions it has placed groups of society in with re: institutional barriers, even if we were to get complete legal equality across the world tomorrow, it'd still be highly relevant. You can choose not to legislatively interfere but you can't ignore it. You just can't.

 

[Ikki]

lol at there being a 'female perspective' of equality. I thought you were all about treating individuals as individuals, not groups? Surely each individual feminist has her (or his, since, y'know, men can be feminists too) own conceptualisation of what gender equality looks like.

But that doesn't change the fundamental definition of 'equality'. Which is what the fundamental definition of 'feminism' is all about. It really isn't that ****ing hard to understand.

Feminists seek equality based on their perceived, collective, grievances. This is not my belief, which is why I'm not a feminist - for the reasons you stated - but it is the stated reasonings for their movement. So don't try to play it off as if every perspective is being represented here, that's utter nonsense. I'm yet to see feminists March on Washington for the custodial rights of men. For better or worse, misguided or not, they have a perspective (however varied that may be amongst them) that they are promoting.

Equality is also not some universal distinction that we can all claim to know or have. It is a subjective assessment. And I don't advocate equality based on groups, but as individuals for the reasons I've written here already.

what are you talking about? I was simply explaining what imprinting is.

Nothing to do with the topic at hand.

Well I was referring to zorax's earlier points where you were discussing this with him and then you replied to me saying they're settled. Imprinting aside; is it settled that if tomorrow we had no social constructs of gender that we'd be in the same fields, at the top positions, etc, the same across genders? That if we could hit the reset button and live in the world would we then have more equality, considering we wouldn't have the artefacts of the past ingrained in our cultural conscience?

Because, as I've stated earlier, it'd be a bit hard for me to believe that our biology, even if it is just with respect to being a man and a woman (and the differences that entails); has no input on how we treat each other.

Ikki,

The point you're missing is that you can't ignore deeply entrenched positions in society and move forward from a random point in time and say we all have equal rights, we live in an enlightened age. You have to acknowledge them. Women in a lot of places in the world have equal rights in law, that doesn't mean feminism is unneeded in those places.

You can't ignore hundreds of years of history and the unequal positions it has placed groups of society in with re: institutional barriers, even if we were to get complete legal equality across the world tomorrow, it'd still be highly relevant. You can choose not to legislatively interfere but you can't ignore it. You just can't.

But I am acknowledging them. I directly acknowledge the issue that they're facing. My solution is that we face it for the best possible end-game: that we as individuals have the same rights.

Unfortunately, I fear the rapidly prop group-centric bunch here would have you believe I do not sympathise with their movement. I actually do, in basically every respect that I think is logical. I just don't identify with the movement as the right vehicle for the ultimate aim. If women didn't have the right to vote, I'd be protesting along with them. But if I was asked if I was a feminist, I'd say no.

For some that might be a worthless difference, IMO it means a great deal.

 

[watson]

I don't think that feminism has yet achieved the desired out-come.

So far, women do not have average wage parity with men, and the wage they do earn now goes on the home mortgage and on expensive electronic gadgets that no one really needs.

A cynic would say that the current brand of feminism has merely been exploited by Big Banks, Building Corporations, Sony, Samsung, and Apple to increase profits and margins.

And ironically, the biggest losers by far have been women. Not only do they have to do most of the house-work and child rearing like they've always done, but also spend 20-40 hours per week in some mediocre job just to make ends meet.

It's a complete bloody mess, and I'm glad that I have a penis.

 

[Howe_zat]

The issue with most people who like to insist the status quo over social equality is fine isn't that they reasoned themselves into the position. It's that the narrow mindedness that stops them from caring about those on the wrong side of the equality gap also makes them assume everyone else has that point of view, and everyone who doesn't is just pretending in order to fit in better.

These people will usually trot out 'political correctness' or some such to mock the idea that we should give a **** about each other, because they honestly think it's some sort of con. If you accept the premise that everyone is a bigoted dickhead, then not only do your views become okay, but you're actually the brave crusader with the nerve to call out the emperor has no clothes. 'He says what we're all thinking'. Once that's established, people who do try and speak out for having values of equality are really just the thought police - as we've established that no one really believes or cares in that stuff, it's just people trying to keep the charade going.

So it follows that if you're a person who speaks out for an equal attitude towards women, that's not you're real goal. Everyone sees interacting with women in the same way, which is to find efficient and manipulative ways to get on their good side for the purposes of sex. There is literally no other reason why a man would want to think about them, after all.

Alright buddy, take the armour off, the war is over.

Well this just in: It's bollocks. People do not always see the world the way you do. People sometimes have good arguments that come from actually caring about other people. Not everyone sees women as opponents to be defeated before you can establish your dominance with a relationship, as though meeting another person can be won by the techniques used to train pets, so long as they're a womb-haver and not a real person.

Accept that.

 

[Uppercut]

...

I don't know at all what I believe about this, so I'll just post a few related thoughts.

The most important indicator of individual rights and freedoms by far is nationality, or place-of-birth.

Redressing imbalances between groups is complex. Individual rights are a very simple and compelling idea. On a national or global level this is an argument that the group-rights side will never win, and the act of having it is probably bad for the oppressed group, because the potential for cultivating bitterness is so great.

Was there more gender equality in the era of conscription? For all the powerlessness, in 1914 I would still probably have chosen to be a woman. I really like having legs.

Being ugly is about as bad for your career as being female: Stumbling and Mumbling: Inequality: the ugly truth

 

[hendrix]

Well I was referring to zorax's earlier points where you were discussing this with him and then you replied to me saying they're settled. Imprinting aside; is it settled that if tomorrow we had no social constructs of gender that we'd be in the same fields, at the top positions, etc, the same across genders? That if we could hit the reset button and live in the world would we then have more equality, considering we wouldn't have the artefacts of the past ingrained in our cultural conscience?

Because, as I've stated earlier, it'd be a bit hard for me to believe that our biology, even if it is just with respect to being a man and a woman (and the differences that entails); has no input on how we treat each other.

You haven't read me properly. What I have said is that what has happened is not an indicator of what happens inherent to our biology. This much you must understand.
Again, there is nothing in our biology or our physiology to suggest that we are inherently a patriarchal species.

If you want to claim otherwise, it's up to you to present the data. I can't refute something which doesn't exist.

Now, I think the other part of what you're getting at is specifics of jobs etc., like all the pseudoscience about "alpha males" being good CEOs. You may sense a certain disdain from me for these schools of thoughts. This is because the science is poor and fails to distinguish between characteristics. E.g. someone with a strong brow is said to have more masculine features, and also be better at business or some garbage; except that person is generally also better looking, and there's already a clear correlation between attractiveness and success. Similarly, people attracted to risk are said to be more masculine; and successful CEOs are risk takers. Circular logic.
Just rubbish reasoning 99% of the time.

So we'll do the same thing. If you can show to me, biologically speaking, that a man is better than a woman or vice versa at a particular job, then sure. I can think of contact sports and the military, due purely to the muscle mass differences. Certainly not engineering, science, medicine, law or business. Otherwise I do not see a biological reason for different roles between the sexes in society.

 

[Dan]

Feminists seek equality based on their perceived, collective, grievances. This is not my belief, which is why I'm not a feminist - for the reasons you stated - but it is the stated reasonings for their movement. So don't try to play it off as if every perspective is being represented here, that's utter nonsense. I'm yet to see feminists March on Washington for the custodial rights of men. For better or worse, misguided or not, they have a perspective (however varied that may be amongst them) that they are promoting.

Equality is also not some universal distinction that we can all claim to know or have. It is a subjective assessment. And I don't advocate equality based on groups, but as individuals for the reasons I've written here already.

But people are individuals, not collectives. Make up your mind. They don't have 'collective grievances', they're all different individuals with agency.

'Men get less custodial rights' as female privilege is such a myth. It's far more a product of gender norms and stereotypes (y'know, those things feminists fight to get rid of) that say "****** = caregiver, penis = clueless idiot"

But I am acknowledging them. I directly acknowledge the issue that they're facing. My solution is that we face it for the best possible end-game: that we as individuals have the same rights.

Unfortunately, I fear the rapidly prop group-centric bunch here would have you believe I do not sympathise with their movement. I actually do, in basically every respect that I think is logical. I just don't identify with the movement as the right vehicle for the ultimate aim. If women didn't have the right to vote, I'd be protesting along with them. But if I was asked if I was a feminist, I'd say no.

For some that might be a worthless difference, IMO it means a great deal.

So you believe that treating individuals with distinctly unequal historical backgrounds in a completely ahistorical way (as the market/logic of individualism does -- "you live and die by your choices, but we can't see if your agency is restrained by hundreds of years of historical oppressions") is the right thing to do, because treating people differently is wrong, even though that does nothing but further reinforce the very historical inequalities you're assuming out of existence by ignoring that people were (and still are) treated within group architecture.

Riiiiiiiiiiiight.

I don't think that feminism has yet achieved the desired out-come.

So far, women do not have average wage parity with men, and the wage they do earn now goes on the home mortgage and on expensive electronic gadgets that no one really needs.

A cynic would say that the current brand of feminism has merely been exploited by Big Banks, Building Corporations, Sony, Samsung, and Apple to increase profits and margins.

And ironically, the biggest losers by far have been women. Not only do they have to do most of the house-work and child rearing like they've always done, but also spend 20-40 hours per week in some mediocre job just to make ends meet.

It's a complete bloody mess, and I'm glad that I have a penis.

Meshes well with Spark's post IMO: "I support female equality until it makes me do the ironing".

 

[Dan]

Redressing imbalances between groups is complex. Individual rights are a very simple and compelling idea.

I may be taking you out of context slightly, but I wholeheartedly agree with this bit of your post.

In saying that, though, 'individual rights' isn't a silver-bullet solution. We've done a ****load of damage over long timescales; nothing will fix it in a few decades, let alone overnight.

 

[harsh.ag]

Ikki is being treated a little harshly (see what I did there)

I don't think he wants to approach the "equal rights for all" a-historically. He wants the feminists to approach the case historically but with the end game of getting this thing settled in a manner where men too have the same rights as them in any sense that they don't now.

Or maybe I am wrong.

 

[Prince EWS]

Why is it sad at all? I'm a male, and while I'm not a masculinist I probably agree some of their views.

IMO, if you truly care about equality then you don't just identify as a feminist or a masculinst...you identify yourself as a human being.

I used to more or less agree with this but I've come to the conclusion over the last year or so that it's just not a very useful position to take if you really do want to put forward the case for individual rights.

When people first start taking stock of how the world works and the cultural aspects of their society, they're first going to notice the structural things that disadvantage them personally. Some people expand their perspectives and develop a more universal set of beliefs and some people don't, but either way injustices that affect people personally are naturally going to be what they initially see and experience.

Given this, and given there certainly are structural elements of society that disproportionately affect certain groups, members of those groups will first be drawn to movements that exist to change those elements. The modern feminist movement is insane at the fringe, but part of the problem is the fact that this is how young feminists are taught how to tackle the problems they notice when they first take interest in feminism, and the same applies to any 'identity oppression' movement. We actually need more people who believe in individual rights to identify as part of these movements in order to actually be in the debate when young people are naturally drawn to them through their own experiences. Taking up opposition to them as entire movements really just takes us out of those debates and gives people less exposure to (IMO) good ideas.

As far as I'm concerned, the two things that unite all feminists are the core beliefs that:
a) structural elements exist currently which make being female disadvantageous; and
b) the world would be better without a)

Unlike Teja I don't believe in 'group rights' -- I don't think the feminist movement is really about rights violations anymore -- but I agree with both of the above and they're not incompatible with the concept of individual rights at all, so I'm happy to class myself as a feminist even though I disagree strongly with extreme elements of the feminist movement. It doesn't have to be about 'rape culture', misandry, affirmative action and government intervention; it can just be about tearing down social barriers to opportunity through persuasion, understanding and increasing tolerance.

As I said earlier, I'm more interested in seeing more human interactions voluntary than seeing the structure and preferences behind those interactions change, but that doesn't mean the latter isn't a worthy cause, particularly given it could well help the former.

 

[Swingpanzee]

Ikki is being treated a little harshly (see what I did there).

inb4 zorax like