Your opinion on feminism?

"Hi, let's talk about feminism and it's place in the world in a way that is educational and respectful to both sides of the debate."

I'm pretty sure that's what he wanted to say.

I prefer to call it female supremacy.

Anyone interested in true equality would be campaigning for equality for all, not just a single group. Same with things like BLM, LGBT, "Restoring white equality", so on and so fourth.

How about Humanism.

I moved this on over to Discussions and Debates since it fits here just a wee bit more.

Arsenic said:

I prefer to call it female supremacy.

Anyone interested in true equality would be campaigning for equality for all, not just a single group. Same with things like BLM, LGBT, "Restoring white equality", so on and so fourth.

How about Humanism.

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People focus on the marginalized (women, gay people etc) in these discussions because that's where the inequality lies, and to make that go away these inequalities need to be confronted. Blanket campaigns for "true" equality only result in these issues being glossed over and ignored.


e: Did the OP seriously quote from urban dictionary aksdjgkd

Without going into too much detail because frankly I'm not interested in debating this, I find it incredibly inconsistent. There was once a time when feminism aligned with what it says it is, but that is very much in the past. At the root it stands for female empowerment, but there are multiple layers about it that construct it as the opposite, bullying. Feminism's primary objective seems to be pushing men down to pull women up. That is not equality. It is picking and choosing behaviors to suit its needs and desires. Unfortunately, feminism is coined with "pro women." If you aren't a feminist, you are against women and you are against women's civil and political rights. If you're a woman yourself who rejects feminism, you hate women. I am very much for women, and "women's rights", but I am very much anti-feminist.

This is the biggest piece of pysicducking turos muk that ever existed

The difference between feminism and sexism is this one wants equality and one is just superiority. Today they think that just being a girl gives you the right to act like your better then eveyone. New flash your not.

I can only call myself a feminist depending on the movement and definition.
I'm 100% for equal rights and ensuring that women are safe from harassment, but the way modern feminism acts and the things they advocate for really rub me the wrong way and its where my disagreements with feminism begin.

One of my major gripes is when feminists fight so hard for "equality" in the US (which has been achieved), but not for women who are horribly oppressed in other countries. It leads me to believe that feminism is more about a political end then true equality. I think there should always be some sort of feminist ideas in our culture to ensure that progress in the past 100 years or so isnt reversed, but thats not what modern feminism is offering.

A second issue I have with modern feminism is the common belief that all women should be believed. This idea is very dangerous and ignores rule of law. It's innocent until proven guilty, and as a man, I dont want my career and life ruined over a false rape accusation. In the current day this problem is made worse by the fact that the standard for harassment seems to have been lowered significantly and the backlash for a low level of harassment being grossly disproportionate. I believe that sexual harassment and rape cases should be handled very seriously and that if the man is guilty, he should be punished. However, I think feminism has strayed away from this notion to the point where any man is at risk for having his life completely ruined.

Third, I also dislike how modern feminism fails to fight for men's rights in courts regarding divorce and custody of children. Men are terribly disadvantaged in these family courts because women are considered more trustworthy.

Fourth, modern feminism lacks any consistent standards or moral code. "its horrible to generalize anything remotely negative about women," but "men are oppressive." Regarding the abortion argument, they make moralizing claims without actually having a moral code to argue from. What is right? Wrong? Well, modern feminism is not going to give you a good answer. Another one would be their definition of consent. How do we as a society differentiate between verbal/nonverbal consent? What about the times when there is a grey area? How can consent be revoked? I often see modern feminists say that "explicit consent" is necessary, and it is, but the words "explicit consent" are vague at best.

Finally, I agree to an extent with modern feminists that its practical to have women in politics that can better represent female issues better than a man might. However, modern feminists often take this notion and argue that men cant even have any say in women's issues because we dont have the same experiences of women or just because we are men and cant possibly understand women's issues. First, men have just as much the right to vote on candidates representing different opinions as women do. Second, men can research statistics and rationalize just as well as women can. Identitarian politics is ridiculous.

In short, I'm a feminist and believe in equality between men and women and that female empowerment is important, but modern feminism has strayed far from this core belief and morphed into something entirely different. Please note that I'm not saying every modern feminist is like this at all- I'm just talking about the movement as a whole and why I can't get behind it.

The thing with feminism is that it does not stand for "women's rights" or "women only" and so on. It's called femnism because it encourages femininity. For everyone. Men are often seen as less emotional because it's a "feminine" thing, which seems to be something most want to avoid. Feminism is a movement for feminity to be seen as something that isn't weak or less superior to masculinity. It should be equal to it. People, be it men or women, should not be seen as weaker because they appear or act more feminine. It's not about women being better than men at all.

That being said, I do know that a lot of feminists go overboard (this goes for anti-feminists too of course), but you can't group everyone together. Feminism works in favour for everyone, or at least it's supposed to. I call myself a feminist, but I do not see any gender as superior, for example. Both men and womens rights are important of course, but women are the ones that right now face the most opression because of their gender.

BadSheep said:

One of my major gripes is when feminists fight so hard for "equality" in the US (which has been achieved), but not for women who are horribly oppressed in other countries. It leads me to believe that feminism is more about a political end then true equality. I think there should always be some sort of feminist ideas in our culture to ensure that progress in the past 100 years or so isnt reversed, but thats not what modern feminism is offering.

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Something I like to add is while a lot of folks here talk about the imbalance between men and women in feminism (and that can be debated itself), modern feminism now actually focuses on white rich women. Women of color, the poor, and transgender women have their own set of problems, so yeah progress should be made on the minority too.

Gengar666 said:

This thread is the most pathetically blatant example of strawmanning I've seen in quite some time. You (yes, you, the OP) have taken the likeness if the most extreme examples of over-the-top cracked out Tumblr feminazi rhetoric and attempted to paint genuine feminism as such. There are plenty of feminist who want nothing to do with advocating the views of extremists (which by the way, get the most attention and give impressionable simpletons such as the OP this idea that feminism as a whole are this way), who simply strive for sexism from men to be a thing of the past. And, before you resort to your cheap rebuttal of "but women can vote now, feminism is no longer necessary," tell it to the majority of women who can't walk the streets without getting catcalled and harassed only to be called a ***** or even assaulted for not reciprocating with their barbarism. Or tell it to the girl who can't enjoy a drink at the bar without being hit on and worried she'll be chastised or even assaulted for not being interested.


Grey Wind already explained why the logic of your ignorant post was so flawed (and in a much nicer way than I would have). You're probably one of those "all lives matter" idiots judging by your evident opposition of the idea behind BLM. The fact that you're offended by the idea of women, people of color and LGBTQ people trying to resist oppression shows what a privileged out-of-touch biggot you are.

Also, you're acting like it's their obligation to speak for every social group and race. Just because you've chosen to join the fight for one group's battle doesn't mean you're hardpressed to actively invest yourself in a bunch of other group's battles too.

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You can present and argument without name-calling and insulting rhetoric.

As for what you said, you're falling back on the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. Whether you agrer eith the extremism seen in modern feminism or not, it is what it is. Feminism has morphed into a mess of female supremacy. I wish it hadn't, and nobody here is against equality, but that's not what feminism is selling anymore.

silvershred said:

The thing with feminism is that it does not stand for "women's rights" or "women only" and so on. It's called femnism because it encourages femininity. For everyone. Men are often seen as less emotional because it's a "feminine" thing, which seems go be something most want to avoid. Feminism is a movement for feminity to be seen as something that isn't weak or less superior to masculinity. It should be equal to it. People, be it men or women, should not be seen as weaker because they appear or act more feminine. It's not about women being better than men at all.

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Feminism is and always has been about elevating the status of women in pursuit of equality. Let us not pretend, in any way, that it's something it isn't.


As for my own thoughts, I am all for the core belief behind feminism - equality of the sexes. I do not however consider myself a feminist nor do I support feminism as a movement for a few reason. I won't sit here and make outrageous claims that all feminists are feminazi sjw anti-man supremacist whatevers, because that simply isn't the case. The majority of the movement are probably perfectly normal people. Is there extremism in the movement? Yes, but it's not an extremist movement.

That being said, I do have problems with the movement. Firstly, I feel like it pushes beliefs that simply are not factual. The idea that there is a collective patriarchy oppressing women, the idea that there is a culture that encourages rape or sexual assault or that there is an ever-present wage gap (although I'm sure some assholes will go out of their way to under pay don't you worry - this is still too prevalent). I don't for one second doubt that there is a lot of injustice and inequality against women in our society, but I do not believe we have a society centred around the systematic oppression of women. Are women often marginalised, yes. Is there a patriarchal conspiracy against women, no.

Secondly, I do not support any group that only seeks to benefit themselves (or otherwise focuses only on the rights of one group). That means feminism, BLM, MRAs, whatever twisted group think white people need to take back America - all of them. If the very nature of your movement is exclusive, then it isn't promoting equality. If you feel like your work s done when problems facing women are dealt with but issues facing men, racial issues, LGBT issues, class issues and so-forth aren't something you speak out against then you never wanted equality. Equality has to be for everyone. As Bay mentioned, even in the feminist movement itself, the focus is very clearly on what benefits middle-upper class white women compared to other females.

I consider myself egalitarian. Not as a thinly-veiled way to do nothing and maintain the status quo like some conservatives use the term, I want equality for everyone and I think the sooner there is a global initiative for equal rights for all, the better.

gimmepie said:

That being said, I do have problems with the movement. Firstly, I feel like it pushes beliefs that simply are not factual. The idea that there is a collective patriarchy oppressing women, the idea that there is a culture that encourages rape or sexual assault or that there is an ever-present wage gap (although I'm sure some assholes will go out of their way to under pay don't you worry - this is still too prevalent). I don't for one second doubt that there is a lot of injustice and inequality against women in our society, but I do not believe we have a society centred around the systematic oppression of women. Are women often marginalised, yes. Is there a patriarchal conspiracy against women, no.

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I think you're a little off the mark in what you think the whole idea of a patriarchal society, or what the idea of rape culture is?

The idea of the patriarchy thing is that our cultural attitudes skew towards helping men while diminishing women, and it's hard not to agree with that due to things like gender roles and sexism being the way they are? It's not that there's some concious conspiracy against women, it's that the culture we live in is skewed towards marginalising women in a variety of ways.

The idea of rape culture is the same, it's not that there's a culture of rape that's encouraging it, but in contexts like hollywood where it's a boys club and men have, historically and in the modern setting, been protected from the consequences of rape, or been in positions of power to do things like sexually assault women. It's what that whole #metoo thing is about, really. There's also cultural attitudes around rape that skew towards victim blaming, the whole "she was asking for it wearing those clothes" or "what did she expect to happen when she was drunk at a party" ect, those sorts of thing.

I mean, we live in a world where a man accused of sexual assault many times over his life, who openly admitted to sexually assaulting women, can just straight up become the president of the united states and have people not care.

gimmepie said:

Secondly, I do not support any group that only seeks to benefit themselves (or otherwise focuses only on the rights of one group). That means feminism, BLM, MRAs, whatever twisted group think white people need to take back America - all of them. If the very nature of your movement is exclusive, then it isn't promoting equality. If you feel like your work s done when problems facing women are dealt with but issues facing men, racial issues, LGBT issues, class issues and so-forth aren't something you speak out against then you never wanted equality. Equality has to be for everyone. As Bay mentioned, even in the feminist movement itself, the focus is very clearly on what benefits middle-upper class white women compared to other females.

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I kind of have to disagree wildly with this, you can't really delegitimise groups of people striving for civil rights just because they're not striving for all civil rights at once? Intersectionality and the fact that people are free to support all those things via groups focused on different areas of equality aside, I don't really like your idea that something is exclusive just because they're campaigning on one thing. You can't really have groups doing everything just simply because nothing has infinite resources?

BLM is focused on a pressing issue for african americans, but to say they're selfish or not truly striving for equality because they're not also picketing for trans rights- that feels kind of out of touch with the purpose of those organisations, and what they do in service of achieving their goals?

Aliencommander1245 said:

The idea of the patriarchy thing is that our cultural attitudes skew towards helping men while diminishing women, and it's hard not to agree with that due to things like gender roles and sexism being the way they are? It's not that there's some concious conspiracy against women, it's that the culture we live in is skewed towards marginalising women in a variety of ways.

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A fundamental principle the majority of men are raised to believe is to protect women and children first and foremost. In hostage situations, women and children are grouped together and are pleaded for release first and foremost while the men are left. When it comes to parenting, society favors women to men and are much more likely to grant a mother custody of their child. In cases where a daughter is concerned, often times even if men are granted rights to their child, protective custody tends to be involved afterward to ensure the daughter has a female influence. Men are often granted rights to see their children with limited access and ruled to pay child support. In a single father household, gaining support from the community and from resources put into place is much more difficult, and in some aspects of aids, there aren't any available to single fathers. In addition, there is no such thing as a men's shelter. Society views men to be much more disposable compared to women, who must be protected.

Ultimately, this is a case of picking and choosing, which is also something that's common among the culture of feminism that dominates today. You can say that men are favored by society in some areas, but women are as well.

Aliencommander1245 said:

I think you're a little off the mark in what you think the whole idea of a patriarchal society, or what the idea of rape culture is?

The idea of the patriarchy thing is that our cultural attitudes skew towards helping men while diminishing women, and it's hard not to agree with that due to things like gender roles and sexism being the way they are? It's not that there's some concious conspiracy against women, it's that the culture we live in is skewed towards marginalising women in a variety of ways.

The idea of rape culture is the same, it's not that there's a culture of rape that's encouraging it, but in contexts like hollywood where it's a boys club and men have, historically and in the modern setting, been protected from the consequences of rape, or been in positions of power to do things like sexually assault women. It's what that whole #metoo thing is about, really. There's also cultural attitudes around rape that skew towards victim blaming, the whole "she was asking for it wearing those clothes" or "what did she expect to happen when she was drunk at a party" ect, those sorts of thing.

I mean, we live in a world where a man accused of sexual assault many times over his life, who openly admitted to sexually assaulting women, can just straight up become the president of the united states and have people not care.

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I am all for equality and the abolishment of any sort of normalised sexual assault, but there is no sign that there is a "rape culture" in a society where rape when properly evidenced will send you to jail. I'm against the idea of "every woman should be believed". Listened to? Surely. Believed without any sort of evidence? No. Case in point; the recent case against Aziz Ansari. How is a bad sexual experience equivalent to sexual assault because the man couldn't read her mind, despite her giving verbal consent.

The core principle of feminism is one I can support but what it's become, mostly from third-wave feminism onwards is not quite agreeable.

As for your comment against the President, if you're referring to his "They let you do it if you're star" comment, I don't quite see it as a sexual assault at all. He's a sleazebag for saying it and even thinking it, for sure, but there's no evidence he's assaulted anyone. The entire statement of them letting him do it because he's a star is just that; them letting him do it. Women are free to have sex with anyone they choose, sleazebag or not, but regretting that later doesn't turn that into sexual assault.

If that's not what you based your point on, please do share!

au bon said:

A fundamental principle the majority of men are raised to believe is to protect women and children first and foremost. In hostage situations, women and children are grouped together and are pleaded for release first and foremost while the men are left. When it comes to parenting, society favors women to men and are much more likely to grant a mother custody of their child. In cases where a daughter is concerned, often times even if men are granted rights to their child, protective custody tends to be involved afterward to ensure the daughter has a female influence. Men are often granted rights to see their children with limited access and ruled to pay child support. In a single father household, gaining support from the community and from resources put into place is much more difficult, and in some aspects of aids, there aren't any available to single fathers. In addition, there is no such thing as a men's shelter. Society views men to be much more disposable compared to women, who must be protected.

Ultimately, this is a case of picking and choosing, which is also something that's common among the culture of feminism that dominates today.

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I don't think it's picking and choosing, you pretty handily outlined part of the societal view on women that i was talked about, just tinted through a different lens.

Your argument here, even if i'm not really sure you intended it to be like that, is that we live in a sexist society that screws over both men and women in parallel ways. I'm not really sure of the point you were making overall, but surely the fact that men and women aren't treated equally, to the detriment of both in different (and some similar) ways, is something that supports the idea of feminism more than it negates it? In a fully equal society we wouldn't even be having this kind of discussion, because we wouldn't have cultural values set up to infantalise/victimise women, and give cultural incentive the idea of male sacrifice

I don't really think there's any value on arguing back and forth with examples in a "no actually women's lives are valued less" "no actually it's men that're valued less" kind of way because both are kind of true depending on what metric you're using, but the statement at large is so vague that "proving" either one true is useless and unhelpful anyway.

I think we can all agree that whenever there's examples where people or their voices are valued less than others on the basis of their sex, that's an issue and it should be dealt with. I think feminism, intrinsically, is part of dealing with this sort of thing (regardless of the "i-support-the-ideas-but-don't-identify-as-such-because blah blah blah" sort of thing that's doggedly become a part of every discussion about feminism as a concept) and that it's more important to talk about sexism on the whole when we're discussing this topic rather than singling out individual microcosms of our culture

KetsuekiR said:

I am all for equality and the abolishment of any sort of normalised sexual assault, but there is no sign that there is a "rape culture" in a society where rape when properly evidenced will send you to jail.

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I can't really talk much about the Aziz Ansari situation since i haven't heard much about it, but i don't really think "it's illegal so it can't be a problem" is really a helpful frame of mind to have? It's similar to the whole "well lgbt people/african americans/other minority groups have the same rights as everyone else so how can they claim to be oppressed/worse off/whatever?"

We live in a society where Roman Polanski, despite drugging and sexually assaulting a child then fleeing america to avoid trial, can go on to have hollywood actors and acrtresses work with him, to go on to get standing ovations and awards. We live in a society where harvey weinstein's serial sexual harassment can be an open industry secret for decades. Even Alfred Hitchcock was known for sexual harassment, and he got off fine.

Up until very, very recently in hollywood there was a boys club mentality of protecting your own, with open secrets abound. To use a recent example outside of hollywood, there was Nick Robinson of the site Polygon (and giantbomb, as well as having his own "brand") who's serial creep-ness and harassment of random women was an open industry secret and he was only hit with any kind of repercussions when someone went public with it.

Rape culture doesn't just cover the illegal, like actual rape, but things like harassment ect that being a famous and powerful person can just cover up by sheer force of fame alone. Even when we are talking about rape, the attitude around it can be pretty horrendous- Just look at the case of Brock Turner, it should've been open and shut (because he was caught in the act by passerby guys who chased him off) but he was given six months of jail time by the judge because the recommended six years would have "a severe impact" and "adverse collateral consequences" on him.

I mean, beyond that single case you can read about the culture around rape on campuses, how prevalent it is (and how low the rates of reporting it are) as well as how the rules around it discourage any real action.

It's not that rape culture means everyone is ok with rape, or that rape is said to be fine, rather it's how perpetrators are treated, with lenience given to perpetrators and victims given suspicion and blame, or even well meaning but tone deaf rules that end up discouraging reporting or muddling definiton

KetsuekiR said:

As for your comment against the President, if you're referring to his "They let you do it if you're star" comment, I don't quite see it as a sexual assault at all. He's a sleazebag for saying it and even thinking it, for sure, but there's no evidence he's assaulted anyone.

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I mean- there is evidence and court cases and testimony that he has assaulted people historically (even raping his wife) but what you're talking about is definitely sexual assault?

Groping someone without their permission or consent is sexual assault, and even if they "let you do it" that's not equal to consenting to it? There's a lot of reasons, like shock or fear, that might stop someone from screaming no and running away when a hobgobling gropes them, but i don't think i really need to lay any out when it's just not consent to not say anything.

Aliencommander1245 said:

I don't think it's picking and choosing, you pretty handily outlined part of the societal view on women that i was talked about, just tinted through a different lens.

Your argument here, even if i'm not really sure you intended it to be like that, is that we live in a sexist society that screws over both men and women in parallel ways. I'm not really sure of the point you were making overall, but surely the fact that men and women aren't treated equally, to the detriment of both in different (and some similar) ways, is something that supports the idea of feminism more than it negates it? In a fully equal society we wouldn't even be having this kind of discussion, because we wouldn't have cultural values set up to infantalise/victimise women, and give cultural incentive the idea of male sacrifice

I don't really think there's any value on arguing back and forth with examples in a "no actually women's lives are valued less" "no actually it's men that're valued less" kind of way because both are kind of true depending on what metric you're using, but the statement at large is so vague that "proving" either one true is useless and unhelpful anyway.

I think we can all agree that whenever there's examples where people or their voices are valued less than others on the basis of their sex, that's an issue and it should be dealt with. I think feminism, intrinsically, is part of dealing with this sort of thing (regardless of the "i-support-the-ideas-but-don't-identify-as-such-because blah blah blah" sort of thing that's doggedly become a part of every discussion about feminism as a concept) and that it's more important to talk about sexism on the whole when we're discussing this topic rather than singling out individual microcosms of our culture

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I can't speak for Nick, but based on their points and yours, my issue is that there is no coverage in the modern feminist movement for the issues they brought up that affect men. As GP provided, the definition of feminism is women-centric, and that's more prevalent than ever. With modern feminism, anything bad about being a woman is men's fault and anything bad about being a man is nobody's fault. As I stated earlier, I'm all for equality but that just isn't what feminism is about now, it's more about female empowerment above all else and, frankly, supremacy.

EDIT:

Rape culture doesn't just cover the illegal, like actual rape, but things like harassment ect that being a famous and powerful person can just cover up by sheer force of fame alone. Even when we are talking about rape, the attitude around it can be pretty horrendous- Just look at the case of Brock Turner, it should've been open and shut (because he was caught in the act by passerby guys who chased him off) but he was given six months of jail time by the judge because the recommended six years would have "a severe impact" and "adverse collateral consequences" on him.

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There are places in the world where actual rape cultures are quite prevalent, and misusing or morphing such a term to mean something less (let's be honest, what you've described is not quite on the same level as public rape that is encouraged) is not helpful to any movement, in my opinion.

I mean- there is evidence and court cases and testimony that he has assaulted people historically (even raping his wife) but what you're talking about is definitely sexual assault?

Groping someone without their permission or consent is sexual assault, and even if they "let you do it" that's not equal to consenting to it? There's a lot of reasons, like shock or fear, that might stop someone from screaming no and running away when a hobgobling gropes them, but i don't think i really need to lay any out when it's just not consent to not say anything.

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That's kind of the problem I have with modern feminism. If a woman doesn't like a sexual advance, she should be able to leave. You can't depend on non-verbal cues in that way because ultimately, men aren't mind-readers. This is what happened with Aziz Ansari as well. She let it continue and they had sex but turns out she secretly didn't want to. The problem with this being categorised as sexual assault is that now men are expected to make the decision, based on behavioural clues, of whether a woman is ready for sex or not, and that women are apparently not strong enough to make the decision to reject or walk out themselves.

As for the case against Trump, as I stated earlier, listening to women and believing them without sufficient evidence (as is the case) are, and should always be, separated by a clear line. I'm not defending how much of an ass the guy is, or that he's a pretty disgusting character, but that's not how any of this should work.

Feminism is definitely still needed in this world. However, I'm down for calling it equality of the sexes instead, it's the same thing, which I'll get to in my post.

Femininity is simply a word for what a society traditionally associates with the female sex. I'm going to take our western culture (Europe, America etc) as the reference point throughout my post, just so we're clear on that and nobody starts referring to cultures where women are normally strong angry warriors :)

The female sex is still the one heavily auto-associated with feminine traits, even though it's starting to become obvious in our modern society that it's not black and white. People possessing these traits are historically regarded as more fragile, less adept or more suitable to serve than lead, than those who don't. If those born as girls are expected to be sensitive, family focused, dress in pink and make up to not appear disgusting to the other sex etc, ("Traits traditionally cited as feminine include gentleness, empathy, and sensitivity" - Wikipedia), while boys are encouraged to be strong, forward, competitive, raw (not needing make up in the same sense) or whatever masculine traits you can think of, then we have an unequal world. I say masculine, but what I mean is that those are powerful attributes that historically are associated with the male sex in many human societies. ("Traits traditionally viewed as masculine in Western society include courage, independence, violence[4], and assertiveness." - Wikipedia)

Until the day when femininity isn't automatically expected from girls in this society, and masculine powerful traits are allowed to exist in girls too without them being looked strangely at or harassed for not being proper girls, what we call feminism is needed . That being said, it's been brought to light that there are many boys in the world who wish they were allowed to express themselves with less masculinity and in a more feminine fashion without being looked at as faulty males. Our traditional gender roles slammed onto the respective sexes upon birth definitely works against them too, and proves that what we've called masculine and feminine aren't at all exclusive to either sex. Maybe biology makes it so that feminine traits are more common in the female sex (I mean, societal roles had to develop from some form of primal instinct, right?) and there's really no point in getting upset about that, but there is evidently no hard drawn line preventing females from possessing many or even most masculine traits, and the same goes for males possessing female traits.

Important point in all of this: I'm not going to pretend that super emotional and sensitive people will reach the same kind of power and positions in this world as headstrong, competitive people. That's just not how reality and humanity works, regardless of society. However, there are surely many ways in this world through which you can succeed without possessing masculine traits. For me personally, who am in a rather competitive science field, I need to possess or adopt some masculine traits in order to succeed, as do all who seek to do the same here, regardless of their sex. If you would rather be the best hairdresser or parent ever (IDK LOL I JUST PICKED SOMETHING OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD) you should probably hope to have more feminine traits for greatest success. Again, regardless of your sex.

So, I don't think the goal should or even can be to try and make feminine traits equally worthy in irrelevant ways (although it is a pity if feminine professions pay less than masculine if cases where they actually require similar amounts of effort and intelligence to attain), but rather we need to let people be what they feel comfortable with being and don't force gender roles upon them based on what's between their legs. Ideally we'll eventually get rid of using the terms "feminine" and "masculine" when talking about personality traits, and just talk about the traits as-are instead... The world is multicultural, after all.

If you don't like the word Feminism, I get you. However, it can be called that because it doesn't have to refer to the traits. It refers to the sex that has historically been associated with them (like gimmepie points out) and seen as less powerful because of this, regardless of if the individual woman actually felt feminine or not, because society pushed that gender role onto her once they saw that she had two X chromosomes, pretty much.

Side-track: I guess this is why the gender debate has become so big. By labeling yourself as a certain gender, you announce to the world that you're not necessarily going to conform to what's "expected" of you, because it's totally up to you what kind of person you feel you want and need to be in this world.

KetsuekiR said:

You can present and argument without name-calling and insulting rhetoric.

As for what you said, you're falling back on the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. Whether you agrer eith the extremism seen in modern feminism or not, it is what it is. Feminism has morphed into a mess of female supremacy. I wish it hadn't, and nobody here is against equality, but that's not what feminism is selling anymore.

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Ok first of all, I never claimed that anyone here was against equality. Second, I already denoted the extremists. You really need to actually read the posts you respond to or else don't even bother.

You speak as if the extremists who give feminism a bad reputation and attract the most attention in present day speak for feminism as a whole. You're obviously incapable of reading between the lines if you think that the bad apples that catch the people's eye the most are the ones who define an entire doctrine. You probably think Muslims are terrorists too judging by your so called "logic."

gimmepie said:

Secondly, I do not support any group that only seeks to benefit themselves (or otherwise focuses only on the rights of one group). That means feminism, BLM, MRAs, whatever twisted group think white people need to take back America - all of them. If the very nature of your movement is exclusive, then it isn't promoting equality. If you feel like your work s done when problems facing women are dealt with but issues facing men, racial issues, LGBT issues, class issues and so-forth aren't something you speak out against then you never wanted equality. Equality has to be for everyone. As Bay mentioned, even in the feminist movement itself, the focus is very clearly on what benefits middle-upper class white women compared to other females.

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So what you're saying is "It's selfish to defend myself from being mugged in an alleyway. I need to defend ALL people being mugged at the same time!" If you truly think that oppressed groups should be hardpressed into taking up a civic duty to encompass other social groups, then you're clearly part of the problem. Do have ANY idea what oppression feels like? Do you have ANY idea what kind of work and uphill battling it takes to resist oppression of your own group alone? Surely not because it's easy for you to just sit on the sidelines gazing in from the outside and make such out-of-touch accusations that they are selfish for not worrying about other groups when theirs is under seige. Surely you must be white and privileged and probably cisgendered and so beginning to fathom the endeavor of resisting oppression goes right over your head. At least TRY to understand what it's like in others' shoes.

KetsuekiR said:

I can't speak for Nick, but based on their points and yours, my issue is that there is no coverage in the modern feminist movement for the issues they brought up that affect men. As GP provided, the definition of feminism is women-centric, and that's more prevalent than ever. With modern feminism, anything bad about being a woman is men's fault and anything bad about being a man is nobody's fault. As I stated earlier, I'm all for equality but that just isn't what feminism is about now, it's more about female empowerment above all else and, frankly, supremacy.

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I don't really agree with you here, i'm not sure what your sources are but you're making some pretty sweeping statements that i don't think are really accurate. I guess feminism can be called woman-centric because it's goals pertain to women specifically (although by default they have to also be about men- you can't exactly have equality by..... not being equal?).

I don't think there's any real substantial amount of people claiming that bad things for women are directly the fault of men, or any kind of concious conspiracy and i definitely don't think there's anyone saying that the bad things for men are "no one's fault" (I mean- i talked directly about this in the first part of my post and i'm pretty sure the position i took wasn't just something i made up as my own unique philosophy)

It kind of feels like a cop out to say "I agree with feminism, but also everyone who calls themselves a feminist is wrong and bad and wants things that aren't the things i agree with" and i think more exposure to and understanding of feminist perspectives and ideologies would help a lot, since i don't think your blanket statements are really accurate or helpful to furthering the things you agree with

KetsuekiR said:

There are places in the world where actual rape cultures are quite prevalent, and misusing or morphing such a term to mean something less (let's be honest, what you've described is not quite on the same level as public rape that is encouraged) is not helpful to any movement, in my opinion.

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Uh, I'm pretty sure rape culture has meant what i'm talking about for a pretty long time, at least in the context we're talking about it in? I don't get your argument here though, "things are bad in other countries so we shouldn't talk about these issues" ?

It doesn't really feel helpful to me to focus on the perceived semantics of a term i used rather than the things i talked about

KetsuekiR said:

That's kind of the problem I have with modern feminism. If a woman doesn't like a sexual advance, she should be able to leave. You can't depend on non-verbal cues in that way because ultimately, men aren't mind-readers.

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Can we take a step back and think about what you're using as a launch pad, though? You're agreeing with me- that you can't depend on non-verbal cues- but you're framing this as somehow something that modern feminists are... against?

Surely, doing something without asking for consent, and then considering silence or inaction to be consent, is wrong and we can all agree that it's sexual assault?

I agree with the idea that if a woman- or anyone- doesn't like a sexual advance they should be able to leave, but it's a very simplistic view to say "well, if they don't it's their fault". It's a very complicated subject with a lot of variables, like intimidation and contextual power dynamics , fear or surprise, level of sobriety ect and just... victim blaming, i guess, by saying that in every situation someone who doesn't consent should (or can) just leave doesn't feel very useful or helpful to the discussion

KetsuekiR said:

This is what happened with Aziz Ansari as well. She let it continue and they had sex but turns out she secretly didn't want to. The problem with this being categorised as sexual assault is that now men are expected to make the decision, based on behavioural clues, of whether a woman is ready for sex or not, and that women are apparently not strong enough to make the decision to reject or walk out themselves.

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I feel like this is both kind of a gross miscategorisation of what happened and the testimony of the woman that you're using as a blanket statement? I went and read up on the situation (not limited to this article, but it's the one that swayed me in the strongest way).

Rather than making weird blanket statements that directly implies (what you've said isn't a "this is what feminists think women can't do" you've outright said that, based on that example women in general can't do this) women can't consent "right" and are too meek or whatever to consent or not consent, why don't we just agree that proper consent needs to be taught? A situation of mutual trust where you ask for consent is how things should be done, and the fact that situations are arising where consent is murky at all isn't a good thing

KetsuekiR said:

As for the case against Trump, as I stated earlier, listening to women and believing them without sufficient evidence (as is the case) are, and should always be, separated by a clear line. I'm not defending how much of an ass the guy is, or that he's a pretty disgusting character, but that's not how any of this should work.

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I'm not sure what we're talking about here- do you mean the multitude of sexual assault claims and cases against Trump over his 70-ish years of life or do you mean the statement he himself made about sexual assault?

I don't really get what you're saying because it doesn't really fit either of those topics? Groping women without consent as he described himself doing is sexual assault. The claims he raped or sexual assaulted numerous women are substantiated in various amounts on a case by case basis, from his ex-wife's legal testimony that he raped her to the modern claims that were only made public during his campaign and also have varying levels of substantiation by outside parties.

Gengar666 said:

So what you're saying is "It's selfish to defend myself from being mugged in an alleyway. I need to defend ALL people being mugged at the same time!"

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I'm saying we should work together to make sure muggings don't happen for any reason in essence. Rather just stop muggings that happen because of a single specific reason.

If you truly think that oppressed groups should be hardpressed into taking up a civic duty to encompass other social groups, then you're clearly part of the problem. Do have ANY idea what oppression feels like? Do you have ANY idea what kind of work and uphill battling it takes to resist oppression of your own group alone? Surely not because it's easy for you to just sit on the sidelines gazing in from the outside and make such out-of-touch accusations that they are selfish for not worrying about other groups when theirs is under seige. Surely you must be white and privileged and probably cisgendered and so beginning to fathom the endeavor of resisting oppression goes right over your head. At least TRY to understand what it's like in others' shoes.

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I think everyone as a whole should fight oppression and that it's important to stand up for the rights of others as well as yourself.

Now, you're making a lot of assumptions about me here, and quite frankly what you're doing is actually the same thing you're very happy to accuse others of. Since you seem so very interested though, I guess I should fill you in a bit. You are correct that I am white, male and cis-gendered but if you think that means I've never had to deal with oppressive behaviour or stigmas you're very, very wrong. Firstly, I suffer from two mental illnesses and a behavioural disorder and have been marginalised by people for both my entire life. Secondly, I am a man that works with children and for no other reason than me being male, people act like that makes me a paedophile or otherwise some sort of threat to their children.

You don't get to make assumptions about me based on my gender or my race. That in and of itself is sexism and racism and it is because of attitudes like yours that I have a problem with feminism. You have a lot to learn about the world.