Award winning feminist filmmaker began to doubt her beliefs while making "The Red Pill"… now funding
151 replies, posted
[QUOTE=.Isak.;49003667]I'm aware of what evolution is - I just wanted to be clear on his point that "that's not the way it always will be." If that's true, why accept it? Make social changes to dissuade that protective behavior, as it is no longer necessary in modern society. We've already done this with aggression and violence - we have social order established to prevent our natural faculty of aggression and anger from interrupting others. We've had laws like that for thousands of years now.
Also want to be clear on my opinion: I'm not saying that it [i]couldn't[/i] be true. I'm saying that [i]if it were true[/i], it doesn't matter - we can establish social expectations to get around it. We have an urge to reproduce, but we don't allow rape - how is that different? Should we be at the whim of our every evolutionary urge? Absolutely not.
The problem with the assumption that "men protected women" is that what we know about ancient social structures is that the grandparents or weaker relatives usually took care of the children. Would that not make protecting the elderly advantageous? The nuclear family was common, and many would stay home and care for the children. It was a hunter-gatherer society, the women weren't shoved in caves and kept safe and used for nothing but reproduction. They left and gathered shit to eat. That's not protective - the men abandoned them for days at a time to hunt and let them wander free!
It's an interesting idea, again, but it makes assumptions based on modern social structures, not those of our ancestors. Women wouldn't really be "a valuable resource" - there's plenty of them, usually one for each man. The extended family/tribe setup of our ancestors, which we have genuine evidence of, was conducive to protecting the children - not necessarily the women.[/QUOTE]
like, how do you do that? are you saying we should actively, as a society, dissuade men from protecting women? How do you even do that? Would that really make people happier? Would that be a better world?
you say you understand evolution but it doesn't really seem like that's the case
What natural selection does is select for genes that produce organisms that are more capable of reproducing and surviving.
Obviously, if females gathering food and going outside is worth the risk of losing a few females, then that's what that organism would evolve to do.
That doesn't mean they aren't still far, far more valuable than the males are, and that males wouldn't be better suited to more dangerous tasks. You can't eliminate risk, but you can minimize it. That's what evolution does.
Females are the backbone of the species. If you lose too many of them, the group fails. In some situations, the same can be said for children. You can lose all of your elderly and a majority of your males and you can still bounce back. It's simple pragmatism.
As for whether females or children are more valuable, I think you could make the argument that children are the most important of all from a personal perspective. The goal of each individual organism is to reproduce, the only truly important thing is that the offspring survives to carry on their genes. So that would explain why children would be more highly valued.
Then again, females are more important to the survival of the group. A fully matured female is a greater investment of resources than a child, so losing one would be worse for the group than losing a child would be. And if the group fails, everyone's offspring dies anyway. Children are also likely to die before reaching maturation, which further reduces the value of an individual child.
There aren't really any definite answers. But it's an interesting question nonetheless.
[QUOTE=Bread_Baron;49003633]You're right about the Friedan example - though that doesn't entirely negate from her other calls for equality.
[/QUOTE]
I argue that it does. Friedan fought for equal rights for women, not just equal rights in general.
[QUOTE=Bread_Baron;49003633]
Watson has stood up for men's rights regardless of your opinions on HeForShe. I'm not particularly well-versed on the group but from what I've seen a lot of the prevailing arguments against it have gaping flaws.
[/QUOTE]
I've yet to see any movement that Emma Watson support that fight from men's rights.
[QUOTE=Bread_Baron;49003633]
The complaint about feminism doing whatever's convenient for women is a broad stroke too, if you're saying it in the vain that feminism exclusively benefits women then nope, we're back to square one and how it's breaking down the gender dichotomy.
[/QUOTE]
I'm sorry, but that's a historical fact. Everything from the color pink to child's custody.
[QUOTE=Bread_Baron;49003633]
But it's interesting that you complain about feminism focusing on benefiting one sex, as opposed to the [I]men's rights[/I] movement.[/QUOTE]
I don't associate myself with MRA. There's stuff I agree and there's stuff I disagree.
[QUOTE=Ragekipz;49004364]I argue that it does. Friedan fought for equal rights for women, not just equal rights in general.
I've yet to see any movement that Emma Watson support that fight from men's rights.
I'm sorry, but that's a historical fact. Everything from the color pink to child's custody.
I don't associate myself with MRA. There's stuff I agree and there's stuff I disagree.[/QUOTE]
- Okay whatever, maybe she wasn't the best of examples but at the very least she brought some equality between the sexes (and god forbid she supported the less privileged anyway.) Still, I gave 4 other examples you haven't picked off the top of my head. It wasn't meant as a conclusive list of every person to support both men and women's rights, there are plenty out there.
- Again what I said in the previous sentence, and in my post about shared ideology not needing close affiliation with a group, she has stood up for men's rights (hence why I mentioned the UN speech.)
- I'm not even going to reiterate it in detail because it's basic background reading, but feminism has been beneficial for both sexes over the years.
- Cool, same here.
[QUOTE=.Isak.;49002539]There's a very real reason evolutionary psychology is regarded as bunk science - and it's not because of some feminist agenda. It's because it lacks evidence and conflates temporary social norms with evolutionary human behavior. There are a million holes in the idea, as realistic as it might initially sound.[/QUOTE]
I'm sorry but you haven't convinced me of this at all. Give some studies or evidence or something.
[QUOTE=Ragekipz;49002440]You think before society men didn't protect women? The roles we see in society are directly taken from the roles we used to have before society.[/QUOTE]While I understand what you're saying, I'm going to have to interject here and call bullshit. I realize you're not the only person to take this position so consider this a response to all of them. There just isn't any solid evidence for the "well men have a need to protect women!" instinct and there certainly isn't any hard evidence that we, as a species, pay a lot of attention to our instincts anyway. This doesn't make any sense, I know, but let me explain:
Biologically it is understood that passing on the best genes to the next generation ensures a strong species that can survive. You can see this behavior in the wild, male wolves will go after any female in heat but the alpha female will rip the fuck out of any of these lesser females to ensure her pups are the only ones born. Meanwhile humans have [I]countless[/I] requirements for initiating a permanent mating bond and this union is intended to produce children. Some happen because of sexual selection, the ideal man finds the ideal woman and mates with her, they raise children, and then these (ideally) genetically superior children supposedly find their own ideal mates when they reach maturity.
Except we don't [I]just[/I] follow our instincts and we haven't for millennia.
Marriages for convenience, arranged marriages, random acts of spontaneous sex, rape, marriage between genetically inferior individuals, and many, many other examples produce children that are likely to be "tainted" with inferior genes. We also pair up because we love each other, often without regard to physical characteristics or social status, and quite often people do things that just go contrary to the common sense world of evolution. Right now we're a species unconcerned with basic survival, our instincts and evolutionary traits are only barely recognized in our day to day lives and we follow cultural and societal behavior rules instead.
Personally I think the argument against women in the military is based on these stupid, stupid assumptions. It's all been years and years of cultural tradition and basic necessity that have dictated women being non-combatants, we're in an age now where the most basic combat unit, the rifleman, is less reliant on his or her ability to cleave an enemy's skull in with a club or a sword but instead is shooting him with a machine that projects a small, high-velocity pellet into the enemy and can do so a great many times. Having a minimum physical requirement for combat readiness would adequately weed out anyone, male or female, unfit for adequate combat performance. Sure a lot of women would fail to meet this standard because of basic biological differences, but that's okay, the ones that are discarded are surely useful elsewhere. (nobody has ever taken an issue with the countless men who have been delegated to civilian roles because they failed to meet physical prerequisites for soldiering)
[editline]28th October 2015[/editline]
Additionally we invented planes, tanks, trucks, ships, and all sorts of other fancy transportation methods largely to preserve the endurance and increase the mobility of our fighting personnel. Warfare isn't conducted in such a way that requires an absurd amount of physical prowess, otherwise somebody like Audie Murphy wouldn't have been revered for the past seventy years as an outstanding soldier.
So really the physical requirements are just there to make sure that a minimum level of performance can be achieved, there isn't any [I]real[/I] need for a lot of it given the state of modern combat and the projected nature of future warfare.
An organism's primary goal is to reproduce, not create a more fit organism. There are many behaviors that motivate us to choose generally more biologically fit mates, but that is ultimately a secondary concern.
Arranged marriages are done for the social and monetary benefits they bestow to the families that arrange them. Rape is morally abominable, but a perfectly legitimate strategy for reproduction.
I don't know how I can make this more clear. Evolution is not the conscious goal of organisms. Neither we nor animals necessarily consciously desire to do things that increase the likelihood of us reproducing. But those who think and act in ways that make reproduction less likely die out, and those that think and act in ways that make reproduction more likely take their place.
It's brutal. It's cruel. But it's true.
This has been our history for tens of millions of years. Somehow, I doubt that all that conditioning has vanished in the sparse few thousand in which civilization has arisen.
[QUOTE=Mr. Scorpio;49005567]I don't know how I can make this more clear.[B] Evolution is not the conscious goal of organisms.[/B] Neither we nor animals necessarily consciously desire to do things that increase the likelihood of us reproducing.[/QUOTE]Good thing we were talking about instinct though, which is why behavioral characteristics that ensure strong, successful genes are found literally everywhere in nature. It's why human sexuality is mostly focused on a few primary secondary sexual characteristics.
The difference is that our conscious behavior is not completely dictated by our basic urges and desires, if it was rape, murder, theft, and a bunch of other impulse-driven criminal acts would be acceptable.
[QUOTE=JumpinJackFlash;49005348]Personally I think the argument against women in the military is based on these stupid, stupid assumptions. It's all been years and years of cultural tradition and basic necessity that have dictated women being non-combatants, we're in an age now where the most basic combat unit, the rifleman, is less reliant on his or her ability to cleave an enemy's skull in with a club or a sword but instead is shooting him with a machine that projects a small, high-velocity pellet into the enemy and can do so a great many times. Having a minimum physical requirement for combat readiness would adequately weed out anyone, male or female, unfit for adequate combat performance. Sure a lot of women would fail to meet this standard because of basic biological differences, but that's okay, the ones that are discarded are surely useful elsewhere. (nobody has ever taken an issue with the countless men who have been delegated to civilian roles because they failed to meet physical prerequisites for soldiering)
Additionally we invented planes, tanks, trucks, ships, and all sorts of other fancy transportation methods largely to preserve the endurance and increase the mobility of our fighting personnel. Warfare isn't conducted in such a way that requires an absurd amount of physical prowess, otherwise somebody like Audie Murphy wouldn't have been revered for the past seventy years as an outstanding soldier.
So really the physical requirements are just there to make sure that a minimum level of performance can be achieved, there isn't any [I]real[/I] need for a lot of it given the state of modern combat and the projected nature of future warfare.[/QUOTE]
I'm sorry you seem to have no idea how much physical preparation goes into infantary units. The minimum level of performance isn't good enough for dangerous deployments. Also they don't just give tanks, planes and choppers to anyone. The soldiers of today are WAY more physically fit than the people that fought in full plate mail.
On top of that, if you want to be part of the elite units the physical requirements and the efficiency necessary skyrocket. You're not gonna see a Navy SEAL or a SpecOps cop that does the mininum level of performance. I personally I wouldn't bet in a lot of women completing our MP SpecOps training or our Army Jungle Guerrilla training.
[QUOTE=Mr. Scorpio;49005567]This has been our history for tens of millions of years. Somehow, I doubt that all that conditioning has vanished in the sparse few thousand in which civilization has arisen.[/QUOTE]Well clearly it has, there's plenty of societies and cultures that do things completely contrary to the evolutionary need to reproduce at all costs.
We even have special behavioral rules that, while obviously evolved as a secondary characteristic to ensure strong, healthy offspring in other species, are focused on ensuring individuals fit to thrive in the society they're raised in. Chinese parents raise their children differently than American parents, sometimes in direct contradiction of the easier route of, "just find somebody to knock up, it's your biological imperative."
We have developed our own rules completely independent and in spite of evolution, it does not guide our progress as a species anymore.
[editline]28th October 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=Ragekipz;49005700]-completely missing the fucking point-[/QUOTE]Any evidence for any of this? Particularly the physical fitness of a man-at-arms in the... oh.. 16th century versus the fatbodies that are all over in the US army? I'm [B]well aware[/B] of what level of physical preparation goes into modern infantry units, and I can firmly say they're not ultra-ripped supermen.
Also I was speaking in general terms in regards to the mechanization of the armed forces, and on that note the days of humping it out on foot are already fucking gone. Future warfare is going to be more automated and there will be less and less requirement for the average infantry unit to have completely fit individuals, already the military is full of people who routinely fail their PFTs and I'm going to guess that this never happened before the 1960's when the military was almost entirely reliant on the personal mobility of individual soldiers. You seem to be misreading my post so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here. Re-read and try again.
[QUOTE=JumpinJackFlash;49005722]
Any evidence for any of this? Particularly the physical fitness of a man-at-arms in the... oh.. 16th century versus the fatbodies that are all over in the US army? I'm [B]well aware[/B] of what level of physical preparation goes into modern infantry units, and I can firmly say they're not ultra-ripped supermen.
Also I was speaking in general terms in regards to the mechanization of the armed forces, and on that note the days of humping it out on foot are already fucking gone.
You seem to be misreading my post so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here. Re-read and try again.[/QUOTE]
Let me just point out that male only units are outperforming mixed units at every turn.
[QUOTE=Ragekipz;49005778]Let me just point out that male only units are outperforming mixed units at every turn.[/QUOTE]Source on that? What type of unit? Which service? Any additional factors? What is "outperforming" exactly? Where did this occur? For how long? Were there any steps taken to rectify the situation? [B]Is this a result of uneven physical and technical standards for men and women, standards that allow for less-fit women to pass into active duty and then held against their male counterparts who are held to a higher minimum standard?[/B]
Here, let me have a try at this:
Let me just point out that male only units rape more civilians than mixed units at every turn.
[QUOTE=Mr. Scorpio;49005567]
This has been our history for tens of millions of years. Somehow, I doubt that all that conditioning has vanished in the sparse few thousand in which civilization has arisen.[/QUOTE]
So monasticism, chastity, and other hugely widespread ideas that arose separately in hundreds of different cultures aren't "a removal of conditioning?"
It hasn't vanished, but it's been reduced to an absurd degree. The drive to reproduce is so weak in certain cultures (Japan notably) that they're simply not reproducing at a sustainable rate. Why isn't this possible with any other "instinct," especially one significantly less critically important than reproduction? It is - getting rid of hypermasculine "instincts" (though I insist they're learned social behaviors) is possible in the same way that getting rid of reproductive urges is. It's been around since the dawn of civilization - repressing instinct. There have been laws against rape and murder since the earliest law manuscript we have on record. Why can't we socially change this perception that men "need to protect women" ? Seems like it should be totally possible if we've managed to do the same to reproduction already.
[QUOTE=JumpinJackFlash;49005806]Source on that? What type of unit? Which service? Any additional factors? What is "outperforming" exactly? Where did this occur? For how long? Were there any steps taken to rectify the situation? Is this a result of uneven physical and technical standards for men and women?[/QUOTE]
[url]http://www.studentnewsdaily.com/daily-news-article/marine-study-finds-all-male-infantry-units-outperformed-teams-with-women/[/url]
[QUOTE=JumpinJackFlash;49005806]
Here, let me have a try at this:
Let me just point out that male only units rape more civilians than mixed units at every turn.[/QUOTE]
Good thing they don't grade civilian rape during training.
[QUOTE=Ragekipz;49005831][url]http://www.studentnewsdaily.com/daily-news-article/marine-study-finds-all-male-infantry-units-outperformed-teams-with-women/[/url][/QUOTE][QUOTE=JumpinJackFlash;49005806][B]Is this a result of uneven physical and technical standards for men and women, standards that allow for less-fit women to pass into active duty and then held against their male counterparts who are held to a higher minimum standard?[/B][/QUOTE][QUOTE=Ragekipz;49005831]Good thing they don't grade civilian rape during training.[/QUOTE]As expected, you completely missed the point again. Great job. Here, let me hold your hand through it:
Your statement was stupid bullshit requiring me to request a source that you should have provided initially, knowing I'd ask for it. In doing so I decided to match it with inflammatory hyperbole, equally bullshit and equally lacking in proof.
[QUOTE=JumpinJackFlash;49005849]As expected, you completely missed the point again. Great job. Here, let me hold your hand through it:
Your statement was stupid bullshit requiring me to request a source that you should have provided initially, knowing I'd ask for it. In doing so I decided to match it with inflammatory hyperbole, equally bullshit and equally lacking in proof.[/QUOTE]
Since I'm so obviously missing your point I might as well just drop it.
[QUOTE=Ragekipz;49005860]Since I'm so obviously missing your point I might as well just drop it.[/QUOTE]My point is this:
You've cited one single fucking study in a military where the double standards of physical training affecting force readiness is a big talking point. You're ignoring the past, oh, thirty years of people calling bullshit that women have two-thirds the requirements needed and then using that as evidence for your point. Long and short of it is we need a [U]universal[/U] physical fitness requirement for combat units just like we need a [U]universal[/U] technical proficiency requirement, I see no difference between the two. Feminists will argue that "oh, but that will mean more women will fail!" GOOD. Fuck 'em, if they can't hack it then they can fuck off back to civilian life or pony up and get fit. On that note I think the existing standards of PFTs for combat units should be raised, or at least the frequency be increased so you're not getting some fat fuck PFC trying to huff and puff his way down to passing only to pig out for the rest of the year.
[editline]28th October 2015[/editline]
You're right though, we should really drop this because this has absolutely fuck all to do with the original subject anyway.
[QUOTE=Rangergxi;48994818]You can point to a few academics but there has never been a mass movement from feminists to end the draft/conscription of men or allow for the conscription of women.
Feminists don't care because its not a womens issue. Feminism is about advancing womens rights and thats how its always been. By its very name it takes the stance that men are the oppressor and that its women that need help.[/QUOTE]
You're completely wrong. [url=http://now.org/about/history/highlights/]Since 1980, the National Organization for Women has opposed the draft and supported the inclusion of women in the draft should it not actually be abolished. [/url]
(Search for "opposition to the draft")
[QUOTE=Pantz Master;49005224]I'm sorry but you haven't convinced me of this at all. Give some studies or evidence or something.[/QUOTE]
There is a fuckton of academic debate on it. There's concerns that the hypothesis is unfalsifiable, because the core tenets of human behavior millenia ago cannot be proven. The entire "modularity of the mind" hypothesis is called into question with advancing knowledge of brain plasticity, which has loads more scientifically rigorous evidence backing it. Some of the largest names in the evo-psych field contend that rape is advantageous - without exploring social behaviors that distinctly prohibit rape on moral grounds. It's solidly locked in evolutionary theory, and rarely (if ever) considers sociological questions posed to it, and it doesn't fit so cleanly in certain unusual societies. It is a very western-focused perspective on human behavior, and histories of tribal groups in other areas show different human behaviors than assumed to be true by evo-psych advocates.
I shouldn't say it's "bunk science," but it's heavily criticized and lacks a lot of evidence. It accepts that political and social ideas can influence scientific paradigms, but doesn't self-analyze itself or even question whether political and social ideas influence itself as a paradigm. It's under an enormous amount of debate and skepticism, for good reason - it shouldn't be taken as a genuine theory at this point, until stronger arguments are created or stronger evidence is presented. As it is, it's a hypothetical explanation for certain human behaviors, and it's very limited in scope.
Here are a few articles that have abstracts that point out a couple flaws - everything else I can find arguing in either direction are opinion pieces. Tough to find scholarly articles with open access considering how new evo-psych is as a scientific idea.
[url]http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1461666031000063665[/url]
[url]http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1359178900000422[/url]
[editline]28th October 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=Zeke129;49005900]You're completely wrong. [url=http://now.org/about/history/highlights/]Since 1980, the National Organization for Women has opposed the draft and supported the inclusion of women in the draft should it not actually be abolished. [/url]
(Search for "opposition to the draft")[/QUOTE]
I pointed this out earlier - the response was "but they don't actually fight to abolish it."
Because we already got rid of the draft after Vietnam and the public pressure against drafting anybody is so high that it will almost certainly never happen again. Selective Service is a sexist system, no doubt, but as the military equalizes (which it is already in the process of doing), it will likely go the way of Norway and institute mandatory registration for everyone, regardless of gender.
[QUOTE=.Isak.;49005909]
I pointed this out earlier - the response was "but they don't actually fight to abolish it."
Because we already got rid of the draft after Vietnam and the public pressure against drafting anybody is so high that it will almost certainly never happen again. Selective Service is a sexist system, no doubt, but as the military equalizes (which it is already in the process of doing), it will likely go the way of Norway and institute mandatory registration for everyone, regardless of gender.[/QUOTE]
They fought to get women into combat roles, though. Until women are allowed to participate fully in the military the draft will never be able to include them. Anti-feminists conveniently forget that if women weren't actually [i]banned[/i] from the military in the first place the draft would probably have included them. The whole policy stems from the exclusion of women, not some kind of special privilege.
[QUOTE=Rangergxi;48988950]A movement called FEMinism isn't properly dealing with mens issues. Makes sense that there would be a cultural backlash to it[/QUOTE]
Naw, feminism isn't strictly about women. It's about femininity, hence the "fem" in feminism. It's not a movement against men in particular, just the masculine cultural expectations that our society perpetuates. In short, it's not a man vs. woman movement, it's masculine vs. feminine
This includes cases of men being falsely accused of rape. The accuser takes advantage of the extra legal cushioning for women which exists on the premise that women are weaker than men, which is flawed.
Feminism is a fight for femininity to be accepted in a world that for too long has over-idealized masculinity in both sexes. Feminism aims to help men as well by eliminating the expectation that they all be strong, heterosexual, meat-eating, wife-taming republicans. Feminism's ultimate goal is to destroy the arbitrarily established gender roles that restrict personal expression, what most refer to as the "patriarchy".
Any feminist who doesn't believe this isn't aligned with the correct definition of feminism.
[QUOTE=BigJoeyLemons;49011073]Naw, feminism isn't strictly about women. It's about femininity, hence the "fem" in feminism. It's not a movement against men in particular, just the masculine cultural expectations that our society perpetuates. In short, it's not a man vs. woman movement, it's masculine vs. feminine
This includes cases of men being falsely accused of rape. The accuser takes advantage of the extra legal cushioning for women which exists on the premise that women are weaker than men, which is flawed.
Feminism is a fight for femininity to be accepted in a world that for too long has over-idealized masculinity in both sexes. Feminism aims to help men as well by eliminating the expectation that they all be strong, heterosexual, meat-eating, wife-taming republicans. Feminism's ultimate goal is to destroy the arbitrarily established gender roles that restrict personal expression, what most refer to as the "patriarchy".
Any feminist who doesn't believe this isn't aligned with the correct definition of feminism.[/QUOTE]
One of the problems I have with feminism is that it seems to be whatever is convenient at the time. Then whenever somebody falls out of line then it becomes the classic no true feminist situation.
Feminism is completely useless as a global term these days as it can represent anything from an insane extremist or to somebody that is pretty much an egalitarian.
Even by the kindest definition I think its a movement dedicated to the equality of women and other forms of equality are secondary goals. Womens issues are always at the top even if they aren't as severe as other issues.
[QUOTE=Murky42;49011427]One of the problems I have with feminism is that it seems to be whatever is convenient at the time. Then whenever somebody falls out of line then it becomes the classic no true feminist situation.
Feminism is completely useless as a global term these days as it can represent anything from an insane extremist or to somebody that is pretty much an egalitarian.
Even by the kindest definition I think its a movement dedicated to the equality of women and other forms of equality are secondary goals. Womens issues are always at the top even if they aren't as severe as other issues.[/QUOTE]
I think that's really the problem. There's no centralized group for feminism that most feminists can go under. It's just a lot of clusters of feminists with their own ideas that clash even with each other. And it's very confusing tbh. I don't even like discussing feminist issues because I can trigger or offend or say something wrong
[QUOTE=Rammaster;49044817]I think that's really the problem. There's no centralized group for feminism that most feminists can go under. It's just a lot of clusters of feminists with their own ideas that clash even with each other. And it's very confusing tbh. I don't even like discussing feminist issues because I can trigger or offend or say something wrong[/QUOTE]
Just said this in another thread - feminism is not an organization. There is no leader, there is no defined creed, nothing.
Much like the Civil Rights Movement, there is disagreement everywhere. You have the SCLC with MLK disagreeing with CORE and SNCC. Those are organizations [i]within[/i] the Civil Rights Movement - but the Civil Rights Movement itself is not an organization. The same goes for feminism - you have varying groups saying wildly different things and holding entirely contradictory opinions from each other all under the banner of feminism.
At this point, all feminism is is a discussion of gender equality.
Anyone who says "that person is not a real feminist" is an idiot (myself included, I used to do this). They are feminists - they just hold different opinions from you. Things are hashed out over debates and discussion - the anger and vitriol you often see from feminists is ignorant and counter-productive.
[QUOTE=.Isak.;49044873]Just said this in another thread - feminism is not an organization. There is no leader, there is no defined creed, nothing.
Much like the Civil Rights Movement, there is disagreement everywhere. You have the SCLC with MLK disagreeing with CORE and SNCC. Those are organizations [I]within[/I] the Civil Rights Movement - but the Civil Rights Movement itself is not an organization. The same goes for feminism - you have varying groups saying wildly different things and holding entirely contradictory opinions from each other all under the banner of feminism.
At this point, all feminism is is a discussion of gender equality.
Anyone who says "that person is not a real feminist" is an idiot (myself included, I used to do this). They are feminists - they just hold different opinions from you. Things are hashed out over debates and discussion - the anger and vitriol you often see from feminists is ignorant and counter-productive.[/QUOTE]
Yeah that makes sense. I just think it's causing more harm than good especially on a platform like Twitter where you can't get this in-depth of a discussion. It usually devolves into just name calling and adhominems. And even if people here think "oh it's just Twitter/Tumblr or w/e the fuck" there's still misinformation that young people will just eat up without question and defend it to the end. That being said, I still believe in feminism and call myself a feminists. It's just that like you said, I guess my opinions contradict those of other more I guess radical in their beliefs.
[QUOTE=.Isak.;49044873]Just said this in another thread - feminism is not an organization. There is no leader, there is no defined creed, nothing.
Much like the Civil Rights Movement, there is disagreement everywhere. You have the SCLC with MLK disagreeing with CORE and SNCC. Those are organizations [i]within[/i] the Civil Rights Movement - but the Civil Rights Movement itself is not an organization. The same goes for feminism - you have varying groups saying wildly different things and holding entirely contradictory opinions from each other all under the banner of feminism.
At this point, all feminism is is a discussion of gender equality.
Anyone who says "that person is not a real feminist" is an idiot (myself included, I used to do this). They are feminists - they just hold different opinions from you. Things are hashed out over debates and discussion - the anger and vitriol you often see from feminists is ignorant and counter-productive.[/QUOTE]
The civil rights movement all had the same end goal: equal legal rights for blacks and whites.
That can't be said for feminism. There is no single overarching concrete goal to speak of.
[QUOTE=sgman91;49044909]The civil rights movement all had the same end goal: equal legal rights for blacks and whites.
That can't be said for feminism. There is no single overarching concrete goal to speak of.[/QUOTE]
You're right about that, instead it's a discussion about a large number of issues that range from the real and immediate (maybe) to the insignificant and petty. It's a range of political viewpoints, many of which are mutually exclusive to one another, rather than a single congealed movement. That's why you can have 'Feminist Speakers' and 'Feminist Biology' or a 'Feminism Expert', there's no such thing as a 'Civil Rights Speaker' only a Civil Rights Activist or Civil Rights Protester.
Whether you necessarily agree with the political aspect, you've probably used Feminist talking points or a Feminist rhetorical device. That's literally all it is, a tool used for arguments over politics and sociology. All of the people who use the tool need not agree with each other on anything, even on how to use the tool. Feminism isn't a belief, it's a skill. When you do feminism, there's a verb for that, it's called Feministing.
You could argue that using rhetoric in this way is manipulative, and to a certain extent you'd be right. Unfortunately, the reality is most people who have ever had to argue a point and done so successfully have had to rely on rhetorical arguments, and I don't think that's going to change any time soon.
[QUOTE=technologic;49003085]My apologies. I did my due diligence before posting but only noticed Israel as having technically active women soldiers (but then I researched further and found they have been prohibited from entering combat since 1948).
[/QUOTE]
Not exactly.
Women serve in many front line [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_Israel_Defense_Forces#Combat_roles"]combat roles[/URL] in the IDF, from fighter pilots to infantry units.
It usually requires them to sign up for an additional year or more, as men serve 3 years and women only 2, which is one reason there aren't too many girls volunteering for these roles.
There are also plenty of girls serving in traditionally "manly" support roles like boot camp instructors, truck drivers and aircraft mechanics.
[QUOTE=Zyler;49045011]You're right about that, instead it's a discussion about a large number of issues that range from the real and immediate (maybe) to the insignificant and petty. It's a range of political viewpoints, many of which are mutually exclusive to one another, rather than a single congealed movement. That's why you can have 'Feminist Speakers' and 'Feminist Biology' or a 'Feminism Expert', there's no such thing as a 'Civil Rights Speaker' only a Civil Rights Activist or Civil Rights Protester.
Whether you necessarily agree with the political aspect, you've probably used Feminist talking points or a Feminist rhetorical device. That's literally all it is, a tool used for arguments over politics and sociology. All of the people who use the tool need not agree with each other on anything, even on how to use the tool. Feminism isn't a belief, it's a skill. When you do feminism, there's a verb for that, it's called Feministing.
You could argue that using rhetoric in this way is manipulative, and to a certain extent you'd be right. Unfortunately, the reality is most people who have ever had to argue a point and done so successfully have had to rely on rhetorical arguments, and I don't think that's going to change any time soon.[/QUOTE]
I'm sorry but that sounds like some completely made up bullshit.
Googling it doesn't get me that definition just some blog.
I don't think that I agree that feminism has "exclusive" rights over certain arguments. Saying X thought is sort of feminist thus using it is feministing sounds like some sort of newspeak logic to me intuitively.
If I took the above but replaced all instances of feminism with democrat and ended up with the term democratting. I would end up with a term that would praise the democrat party at every turn even for victories that it has absolutely nothing to do with.
Something about the term feministing I find bothersome and I definitely don't ever plan on using it myself like that.
[QUOTE=Zyler;49045011]You're right about that, instead it's a discussion about a large number of issues that range from the real and immediate (maybe) to the insignificant and petty. It's a range of political viewpoints, many of which are mutually exclusive to one another, rather than a single congealed movement. That's why you can have 'Feminist Speakers' and 'Feminist Biology' or a 'Feminism Expert', there's no such thing as a 'Civil Rights Speaker' only a Civil Rights Activist or Civil Rights Protester.
Whether you necessarily agree with the political aspect, you've probably used Feminist talking points or a Feminist rhetorical device. That's literally all it is, a tool used for arguments over politics and sociology. All of the people who use the tool need not agree with each other on anything, even on how to use the tool. Feminism isn't a belief, it's a skill. When you do feminism, there's a verb for that, it's called Feministing.
You could argue that using rhetoric in this way is manipulative, and to a certain extent you'd be right. Unfortunately, the reality is most people who have ever had to argue a point and done so successfully have had to rely on rhetorical arguments, and I don't think that's going to change any time soon.[/QUOTE]
You don't define specific arguments by ideology, you define ideology by specific arguments. You can't say that every single person who argues for women's rights is a feminist because feminism doesn't have a monopoly on that idea. There were people who argued for that before the advent of feminism and there are a whole lot of people who argued for it outside of feminism. Theodore Roosevelt, for example, was never a "feminist," but he was a strong proponent of women having equal legal rights to men.
The equal rights of women, for example, is not a "feminist" talking point. One can both be for equal legal rights of women and not be a "feminist."
[QUOTE=sgman91;49047695]You don't define specific arguments by ideology, you define ideology by specific arguments. You can't say that every single person who argues for women's rights is a feminist because feminism doesn't have a monopoly on that idea. There were people who argued for that before the advent of feminism and there are a whole lot of people who argued for it outside of feminism. Theodore Roosevelt, for example, was never a "feminist," but he was a strong proponent of women having equal legal rights to men.
The equal rights of women, for example, is not a "feminist" talking point. One can both be for equal legal rights of women and not be a "feminist."[/QUOTE]
That's exactly what I meant, it's not a belief in anything, it's just a tool that people use. They say "I am a feminist" because it makes people listen to them, regardless of what they are actually saying. A "feminist speaker" isn't someone who argues feminist talking points, because those talking points don't actually exist, it's someone who exploits the brand name of feminism in order to garner greater credibility. You're arguing the same thing I am.
All we can say that 'Feminism' means really is that it's a brand name for some kind of discussion of gender issues with some vague allusion to things like intersectionality theory, patriarchy theory and/or rape culture theory, but no one actually agrees on what those things are.
My point is, it's not a single self-contained movement or anything like that, it's a mode of discussion that people refer to like a brand name in order to confer some vague sense of association with the brand or to initiate a discussion within a specific framework with a specific language used to discuss it. There's no such thing as a Mathematics movement, or a Algebra Movement or an English Literacy Movement, they're things we talk about with concepts associated with them but that people don't really advocate for. Whether or not you think a particular 'branding' is full of crap, that doesn't mean that all of the people who associate with it believe or advocate for the same thing. Mostly because a lot of people are pretty stupid and don't know what they're advocating for in the first place.
[QUOTE=Murky42;49045512]
Saying X thought is sort of feminist thus using it is feministing sounds like some sort of newspeak logic to me intuitively.[/QUOTE]
That's because it technically IS newspeak, that's pretty much how all marketing and brand advertising works. They use marketing to make you associate the brand with all of the 'good things' while in reality the company could be drowning puppies or something. Google means 'comprehensive', 'efficient', 'family' while Apple means 'moving forward', 'progressive', 'environmental'. That's pretty much what the media is like nowadays, just buzzwords. It's not about being good, it's about looking good.
This video demonstrates what I'm talking about:
[video=youtube;2YBtspm8j8M]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YBtspm8j8M[/video]
And a better explanation of what I'm talking about:
[url]http://www.reasonobeysitself.com/blog/feminism/feminism-101/[/url]
[QUOTE]People commonly refer to any brand of facial tissue as Kleenex or any photocopy as a Xerox. The term “feminist” has enjoyed a similar brand advantage in that for many people it is synonymous with the struggle for equal rights for women. This brand identity is so strong with feminists that they will even argue illogically that any anti-feminist thought is either misogynistic (anti-woman) or against equal rights. As if someone using a Puffs were against the blowing of noses. They are so delusional, have internalized the branding so completely, they don’t understand the differences between an ideology (what feminism is), people (women, the objects of feminism) and the purported goal (equality)[/QUOTE]
At this point, it's not an ideology anymore, it's a brand name. We need to be able to distinguish between people using 'feminist' the same way someone might call any form of photocopying 'xeroxing' from the people using the brand to push forward different types of ideologies such as third-wave feminism, second-wave feminism, sex-negative feminism, sex-positive feminism, gender feminism or equity feminism. I know the source I used argues the opposite, but I personally feel that I lot of people on this forum throw blame around like the equivalent of removing weeds with a flamethrower.
We need to individually weed out and distinguish each individual ideology from the brand, to simply do something like change the name from 'feminism' to 'egalitarianism' wouldn't do anything but obfuscate the issue and eventually the same people who use the branding of feminism to get away with awful stuff will just jump ship and assume the new label. You need to shine a light on this people, not bury your head in the sand or attack anyone who assumes the branding, you're falling into the trap laid by the people who hid behind the brand in the first place in order to hide the fact they were doing awful things.
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