What's your problem with feminists?

I think the reproductive rights of teenagers, especially girls, is a feminist issue But I'll post it over in the other thread too, if you want.

In any case, as much as people would like to talk about parents having absolute control over their children, most people end up having sex before they turn 18. It is an absolute necessity that young people be educated and have access to adequate birth control methods in order to reduce the overall teenage pregnancy rate.

From http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/archives/nr_euroteens.html

Easy access to contraceptive and reproductive health services contributes to better contraceptive use and lower teenage pregnancy rates. In many countries, free or extremely low-cost contraceptive and reproductive health services that respect teen privacy are integrated into general medical care. These services are provided to the general population under the national health system, which contributes to ease of access and lends support to the notion that contraceptive use is not only acceptable, but essential. By contrast, there is no universal health insurance in the United States, many U.S. insurance policies do not cover contraceptives, and contraceptive methods are often more expensive in the United States than in other developed countries. Because of the cost and to ensure confidentiality, U.S. teenagers rely heavily on family planning clinics rather than their family doctor for contraceptive services, which marginalizes both the clinics for providing care out of the mainstream and the teenage clients for seeking those services.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

 

Hmm..

Any other thoughts as to whether this is a feminist issue?

 

I am going to stray from this debate to answer the title question.

My problem with some feminists is this. They don?t think.

I am an Engineer Major at a big name school. All in all, only about 10% of Engineering students are women. Some feminists (the ones I don?t like) would say that that is an example of men holding women down in what was a traditional male profession. However, that is about the same percentage of female applicants, so how are they being held down?

Maybe there is some psychological thing that makes men want to invent important things more than women do, or maybe society conditions women to not be engineers, or there can be many explanations, but some feminists will always say that men are to blame.

One other thing that really ticked me off was this. One day on campus, there was a bake sale. The catch, women only had to pay 76 cents whereas men had to pay a dollar for a cookie or whatever. That was to symbolize the whole "a woman?s dollar is only worth 76 cents." Two things bugged me about that. One, do women make less money than men (in general) because they jobs they take are not as high paying or is it because of what they say? For example in general, Engineers make more money than say Lit majors (hope I am not stepping on anyone?s toes), so all in all (I picked lit majors because I think the split is more even there than it is in engineering), women may not be getting higher paying jobs because they in general do not want them. The fact that they did not give any possible reasons why the wage difference was there aside from "Males are Scum!" annoyed me.

And the second thing that annoyed me what that by selling baked goods with that system, they are no better than the men who, according to them, hold women down.

 

Chibiangi, that quote is wonderful. You can argue with Planned Parenthood all you like, but when your insurance plan doesn't cover contraceptives and you (or your wife) has to pay $360 a year just to avoid having a baby, you may change your mind. As of right now, only 16 states in the U.S. have laws that guarantee that insurance will cover contraceptives. I know mine doesn't. Meanwhile, within 2 months of its release, more than 50% of prescriptions written for Viagra were paid for paritally by insurance.

 

My wife and I use Planned Parenthood because while we have insurance it's not nearly as good. I disagree with much of their politics but I do not disagree with ample and cheap birth control methods. I've long maintained that every trailer park should have a condom vending machine mandatory .

One thing that bothers me about PP though is sometimes I'll pick up my wifes pills and I swear it feels that the sex-ed South Park episode where I'm a carrier of the evil pregnacy disease. There are some real man haters there.

 

women may not be getting higher paying jobs because they in general do not want them

Wow....who'da thunk it?

But for the extreme feminists to acknowledge this, they'd have to acknowledge that men and women are indeed different, they think differently, they want different things, they enjoy different things, they are better at different things and, worst of all, that there is nothing wrong with that.

 

women may not be getting higher paying jobs because they in general do not want them

Ever think that maybe their earlier development has shaped their wants? If little Suzie is given Barbie dolls and an E-Z Bake Oven, while Johnny gets Hot Wheels and Tonka trucks, how do you think that affects their self-image?

(I'm using toys here as an example. In reality, it's more an attitude projected by parents and other authority figures, encouraging children to follow more traditional gender roles.)

 

You know that even without influence that the vast majority of kids will follow those "gender roles" The boys will drift towards GI Joes and girls will tend to go for dolls. These weren't made up by rich oppressive white men. This is genetic. Blame God or evolution but men and women generally have different strong suits and have different natural instincts. There's a reason I can't spell worth a lick yet be able to do math like nobody's business and why my wife is always correcting my grammar and spelling yet can't balance the checkbook without a calculator (and still gets frustrated).

 

There's a reason I can't spell worth a lick yet be able to do math like nobody's business and why my wife is always correcting my grammar and spelling yet can't balance the checkbook without a calculator (and still gets frustrated).

That is not a result of your gender. It has a lot to do with how well you were taught. I'm pretty sure that in countries like Japan, where they begin teaching at a young age and expect a lot from their students, both genders perform very well in subjects like math. (I know their math scores beat the U.S. by a long shot; I'm not sure how the genders compare within the country.)

 

I don't buy into the gender role socialization idea either, certainly not in this day and age. Because feminism HAS changed that. I don't believe women ARE necessarily coerced into 'traditional roles', they choose them because they like them.

And the extreme feminists are galled to no end by that. "After all we've accomplished in the past 40 years you'd still rather be a secretary than a truck driver?? What is wrong with you????"

 

Womberty, my wife was in the top 2% of her class. 4.25 weighted on 4.0 scale and in a large school. It's not true for all, but for the majority it holds true. It's not always society. It doesn't mean you have to be controlled by your genes. Alcoholics don't have to be alcoholics and women don't have to be mothers. But are alot of women predisposed to the role? Yes. Not all granted but most are. Most girls also mature faster, again genetics. Boys are typically stronger; again an evolutionary outcome. We're not prisoners to our genes, but to deny them or ignore them makes us ignorant of the truth.

 

I don't believe women ARE necessarily coerced into 'traditional roles', they choose them because they like them.

I think they tend to learn more by example. It's not direct coercion, but there are certainly enough gender role reinforcements that it can help shape their preferences.


my wife was in the top 2% of her class. 4.25 weighted on 4.0 scale and in a large school. It's not true for all, but for the majority it holds true.

I think this may only hold true for the U.S. In countries where the schools are more disciplined, they get good performances from both genders.

 

My point was that she did well in school, even in math, that's she's very smart but retention of algebra or even the comprehension of it is not there. She can still mulitply divide etc, but Algebra, Trig, Geometry, she can't grasp it now. I've been out of school for years and it's like second nature to me. I taught myself trig cause my teacher sucked. At the same time she can remember how to spell words very easily but me, I misspell words all the time and I did farelly well on the ACT in English. Again this isn't true for all, but don't dillude this matter by trying to make the exception the rule.

 

I did a little searching online, and the test results seem to indicate that boys and girls have about the same aptitude for math.

I found an article here that might be of some interest.

And by the way, I hold a degree in Computer Science with a minor in Mathematics. So while in your personal experience you are more skilled at math than your wife, I don't think it holds true for other men and women. It certainly doesn't in other countries. I've seen a lot of women in my college math and computer science classes; there were just very few American women.

 

As much of a shock as it might be to you, I can admit that there's a woman who works here, that's better at math than I am. Nothings absolute. Some men are better caregivers than most women. Nobody's a slave to their genes and sometimes their genes are different than everyone elses.

I never said stupid things like "women can't be mathmaticians, or firefighters" or something like that. Obviously they can and they can excel on their own skills, but the article makes assumptions. It makes the assumption that girls and boys spend the same amount of time studying the same subjects. It could be the other way around. Also I found it very interesting about the abstract quote
"The girls get in a situation where the subject is abstract . . . and they hate it," Sherman says. "They say to themselves, what's wrong with me? I can't do this."
Where as in math abstract never seemed to be a problem for most guys in the class. This is also where my wife has problems. In abstract. Obviously some women have no problem with it; you included womberty. That's cool, and yet not surprising to me. Obviously with work and keeping it up nearly anyone with a high enough IQ can ace math, but some of us cruise through it no problem. Guy or girl, that's rare, but it seemed to be more guys than girls.
It had nothing to do with using computers, or playing with GI Joes to EZ Bakes, it had to do with our predisposition.

In school it was a trade off. I still remember which subjects girls struggled and which guys struggled. Not surprising it was math for girls and english for guys. To compensate people studied more, and surprise, people got comparitive test scores.

 

I didn't have the same experience - my high school Trig class was all girls (it was a small school). The guys struggled at least as much with math as did the girls in our Algebra and Geometry classes. I really don't think there's anything genetic that gives guys an edge at math or girls an edge at spelling & grammar.

 

I admit there's not a definetive answer, but following the overall trends and based personal experiences of everyone I've met, it always rings true. Our validictorian (who was a girl) had the hardest time in Trig, but it was a breeze for alot of us. I basically taught myself how to do it, and that's what alot of guys seem to say (and not just from one school or area). Some guys were completely clueless. I'm not saying every guy is instantly adept at math by any means.

 

From what I've seen, girls aren't as good at math. I'm second in my class, and I have trouble in math (I mean, I still get A's but it's not easy)


-sj loves kevin spacey

 

I think that a good deal of it really is stereotyping. It's a Catch-22. If you believe the stereotype about girls being bad at math, you relax and figure it's not that big of a deal that you're bad at math since all girls are. If you've ever heard the stereotype and don't believe it, you tend to feel like you're under pressure to prove the stereotype wrong and it affects you, making you not do as well as you could on tests.

 

Most girls always got good grades in Math, but they had to try harder. Same with guys in English. Whatever you're not as adept in you have to study. (the only studing I ever did)

 

Remember the talking Barbie from a few years ago that got pulled off of the shelves because one of the things she said was "Math is hard!".

 

I didn't know that really happend. I thought that was just a Simpsons episode.

 

In my school, its equal, both guys and gals have trouble in Math. But for sure, the guys have trouble in Reading, and all the girls I've meet or seen, are really great with it including myself. And some are good at both, and I'm so jealous. -_-;;

 

I struggle to learn math. And once I learn it, I still forget it pretty easily. I had to review everything all over again for the SAT, because I had 3 years of high school math required through my correspondance program, BUT SOMEHOW I got into advance math (don't ask me) so took 9th grade math in 8th grade. So my last year of math was the school year before this one, and in a year's time I forgot so much. I've always been very good at English. A good speller, good vocabulary, good reader.

 

women may not be getting higher paying jobs because they in general do not want them

Ever think that maybe their earlier development has shaped their wants? If little Suzie is given Barbie dolls and an E-Z Bake Oven, while Johnny gets Hot Wheels and Tonka trucks, how do you think that affects their self-image?


Taken out of contex, my quote would seem that I dont think things like that would affect kids, but I said that what annoyes me is that the extream feminists will not concider any other option other than Men are holding women down somehow. But you bring up a good point that develoment can influence. However, I will still try to think of all options.

Yes, there are diffenate gender rolls for kids today, but it is still a persons choice. Not to mention that for the past 60 or so (maybe more) years in America, gender rolls have been breaking down allot.

That may be the case, but it is made out to sound that women should not be diffrent (again, by the extream annoying feminists). The feminists that annoy me are the ones who wont concider any other options other than somehow blaming men or society.

Another example sort of. Maybe men want more control over things. We are stronger, we may feel we want to lead since we have that strength. Maybe because of something like that, men will try to be high up CEO's and heads of corperations more than women would. Again, it is just a general idea that can be concidered.

I will not argue that there are some if not many cases where men are holding women back, but it is far less than some of the extream feminists would have us believe.

The whole math thing. I think that we just accept when a girl is not good at math more than we would a boy. That I tend to think may be society and not really genitic. But I dont know.

I did a little searching online, and the test results seem to indicate that boys and girls have about the same aptitude for math.

What about in terms of English skills?

Remember, I am talking generally, which means it does not describe every situation.

Also, does anyone have any staticts or good facts on what jobs women and men have, and what they pay?