What is feminism?

A lot of good points raised here.

Re: abortion: Some of you seem to be missing out on a crucial point here: no method of birth control is 100 percent foolproof, except abstinence--and if you want to tell everyone who doesn't want to get pregnant (myself included) not to have sex--may the Force be with you.

I agree with JG on this one: while the father, unless he is a rapist, certainly should be consulted, ultimately no man has the right to say, "I may or may not be here for you after the baby is born, but don't you dare abort it." Any man who wants to insist that his partner carry the pregnancy to term, should be prepared to raise the child, alone if necessary--just as many women are forced to raise children alone after their partners walk off.

I also believe that abortion should be a last resort, not a method of birth control. I am sympathetic towards a woman who has had one abortion; however, when she has had three, I begin to think, "Hel-LO? Do you not know what's causing this? They've got birth control at the health department and the drug store, dear." However, you try to completely eliminate abortion as an option, not only are you asking for trouble in the form of many women dying from infections and loss of blood caused by illegal abortions, but you're also putting the rights of a fetus ahead of the rights of the mother, which is wrong.

As far as child support: a man who wants to have any say in how his child is raised, or who wants to be able to see his child at all, should have to pay child support. Otherwise, I don't think it should be forced upon him.

Re: gender roles:

Just_A_Slacker: I am offended by the idea that all of us women are too wussy to ever serve in the infantry or do other types of jobs requiring physical strength.

A woman should be able to compete with a man for any job--using the exact same standards of course, but no woman should be eliminated from the competition just because of her gender.

I also don't believe that men and women are different in any way other than the reproductive organs. The idea that women are generally nurturers is a load of crap. My own marriage is the perfect example. My husband is the nurturing one. He is also the best at housework.

Just as No blasters! said, no one should be assigned a certain societal role, one that he or she may not necessarily fit into, just because of gender.

 

yes anakin girl i agree with you, women should be able to hold any jobs as long as they are held to the exact same standards as men.
My problem is when standards are lowered in order to accept more women. Lets face facts most of the time women are not as physically strong as a man and if that interferes with their job such as being a fireman(Person?) then they should not do that job. If they pass the exact same physical and mental tests as a man, then they should be allowed to do that job

 

"My problem is when standards are lowered in order to accept more women. "

You're right, and I have a problem with that, because I believe it undermines me as a woman.

Case in point: that Shannon Faulkner chick who was accepted to the Citadel as a man, then sued when they recanted her acceptance after finding out that she was a woman. She ended up not being able to hack it there anyway. Then two more chicks were accepted the next year or a couple of years later.

I think that women should be accepted to the Citadel--if they meet the same requirements as male cadets--and they should be forced to do the same things male cadets do, including shave their heads and shower in the open.

As a feminist, I also believe that if we want equality, we can't keep asking for special treatment.

 

here here, equality and special treatment certainly do not fly with me either

 

LMU : I totally respect making up your own views on morality. But why should other people conform to your moral ideals? Isn't that just the same as conforming to gender roles? If not, why? Feel free to ignore me. It shows not only maturity, but a williness to calmly debate with thoes who have differing views from your own. There's no need to apoligize for yesterday, nothing bad happened.

" "Until it's born, it's only a possible life."

This is science?"

No, that was where I was paraphrasing from the bible. Reading my post throughly would have made that distinction more clear.

 

anakin_girl: As a feminist, I also believe that if we want equality, we can't keep asking for special treatment.

As a male member of a minority, I couldn't agree more. There's a difference between being respected for one's differences, and being treated differently because of them.

 

Agreed. Standards should never be lowered.

 

Garli Pesan, I did read your post thouroughly, but failed to make the connection that God's breath = exiting the womb. Perhaps if you could cite the verse exactly??

No blasters! - I prefer to think of it as merely a different stage of human development.

anakin_girl - I also agree with you. (getting back on topic)

 

Garli:
I agree that I am a very opinionated person. May be too much so. I am very passionate about some issues. Please do not interpret it as an attempt to force everyone to agree with what I say.

When it comes to abortion and parental responsibility, I am sometimes too passionate. I admit that I do try to convince people to agree with my point of view. A child's life, born or unborn, is very sacred to me. I don't believe issues regarding children should be a matter of semantics and by no means do I means this in a way of putting myself above anyone else. I'm just a defender of children and life.

As for the science angle. People do use science to justify abortions. By playing semantics, they attempt to justify that in the early stages of conception that since a child can not live outside of the mother's womb that their is no life. It angers me. Do you blame me for trying to change people's minds regarding the sanctity of life?

Be that as it may be, I come here because I know that I can learn from all the varying points of view. I am not here to get into fights with anyone. I do not believe myself to be more "holy" than anyone in this forum. I do not declare allegiance to any institutionalized religions. I believe in God, I accept that Jesus is the messiah, and I hold any life sacred.

 

There are three sects. This is true for both genders, and all bloodlines.

Obeyer: Yama, you are god. I worship you.
Sycophants bother me. I hate when anyone will kiss the ground I walk on just to gain my favor or affection.

Awakened: The time has come when we will forget our traditional roles and treat each other as true equals. Nobody has superiority in the ideal society by simple genetic circumstance.
Sect I am part of. It comes from reading Stone of Farewell too much.

Radical Feminist: Since you have refused to obey your role, we are getting a divorce. Don't take this the wrong way and believe you have been set free, or you will be set free, to existence past the door.
So, how am I inferior to you?

 

DarthPhelps, I don't remember. The only reason I knew that was from an AP government project from about 3 years ago. I'd like to be able to tell you, but I wouldn't like it enough to read the bible to find out. (My partner found the quote not me.)

Lion: "Do you blame me for trying to change people's minds regarding the sanctity of life?"

Sort of. I don't blame you for beliving that, but I don't like to change people's minds. I like to argue, which is totally different. I like to make people think. To me, everyone should have their belifs, and not have to behave to other people's morals.

 

anakin girl
I'm a bit confused here. In the virginity thread, you spoke in favor of sexual freedom and suggested unwanted pregnancies weren't an issue, because "we have reliable (as in 99.9 percent effective) birth control."

Yet, to defend the pro-choice argument, you point out the inevitable possibility of unwanted pregnancy by saying "Some of you seem to be missing out on a crucial point here: no method of birth control is 100 percent foolproof."

Aside from the .1 percent of wiggle room you left yourself, the spirits of these two arguments seem to be in direct conflict.

 

There are many types of feminism, from the radical to the moderate, I consider myself a moderate feminist because I think radical feminists come across too much as man-haters...

 

I've skimmed this thread somewhat thoroughly, and don't believe I'm saying anything new, but here is my opinion.

Feminism SHOULD be about valuing the feminine in all things as well as the masculine.

What I mean is this: our society worships traits we consider masculine, but scorns traits we consider feminine. This is not about men and women so much as it's about things like nurturing vs. being aggressive - this is just one example of many masculine/feminine dichotomies. Both nurturing and aggression have their places, but more people will congratulate you on getting someone fired than on cuddling with your dog. And this is true whether you're a woman or a man. Even women will judge each other by their aggression in getting a man to spend money on them or other such nonsense.

If we valued SOME feminine traits and SOME male traits, we'd come a lot closer to appreciating men and women equally and judging them as individuals, by individual merit. That's the closest to equality I think we can come, or should want to come. Perfect equality would be stasis, I think.

Oh, and in response to such things as men not getting custody as often as women - yes, that needs correcting. Neither gender should have an advantage - and this means that until women on the whole are able to earn as much as men, their lesser incomes should not be held against them. However, that's just one aspect - my grandfather was a far better nurturer, guide and teacher than my grandmother. Had she been the career parent and he the stay at home parent, my mother and her siblings would likely have been much better off.

So my idea of equality between the genders would be that those who are good at nurturing do that, and be appreciated. Those who are good at aggressive action take jobs or military work where it's appropriate. An ideal society would be one where everyone gets to make the best use of his/her individual talents, with no expectations based on gender, color, height, background, first language, etc.

 

I think there needs to be a humanism movement. There are imbalances on both sides of the gender divide.

 

Yes, but it's almost always women who get the short end of the stick... lower salaries, less respect, less likely to be promoted, underrepresented in the government...

 

Yes, there's the pay issue and the underrepresentation issue, but there's also many issues relating to males that are totally ignored.

I don't understand the respect argument either. Either you deserve it or you don't. It doesn't have any gender bias that I'm aware of.

 

Uruk-hai, men generally don't value the opinions of women as highly as those of men... you may not even have noticed (and perhaps you yourself don't do it) but there is a *huge* difference in how seriously people are taken based on their gender...

 

How do you fix that? I know many women who feel the same way about men. I've heard women say things like "He's a man, what do you expect" all the time to each other. You can't legislate to fix that problem.

 

It has to do with the way children are brought up in today's society... there is way too much sexism... parents generally demand their children to behave according to gender role stereotypes and reinforce the behavior that is "socially acceptable", but punish boys who are feminine or girls who are too masculine...

 

I don't agree with that statement. I think there are things that are inherantly different between boys and girls. You can't change that fact no matter how much hot air feminists blow.

I have a son and a daughter and let me tell you, with no prompting from us, my son enjoys playing with cars, trains and guns whilst my daughter loves her dolls and ponies. They both had the same baby toys - blocks and jigsaws etc to play with when they were little but as soon as my daughter was old enough to say what type of toy she wanted, she went straight for the dolls.

 

And what would you have done if your son had wanted to play with the dolls and ponies and your daughter had wanted to play with the cars, trains & guns?

 

They didn't.

My son has the opportunity to play with both and so does my daughter. They do play together a lot, but it's more imaginary games where they make up and act out different scenarios. You will hate this - normally my son is a policeman or a knight or something who has to save my daughter who plays a princess or fairy or something like that. It's funny to spy on them when they don't think you are around.

They rarely play with each other's toys. I wouldn't mind if they did.

I have found I am a bit sexist in the fact I really don't like it when my son cries.

 

Uruk, your kids are probably picking up gender stereotypes from sources other than you. Look at toy commercials - for 25 years, we've seen boys playing with SW action figures, girls playing with dolls that pee.

I (female) related to very few things girls are supposed to like. I always refused to play Leia - one time, when a bunch of boys and I were playing SW, I insisted as always on playing Luke or Han, and one of the boys played Leia. They at first insisted that as the only girl, I was obligated to be Leia, but I just said I didn't care, and they shrugged and went along with it.

A couple of years later, at age 7, I landed the lead in a church play - playing the man who wrote Silent Night - because I could sing it a cappello without going off-key, and no one else could.

My grandmother thought these things would turn me gay. Far from it, I developed a lot of empathy toward men, and am very drawn to them both physically and emotionally. I've never been able to join in female bitch-fests on what scum men are because, frankly, I think most people are just looking for the wrong things from their mates, and there's nothing wrong with either gender as a whole. In fact, I frequently tell my female friends they're full of it when they gripe about men's shortcomings, or at least completely hypocritical.

Then again, when our society has set the precedent for assuming someone sucks on the basis of her gender (and I'm sorry, but the US is guilty of that attitude), it's hard to convince women that making sexist generalizations about men is not going to help.

 

TreeCave, so how would you define yourself today? Are you a masculine woman or just one who doesn't fall into the usual "feminine" stereotypes?