Feminism

[TychoCelchuuu]

If the issue is all the shit they did to keep bringing it up, clearly the best option is not to then bring it up again after it has all died down...

[clyde]

Have you or anyone else here heard about Always Sometimes Monsters? I've only read a little bit of the coverage myself, but it fascinates me.

I had not.

[Problem Machine]

My twitter feed is full of women who feel shitty about themselves and their apparent place in the games industry and I don't feel like I know them well enough to say anything supportive. The omnipresence of people who use kindness as sexual currency makes me feel like I can't be kind without looking/feeling like a creep. I feel like I'm oppressing women by being attracted to them and feel incredibly isolated even by my standards.

 

I hate feeling this way. Everyone hates feeling this way. And people find it super easy to just blame feminism because it it was something they didn't have to deal with (just the women who felt unsafe because of it), but the problem itself lies with the fucked up sexist power dynamic feminism has exposed.

 

More than anything else, I want to dismantle this fucked up power structure just so I can be free of its context to express myself as one human being to another. I do not feel free to do so now.

 

Not responding to anything in particular. Just needed to vent a little.

[Twig]

I always feel nervous when I'm following a woman by chance because I'm worried they're thinking I might be a creep and I don't want them to be worried about me being a creep. You are not alone.

 

IN FACT, I've had more than one occasion where I'm fairly certain a woman has increased her pace just to get away from me. It's not super common or anything, but I've seen a notable increase in pace when we're the only two people on a sidewalk. I'm a tall dude, so I walk pretty fast. It's a bit bizarre to see a woman a foot shorter than me walking faster than me. Sometimes I try to slow down my pace so it doesn't seem like I'm trying to catch up to her... But then it seems like I'm trying to match my pace to hers. Sometimes I'll actually just cross the street even if it's out of the way for me.

 

I do not feel this apprehensive when it's a dude. Maybe that makes me sexist. But mostly I'm just aware of All Of It and so it makes me extra nervous. I hate being a human being, sometimes.

[Sententia]

You could prominently feature LGBT support, like a bracelet or rainbow profile image.  Even though allies and bi people wear them too it sort of takes care of some level of insecurity.

[Patrick R]

Rape culture affects everyone, but I guarantee that it is worse being a woman at night with a man following behind you than to be that man. I'm a white cis-male who's felt oppressed by the patriarchy his entire life, which is horrible and valid and worth expressing, but I'm still a white cis-male so perspective is important.

 

Not to imply anyone in this thread lacks that perspective. Part of why you feel horrible is because you're an empathetic human. I just find it helps to always check that privilege and realize that whenever I'm pissed that I can't be nice to a woman without feeling in some way like a creep, it must be way worse for that woman who's had to deal with creeps her whole life. 

[Problem Machine]

Yeah, but on the other hand I'm getting real sick of people talking about who things are worse for. Everyone has to deal with their own shit, and to some people other people's problems may sound petty, but they're still real problems and it's basically a garbage thing to do to try to devalue those experiences. IMO the more relevant point is that there's this social structure that is basically making things worse for everyone kind of across the board.

[Gormongous]

Yeah, but on the other hand I'm getting real sick of people talking about who things are worse for. Everyone has to deal with their own shit, and to some people other people's problems may sound petty, but they're still real problems and it's basically a garbage thing to do to try to devalue those experiences. IMO the more relevant point is that there's this social structure that is basically making things worse for everyone kind of across the board.

 

In the business, we call those "the Oppression Olympics." Only the patriarchy wins if we play.

[Patrick R]

Which is why I said it's still horrible and valid and worth expressing. But context is important, and humbling yourself to the worse plight of others is not a bad thing to do. It's when people abandon context that stuff like Men's Right's Activism happens. It's not that all things MRA's bring up are false or not valid problems, but one has to look at things in the right context so one doesn't end up just saying "Well, men have it bad too!" and miss the point of WHY that is the case.

[Problem Machine]

This is one reason why I'm not a big fan of the terminology that has been put behind this movement. 'Feminist' is okay if a bit narrow in scope, but I could almost believe that 'patriarchy' was something brought in by someone specifically looking to sabotage the movement. Together they suggest that this is specifically about girls and their daddies, which is the grossest and wrongest trivialization of what this is all about. Ugh.

I feel like it would be easier to rally people under the same banner if that banner used terminology that was more inclusive and accurate, but any time someone brings this up it seems like they get chewed out for not appreciating the glorious history of the term. Is there something I'm missing here?

[Twig]

Yeah, but on the other hand I'm getting real sick of people talking about who things are worse for. Everyone has to deal with their own shit, and to some people other people's problems may sound petty, but they're still real problems and it's basically a garbage thing to do to try to devalue those experiences. IMO the more relevant point is that there's this social structure that is basically making things worse for everyone kind of across the board.

Couldn't agree more.

[brkl]

I don't see the problem. A patriarchy is a society whose norms dictate that men are more capable than women and have the burden of making sure the poor things don't get themselves hurt. It becomes a problem when the word is instead used like it refers to specific easily identifiable people. But I mostly see this in mean-spirited depictions of feminists.

[thestalkinghead]

This is one reason why I'm not a big fan of the terminology that has been put behind this movement. 'Feminist' is okay if a bit narrow in scope, but I could almost believe that 'patriarchy' was something brought in by someone specifically looking to sabotage the movement. Together they suggest that this is specifically about girls and their daddies, which is the grossest and wrongest trivialization of what this is all about. Ugh.

I feel like it would be easier to rally people under the same banner if that banner used terminology that was more inclusive and accurate, but any time someone brings this up it seems like they get chewed out for not appreciating the glorious history of the term. Is there something I'm missing here?

 

one of my biggest problems with feminism is that it's called feminism, modern feminism may claim that their goal is to make the world more equal and that it would also help men but the helping men part just seems like a minor side quest, the main quest is to empower women (which is a worthy goal) but the problem with making things equal is by what standard to you make things equal by, do they want men to act more like women or women to act more like men?

 

Because although men and women are both human (obviously) they are biologically different enough to have a totally different perspective of everything, and i don't just mean the body, i mainly mean the brain, in my opinion what we call masculinity and femininity is just what we have named the effect of our different biology, it's a bit like psychological problems, most of them are caused by biology, a psychopath actually has a different brain than a non psychopath and their behaviour is caused by this physical difference, so the idea of eradicating gender roles or gender altogether just seems ridiculous to me, because it would only benefit one gender and that would be the gender that had been chosen to be the norm.

 

if there was a group or a movement that was set up to appreciate these differences in gender while at the same time trying to make the world a fairer place (equal respect, equal rights, equal pay for equal work, equal rights for parents etc.) i would be totally behind that, but i would never call myself a feminist even though i agree with a lot of their goals, i am just not 100% behind them.

[Ben X]

if there was a group or a movement that was set up to appreciate these differences in gender while at the same time trying to make the world a fairer place (equal respect, equal rights, equal pay for equal work, equal rights for parents etc.)

 

This is pretty much the exact definition I have for feminism. Equal rights for men and women. Yeah, it's a misleading label, but that's just semantics, it's pretty easy to ignore.

[thestalkinghead]

This is pretty much the exact definition I have for feminism. Equal rights for men and women. Yeah, it's a misleading label, but that's just semantics, it's pretty easy to ignore.

but from what i can tell about feminism is that the ultimate goal is to eradicate the whole idea of gender and as i said i think that is ridiculous 

[osmosisch]

but from what i can tell about feminism is that the ultimate goal is to eradicate the whole idea of gender and as i said i think that is ridiculous 

You tell wrong, sir.

[thestalkinghead]

You tell wrong, sir.

that is what i have read a lot of feminist talk about, the idea of masculinity and femininity or gender is inherently bad and everybody should act the same, whereas i think there is a big difference between giving people equal respect and expecting everybody to act the same 

[Roderick]

Treat everybody differently, but based on who they are, not on whether they happen to have a schlong or not. Thus, don't infer anything about a person based on gender. First get to know someone as a person, then you'll know how they want to be treated.

[thestalkinghead]

Treat everybody differently, but based on who they are, not on whether they happen to have a schlong or not. Thus, don't infer anything about a person based on gender. First get to know someone as a person, then you'll know how they want to be treated.

that sounds great, but it takes a long time to actually get to know somebody, i wish there was technology that existed that you could introduce yourself with your entire life story, like "hello I'm *data transfer* nice to meet you" obviously you can always meet people with an open mind but that doesn't help to get to know somebody any quicker.

 

but what i am really talking about is not about what people infer, but more that biology does have an effect on behaviour, people don't like to believe that and obviously you couldn't just test someones DNA and predict everything they will ever do or believe, but i think people that want to eradicate gender are being very ignorant of how and why people behave the the way they do

[Roderick]

that sounds great, but it takes a long time to actually get to know somebody, i wish there was technology that existed that you could introduce yourself with your entire life story, like "hello I'm *data transfer* nice to meet you" obviously you can always meet people with an open mind but that doesn't help to get to know somebody any quicker.

 

 

That sounds like an ideal world, captain.

[Ben X]

that is what i have read a lot of feminist talk about, the idea of masculinity and femininity or gender is inherently bad and everybody should act the same, whereas i think there is a big difference between giving people equal respect and expecting everybody to act the same 

 

Can you link to some of this, please?

[thestalkinghead]

Can you link to some of this, please?

I'm not organised enough to do that (i would have to spend hours searching my internet history and reading through every page, and I'm not that invested in this argument to do that), but if you look up feminist blogs etc. there will be a lot of talk about the erosion of gender and gender roles or just the general dislike of masculinity especially, if you want to do you own research that's fine, but i'm not going to do it for you, I'm not trying to be rude it's just that links to websites just isn't the way i learn or organise things, and a link to one or two pages wouldn't be enough anyway

[Argobot]

Replacing the word feminism with something more inclusive (humanism gets tossed around a lot) obfuscates feminisms actual purpose. Yes, there is a rising-tide-lifts-all-boats mentality as far as feminism benefiting men in a lot of meaningful ways, but ultimately, for feminism to succeed as a political/philosophical movement, certain groups of men will have to give up a lot of the social/political/economic power they've held in society. Using a different word just to make men feel more included in the movement doesn't really make much sense and weakens the ultimate goal of feminism.

 

Now the debate over using a new term so that we can move away from the racial baggage that the feminist movement has, is much more relevant. White women have disproportionality benefited from feminism, and until recently, there hasn't been a huge effort to include WOC into the movement. If you read WOC blogs or articles, you'll see the word 'womanist' used quite a bit, in an attempt to distance the current movement from its embarrassing past.

 

Of course, this argument is incredibly esoteric and while I find it interesting on an academic level, at the end of the day I don't care what you call yourself, as long as you agree that the system is unfairly stacked in a certain direction and you want to work to help balance out that system.

[thestalkinghead]

Replacing the word feminism with something more inclusive (humanism gets tossed around a lot) obfuscates feminisms actual purpose. Yes, there is a rising-tide-lifts-all-boats mentality as far as feminism benefiting men in a lot of meaningful ways, but ultimately, for feminism to succeed as a political/philosophical movement, certain groups of men will have to give up a lot of the social/political/economic power they've held in society. Using a different word just to make men feel more included in the movement doesn't really make much sense and weakens the ultimate goal of feminism.

 

Now the debate over using a new term so that we can move away from the racial baggage that the feminist movement has, is much more relevant. White women have disproportionality benefited from feminism, and until recently, there hasn't been a huge effort to include WOC into the movement. If you read WOC blogs or articles, you'll see the word 'womanist' used quite a bit, in an attempt to distance the current movement from its embarrassing past.

 

Of course, this argument is incredibly esoteric and while I find it interesting on an academic level, at the end of the day I don't care what you call yourself, as long as you agree that the system is unfairly stacked in a certain direction and you want to work to help balance out that system.

thats cool, because even if i wouldn't call myself a feminist i am still on the side of a lot of the ideas and principles behind it, just not enough to be part of the group 

[TychoCelchuuu]

Ugh, just... okay, listen, you're wrong.

First, it's not clear that you understand the distinction between sex and gender. Sex is a biologically determined characteristic of individuals, and with the exception of intersex people, basically everyone neatly falls into two categories: male and female. Feminism does not deny this, it does not want to eliminate this (how could it, short of crazy genetic engineering?) and it doesn't want to say that people in the two sexes are literally the same or should be viewed the same. Humans exhibit sexual dimorphism, which means there are differences between the sexes, like what people have between their legs and so forth.

Gender is a different concept. Gender describes the ways people view, think, and act when it comes to dividing people up based on various characteristics, including (most prominently in Western society) which sex they appear to belong to. In Western society we have two genders, male and female, but in other societies at other times there have been more genders, like three or four. Feminists want genders to be treated equally - if you are a woman in the world today, right now things are pretty shit for you in a lot of ways they aren't shit for men. There are also things that are shit for men that aren't shit for women, but on balance, it sucks more to be a woman. This is why feminism is called feminism. Equality requires making things better for women.

Does feminism want to eliminate gender completely? No. Gender is just a way of viewing the world like any other social construction humans have. Many feminists do argue that the constricting nature of the gender attitudes prominent in Western society causes quite a bit of pain and suffering: look at what transgendered people have to go through, for instance. They are raped and murdered much more so than cisgendered people, and we might think a large part of this is that they fail to conform to traditional gender norms. So perhaps altering our traditional gender norms would make our society more inclusive and less rapey and murdery.

Do feminists think all the genders are the same? Obviously not - one key difference is that they are treated differently by society. Gender is a social construction, so simply by choosing to call one group of people gender A and another group of people gender B we've created a real difference. So feminism does not deny that there are differences between the genders. All it denies are that these differences should be an excuse for society to treat any of the genders badly, or worse than the other genders.