Gay rights and radical feminism
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IronWings2112 — 14 years ago(July 27, 2011 12:18 AM)
@Meaner, too bad it is yet to be equal between the genders the pay disparity for the same job proves it alone, but there are many more inconsistencies. Therefore feminism is still needed.
BTW I am a straight man, and a feminist, anyone can be one. It is not about man-hating, it is for equality. Equality for all is my main cause. -
lyris1-1 — 13 years ago(July 30, 2012 06:39 PM)
The reason people think that feminism isn't about equality is probably because it rarely lives up to its claims. Feminists on the whole do not speak out against injustices towards men; worse, they often shout down men who do bring up these issues.
I don't hate feminists at all, in fact I think I would agree with them much more than I would disagree. But they can't claim to be about equality for everyone while totally ignoring men's problems. They often are under the impression that men are 100% privileged creatures who don't suffer from any social issues whatsoever, which is nonsense.
This does bring me to a point, though: where were the lesbians in Harvey Milk's campaign? Beyond the one girl (who more than pushed her weight), it seems to be the case that it was men who kickstarted and fought the gay equality fight. Maybe because gay men, even today, are much more likely to be attacked than gay women. -
victoria_liie — 13 years ago(July 31, 2012 08:50 AM)
Oh, I've read and researched a lot about feminism since my post and had a change of heart. I no longer claim to be a feminist. I completely agree. For example nobody talks about how in America just as many or maybe even more (I don't remember the numbers right now) men are subject to rape (due to prison standards) than women? Yet rape of women is a huge issue in the feminist debate. Breast cancer gets A TON of attention but prostate cancer kills just as many. And in Norway (where I'm from anyway) people talk about equal pay - but we have equal pay its just that women more often than men lean towards professions involving people care (child services, social worker, nurse ect) while men are more prone to work leading to leader positions - which obviously will lead to women earning less on an average, but they do have all the same opportunities ect.
During that post I was taking an Women Today class and was to easily influenced. Did inspire me to do some research though. -
lyris1-1 — 13 years ago(July 31, 2012 04:25 PM)
Yes, those are all the sorts of things I mention.
The role of academia in feminism is interesting. I remember being subject to some similar distortions at university.
For example, in a sociology class, we were told that a tennis player (I forget which) had spoken out against equal pay for women.
I reacted in the way any decent person would: I said to my friend "What a ****".
Years later, I found out the real story. He objected to woman tennis players being paid the same wage for doing less work, as per the rules of the game. That little bit of information was not mentioned at the university.
Now I don't believe ANY feminist claims unless they're backed up by multiple unbiased sources. -
clytamnestra — 13 years ago(October 12, 2012 05:32 AM)
a big problem with equal pay is that men and women simply choose different professions and different levels. so you can't just go 'women earn less on average'.
not only do a lot of women want to 'work with children' (leading to an over-supply of labor and reduced wages) but they are more often than men aiming for mid-level positions instead of the top of a company. aiming so high is a big risk and results in men being both MORE and LESS successful than women (depending on whether their gamble paid of).
but feminists are all about 'women should be in the top of companies' and never demand that 'we should train more female garbage-collectors, so that there can be total equality with as much garbage-women as garbage-men'.
as for rape: all the feminists shouting about how those evil men are constantly out to rape them just reaffirm the social idea that rape is somehow the epitome of manhood. a decent guy is than just a 'potential rapist' who has the self-control to keep his hands to himself.
a guy who gets raped has no place in this scenario: he failed at being a raping macho-man, but he isn't a woman and therefore can't be a victim either (except perhaps when he's gay and becomes just a sub-category of 'female victims', which ties in with epa101's ideas about gays and feminists).
scandinavia is known to be extremely good (or bad, depending on your point of view) with feminism and anti-racism and such. but i live in the netherlands and to me it just looks like an extreme version of the way we used to be in the '80s and '90s. with the intellectual elite rolling around in their own moral superiority ('look at us being nice to foreigners and bending over backwards to make them feel at home here') but completely oblivious to growing social unrest among the under-class of society.
that underclass felt (not without reason) that they were far worse of after a life of working hard and paying taxes and not being criminal than a lazy uneducated immigrant who never worked in his new country (only collected welfare) or even a horrible criminal (anders breivik who got a nice 3-room apartment complete with a half-dozen servants to entertain him and lots of free time to work on his memoir as 'reward' for killing all those people in cold blood).
and if that underclass voiced their displeasure (in the '80s or '90s) they'd be accused of being racist or of being a barbarian who cares nothing for rehabilitation of (petty) criminals and only thinks of criminal law as vehicles for brute revenge. this way the intellectuals could feel good about themselves ('look how understanding i am, even to criminals'), while the rest of the country paid the price: paying high taxes to finance all those 'be nice to foreigners and criminals' projects (when somebody finally dared to investigate the effectiveness of those projects it turned out most were a huge waste of money). or being confronted with the guy who murdered your husband being released after just a few short years in prison (after he made some empty claims about 'being really sorry about killing your husband in cold blood'). and don't you dare protest his release, or even ask that he doesn't contact you, you revenge-happy harpy -
BlindeKonijN — 13 years ago(August 26, 2012 10:28 AM)
No, there is need for gender equality for both sexes, not just for women.
Feminism should be abandoned as a title now, because it has done it's work, any more usage of it suggests that women in our society are treated worse than men, which is complete bollocks.
Most of the time when you ask a feminist to name a men's right's issue, let alone a few, they can't give you a single one. They have been tricked into thinking that it's about men and women, but actually all that feminists groups care about is women. (Not neccesarily people who identify as feminists). -
poolboyg88 — 13 years ago(August 25, 2012 08:49 PM)
Yes, these women hating users are indeed ignorant, and hateful. No facts or evidence. It's amusing, then you get a little sad that there's people like this still in the world.
Great movie by the way. Again, it's a little sad that there are such ignorant, and hateful anti-gays in the world still. -
clytamnestra — 13 years ago(October 12, 2012 05:48 AM)
@epa
interesting idea. i don't know if you're right but it's obvious that the mere existence of gay men is a problem when you are trying to convince everyone that every single man is a (potential) rapist and therefore severe measures are in order to protect women (taking away a few rights from men, such as the right to see their children or the right to be graded in school with the exact same criteria as girls, to deliberately put them some steps below women on the social ladder) -
venanttout — 10 years ago(March 25, 2016 05:02 PM)
Gays and RadFem (often lesbians) have NEVER been friends. They allied against common ennemies, but that's it.
Of course, some gay persons and some lesbians developped real frienship. But as groups, it is simply not true. Check among honnest people who knows the backstory (no pun indeed)of the LGBT community
It was - at best- a marriage of reason,but there were lots of internal fights and backstabbing.
Today, the war keeps on. Gay ar labelled 'cis gendered oppressors' by RadFem and some Trans leaders.
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2016/03/22/nus-tells-lgbt-societies-to-abolish-gay-mens-reps-because-they-dont-face-oppression/