Feminism: The War on Feminism

[Geilinor]

Addition, the thread is to ask people what they believe is making MODERN-DAY feminism looked down upon in such a bad way. I've said it like nine thousand times and I'll say it again, read the OP.

And it's looked down on because there are a lot of people who interpret feminism to be about female supremacy solely because they both have "fem" in the name so obviously feminism has to be about women, duh.

Feminism was founded by women for women, I don't think men starting feminist movements would be looked upon favorably. Not to say that feminism is about female supremacy but it isn't something men should be organizing and running.

[Basseemia]

The OP was not poorly written. You and several other people who have said what you're saying are stricken with selective reading.

Listen, if a lot of people are telling you that your OP sounded like you were saying something other than what you meant to say, that means you did not express your opinion very clearly (if you prefer that to "your OP was poorly written").

Quoted from the OP unedited:

In my opinion, the real reason that people view feminism in such a disgusted way is not because these people hate women but because they see the wrong people as the face of feminism making it a stereotype than the actual meaning of modern-day feminism (i.e. Those thirteen year-olds on Tumblr I keep mentioning). This could be viewed as the "modern feminism" but it is not the feminism that is bringing equality in society to both sexes.

[Tubbsalot]

And it's looked down on because there are a lot of people who interpret feminism to be about female supremacy solely because they both have "fem" in the name so obviously feminism has to be about women, duh.

Feminism was founded by women for women, I don't think men starting feminist movements would be looked upon favorably. Not to say that feminism is about female supremacy but it isn't something men should be organizing and running.

Don't be ridiculous. "You can't be a feminist, you're a man! How dare you agree with me and support my goals! Start being a misogynist immediately, only women can be feminists and obviously feminism isn't about destroying gender roles or anything so this makes perfect sense!"

That's an idiotic scenario, and it's essentially what you're proposing. I have never had anyone tell me I can't be a feminist.

Listen, if a lot of people are telling you that your OP sounded like you were saying something other than what you meant to say, that means you did not express your opinion very clearly (if you prefer that to "your OP was poorly written").

Quoted from the OP unedited:
In my opinion, the real reason that people view feminism in such a disgusted way is not because these people hate women but because they see the wrong people as the face of feminism making it a stereotype than the actual meaning of modern-day feminism (i.e. Those thirteen year-olds on Tumblr I keep mentioning). This could be viewed as the "modern feminism" but it is not the feminism that is bringing equality in society to both sexes.

It feels like you're actively trying to avoid getting the point.

Almost everyone in this thread has read your post and thought "wow, this guy really doesn't like feminism!" That's not because everyone hasn't read your post. It's because they did read it, and it sounds like you hate feminism. So be more careful with your wording next time.

[Dakini]

Listen, if a lot of people are telling you that your OP sounded like you were saying something other than what you meant to say, that means you did not express your opinion very clearly (if you prefer that to "your OP was poorly written").

Quoted from the OP unedited:

In my opinion, the real reason that people view feminism in such a disgusted way is not because these people hate women but because they see the wrong people as the face of feminism making it a stereotype than the actual meaning of modern-day feminism (i.e. Those thirteen year-olds on Tumblr I keep mentioning). This could be viewed as the "modern feminism" but it is not the feminism that is bringing equality in society to both sexes.

Which is all nice except that you started your OP with the following.

So over the course of many...many...many years, the definition of feminism has changed very...very...very much. I mean the dictionary hasn't changed but you know what I mean. Anyway, feminism has gone from housewives aspiring to be working wives or working women and not just someone's wife to irritating thirteen year-olds on Tumblr who make a big deal over everything thinking reblogs are going to save the world.

Due to think fabulous change, feminism has become the "new f word", so to speak. When someone hears the new f word, the picture that comes to their head is a fat, unshaven, bra burning, man hating, rape accusing, stomping lesbian or that thirteen year old on Tumblr I mention a little earlier which, in my opinion, is causing more drawbacks than progress in feminism.

In your first paragraph, you clearly state that feminism has changed from housewives to "irritating thirteen year olds" (by the way, many early feminists were not housewives, or even wives). You did not say that the stereotype or image of feminism changed, you said that feminism changed.

And then you went on to insult fat women, women who don't want to remove body hair or wear bras and lesbians in your next paragraph.

And then eventually, you got around to saying that these things are stereotypes that you do not believe to be true, but that this is why people don't like feminism.

[Basseemia]

Almost everyone in this thread has read your post and thought "wow, this guy girl really doesn't like feminism!" That's not because everyone hasn't read your post. It's because they did read it, and it sounds like you hate feminism. So be more careful with your wording next time.

Fixed that for ya.
I did not even say that I think that all feminists are radical and hate men. I said that was how a lot people view them.

[Dalcaria]

I think I'm on the same page as a lot of other people who dislike feminism (to a degree, not entirely) because it's been derailed from being women fighting for equal rights, to now women getting in your face and screaming about how they don't have equal right. Now the facts are that women today, even in the 1st world, are still not totally equal. Women in executive positions still get paid less than your average male executive worker. Clearly this is something that needs to change, and I think it's important as a society to discuss it.

That said, it is NOT important for some needlessly hostile feminist to get in people's faces screaming about "patriarchy", "misogyny ", or that men are "oppressing" women. Yes, in some cultures things like this still exist. In the first world however, you will find it has more to do with individuals in charge of businesses and such, not some "patriarchal" society. I mean just look at the UK, Canada, and most of Europe for a sec. Canada has had a female Prime Minister, as has the UK (plus they have the Queen, though she isn't elected), plus a few European countries (Germany comes to mind first) have had female leaders too. I believe there's even one African nation with a female leader right now, which left me awestruck frankly. That said, we don't need to scream about these things, we need to sit down like mature adults and talk this stuff over, because that's how you get things done properly, and because nobody is going to listen to someone screaming at them.

Plus, in all the time feminism has taken to address women's rights issues, I find they totally miss the other people suffering in society, or when they do talk about them, they don't have the whole story. Now, I don't expect feminists to take on all social justice issues as their own, but if they're going to try to, then maybe they should bother researching things a little better. Females do suffer a lot in this world, female children too, but males also suffer, especially male children. I won't go into details, but there was a Christian band that came to my town recently. Now, as is typical with these sorts of things, they had a special cause they wanted to promote, which I fully support, but I was mostly expecting something about impoverished children in Africa. Instead, they talked to us about the child sex slavery trade in Cambodia, and what I'm hearing from them and other sources is that females are NOT the primary victim of this inhuman trade, it's very close to a 50/50 split. Now, I get feminists may try and take on the cause of children sometimes, but feminism wasn't there for me as a victim of child abuse (not sexual to me though, but wow could that man hit hard and say some terrible things) and I don't see them being there for children now, and when they try to be they don't seem to truly grasp the situation in it's fullest.

So that all said, I'd rather feminists be feminists, or "humanists" (universalists maybe? Animals and mother nature could use some attention to) and address more issues in depth and stop trying to make it "a woman's fight". If we want equality and safety for everyone on Earth, then we need to start thinking as a species, not as separate genders, races, religions, etc.

[Basseemia]

Quoted from the OP unedited:

In my opinion, the real reason that people view feminism in such a disgusted way is not because these people hate women but because they see the wrong people as the face of feminism making it a stereotype than the actual meaning of modern-day feminism (i.e. Those thirteen year-olds on Tumblr I keep mentioning). This could be viewed as the "modern feminism" but it is not the feminism that is bringing equality in society to both sexes.

Which is all nice except that you started your OP with the following.

So over the course of many...many...many years, the definition of feminism has changed very...very...very much. I mean the dictionary hasn't changed but you know what I mean. Anyway, feminism has gone from housewives aspiring to be working wives or working women and not just someone's wife to irritating thirteen year-olds on Tumblr who make a big deal over everything thinking reblogs are going to save the world.

Due to think fabulous change, feminism has become the "new f word", so to speak. When someone hears the new f word, the picture that comes to their head is a fat, unshaven, bra burning, man hating, rape accusing, stomping lesbian or that thirteen year old on Tumblr I mention a little earlier which, in my opinion, is causing more drawbacks than progress in feminism.

In your first paragraph, you clearly state that feminism has changed from housewives to "irritating thirteen year olds" (by the way, many early feminists were not housewives, or even wives). You did not say that the stereotype or image of feminism changed, you said that feminism changed.

And then you went on to insult fat women, women who don't want to remove body hair or wear bras and lesbians in your next paragraph.

And then eventually, you got around to saying that these things are stereotypes that you do not believe to be true, but that this is why people don't like feminism.

I'm talking about what feminism actually is to how the face of feminism is actually a stereotype in my first paragraph.

Housewives are literally what started the feminist movement in the 1950's and 60's in America.

Notice the word "their" in front of "When someone hears the new f word, the picture that comes to their head is a fat, unshaven, bra burning, man hating, rape accusing, stomping lesbian..."? Yeah that means I'm talking about a group of people. I didn't say that's what I believe a feminist is.

I did not insult anyone.

Try to write an argument when you get over your selective reading.

[Tubbsalot]

Almost everyone in this thread has read your post and thought "wow, this guy girl really doesn't like feminism!" That's not because everyone hasn't read your post. It's because they did read it, and it sounds like you hate feminism. So be more careful with your wording next time.

Fixed that for ya.
I did not even say that I think that all feminists are radical and hate men. I said that was how a lot people view them.

Ah, ironically subverted by my habitual use of male-gendered language. Truly, societal prejudice makes fools of us all.

As for the second part, I think Dakini addressed that as well as I could hope.

[feminism has] been derailed from being women fighting for equal rights, to now women getting in your face and screaming about how they don't have equal right.

Well that's where you're wrong, I'm afraid.

[The Cobalt Sky]

Can we all agree true feminism is just wanting equal rights for women? No more, no less?

[Basseemia]

Fixed that for ya.
I did not even say that I think that all feminists are radical and hate men. I said that was how a lot people view them.

Ah, ironically subverted by my habitual use of male-gendered language. Truly, societal prejudice makes fools of us all.

As for the second part, I think Dakini addressed that as well as I could hope.

Notice the word "their" in front of "When someone hears the new f word, the picture that comes to their head is a fat, unshaven, bra burning, man hating, rape accusing, stomping lesbian..."? Yeah that means I'm talking about a group of people. I didn't say that's what I believe a feminist is.

I did not insult anyone.

Try to write an argument when you get over your selective reading.

[Dakini]

Oh, and by the way, people have been stereotyping feminists and putting feminism down since feminism was just getting off the ground.

For example, feel free to peruse some of the cartoons made in opposition of the suffragettes.

[Tubbsalot]

Try to write an argument when you get over your selective reading.

If you seriously can't see why so many people have reacted poorly to your post, even after all that explanation, I really don't know what to tell you.

Imagine if I spent three paragraphs talking about how the Jews were greedy money-loving bastards responsible for the downfall of civilised society, and how they should all be exterminated. And then put a line at the end saying "j/k lol, but what do you think of jews." Would that get me off the hook, in your mind? Would you think that was a good way to build a post?

[Dyakovo]

Yes, it's a dirty word. It's a dirty word because modern Feminism (by name) is the belief that women are superior to men. Have you seen the video where feminist assholes are yelling and screaming to interrupt a men's rights discussion at a university in the United States? It's ridiculous.

No, it isn't.

[Geilinor]

Try to write an argument when you get over your selective reading.

If you seriously can't see why so many people have reacted poorly to your post, even after all that explanation, I really don't know what to tell you.

Imagine if I spend three paragraphs talking about how the Jews were greedy money-loving bastards responsible for the downfall of civilised society, and how they should all be exterminated. And then put a line at the end saying "j/k lol, but what do you think of jews." Would that get me off the hook, in your mind? Would you think that was a good way to build a post?

Three paragraphs? The second paragraph says, "the picture that comes into their heads".

[Dakini]

Housewives are literally what started the feminist movement in the 1950's and 60's in America.

The feminist movement in America started way before the 1950s and 1960s.

[Basseemia]

Try to write an argument when you get over your selective reading.

If you seriously can't see why so many people have reacted poorly to your post, even after all that explanation, I really don't know what to tell you.

Imagine if I spend three paragraphs talking about how the Jews were greedy money-loving bastards responsible for the downfall of civilised society, and how they should all be exterminated. And then put a line at the end saying "j/k lol, but what do you think of jews." Would that get me off the hook, in your mind? Would you think that was a good way to build a post?

I have literally given as much explanation as possible as to what my thread is about. I have no idea what else to do. Nowhere in there did I say that I do not like all feminists.

[Dakini]

Try to write an argument when you get over your selective reading.

If you seriously can't see why so many people have reacted poorly to your post, even after all that explanation, I really don't know what to tell you.

Imagine if I spent three paragraphs talking about how the Jews were greedy money-loving bastards responsible for the downfall of civilised society, and how they should all be exterminated. And then put a line at the end saying "j/k lol, but what do you think of jews." Would that get me off the hook, in your mind? Would you think that was a good way to build a post?

It's funny too because I've seen Basseemia in other threads and didn't think she was an anti-feminist so the OP mostly just confused the fuck out of me.

[Basseemia]

Housewives are literally what started the feminist movement in the 1950's and 60's in America.

The feminist movement in America started way before the 1950s and 1960s.

The Suffrage movement and the Feminist movement were completely different.

The Suffrage movement was to change institutional laws. The Feminist movement was to change social rules.

[Basseemia]

If you seriously can't see why so many people have reacted poorly to your post, even after all that explanation, I really don't know what to tell you.

Imagine if I spent three paragraphs talking about how the Jews were greedy money-loving bastards responsible for the downfall of civilised society, and how they should all be exterminated. And then put a line at the end saying "j/k lol, but what do you think of jews." Would that get me off the hook, in your mind? Would you think that was a good way to build a post?

It's funny too because I've seen Basseemia in other threads and didn't think she was an anti-feminist so the OP mostly just confused the fuck out of me.

I am not a fucking anti-feminist.

Read all my posts.

[Geilinor]

The feminist movement in America started way before the 1950s and 1960s.

The Suffrage movement and the Feminist movement were completely different.

The Suffrage movement was to change institutional laws. The Feminist movement was to change social rules.

The suffrage movement was the first wave of feminism.

[Dakini]

The feminist movement in America started way before the 1950s and 1960s.

The Suffrage movement and the Feminist movement were completely different.

The Suffrage movement was to change institutional laws. The Feminist movement was to change social rules.

First wave feminists did not just fight for the right to vote and feminism still did not start with the second wave (nor has it ended there).

[Basseemia]

The Suffrage movement and the Feminist movement were completely different.

The Suffrage movement was to change institutional laws. The Feminist movement was to change social rules.

The suffrage movement was the first wave of feminism.

It's a looooooong explanation as to how they're different and I haven't blinked in over 3 minutes so for my health I am not going into it.

My inbox is open if anyone really is that curious to know.

[Degenerate Heart of HetRio]

Should I translate a huge text that indicates why I think your point was undue?

Yup. Let me pop some popcorn while I'm waiting.

http://www.geledes.org.br/o-racismo-inv ... z3K5FzL6q2

Reverse racist does indeed exist and should be fought.

Once again shall we talk about racism, but now about a sort of racism that happens with excessive frequency, that I'm even almost daily remember by this indeed tangible threat by fellow militants that personally know me. Yes, my friends, I will talk about REVERSE RACISM. This discrimination against white people from black person, this perverse racism that has always existed and that continues to add enormously lately, not just in our country, but in the whole world.

As a start, let me clarify: prejudice is that idea of something or someone that we have (in our mind and in our hearts) without even get to know them. Discrimination is the act of expose, expel, propagate the prejudiced idea, with absurd levels of hatred and ignorance, that makes us elaborate discourses with shallow reasoning, but full of offensive attack to something or someone. While racism, well, racism is something that we need to look at history so that we can explain it, but I should inform you that, according to my friends, only there is the racism of black people against white people.

Indeed, for me to work more this point, we should turn back in time a bit and see how all of this started so as to all of us manage to analyse wit calm the consequences of this tragic past that insists in contemporaneously harming us. I really wish you all to not be scared with the relates of the oppression as lived by the Caucasian people:

“It was the African continent's peoples that put a collective effort in an imperialist journey in the search of more land to conquer and more power. Their first stop was in the European continent. Yes, might you imagine, that as they looked upon a totally different culture, the Africans united themselves and made a way to make the European people believe they were of an inferior race, that they were cursed, that they did not have a soul and that they would need to work a lot for them to redeem their existences, but even with this 'hard work', they still couldn't get free from this so-called curse.

After convincing the Europeans, the Africans stole their land, their natural resources, enslaved them, separated their families, profited from slave work and didn't pay them a single nickel.

For centuries they used their land, exported their workforce to other continents also conquered by African leaders. They forced the Europeans to get out of their lands and to travel for days and days inside a vessel chamber without ventilation, dividing their space with rats and the ones to have already been dead that wouldn't survive such inhumanity.

They raped the women and forced them to work while pregnant. Killed, enslaved and sold their children. Wonder, you people, how heartless of a folk. What about letting them without the rights awarded to the common people for more than five centuries? How about to let the entire European population without a safe guide, forcing them in the future to abandon their homeland in the search of a better life in the African continent?

Summarizing this terrible account and taking it to modern day, we can then perceive that the continuous oppression even past the end of the European people's slavery. Most Caucasians live in the outskirts of the actual cities, often in shanty towns. When they go to schools, they tend to be of a low quality, not enough to reliably detach themselves from the fate common sense would imagine they'd follow. Young white people are killed by police forces in the more developed black-majority countries everyday. White people are watched over and followed by security personnel whenever they enter in stores with a typically middle and/or upper class consumer base. We don't commonly see white politicians even in countries where they are central to the national culture and history, and represent a relevant fraction of the population. On the TV, on billboards, in the fashion world, there is little if any representation of white people, that are only definitely visible as representing of their black-majority home countries through the sporting world, but, even so, they still suffer prejudice. But they are still defended by some black people who launch awareness campaigns such as #stop talking about racism or #we are all polar bears (this is a long story more related to Brazil's race relations, but I think you can get the gist).

As if that wasn't enough, white people have to swallow black humorists that abuse of stereotypes to take a jab over them. "They just don't know how to dance", says Babalu Gentiki. "They become red when they are ashamed", says with loud guffaws Ko Joases. Oh, about beauty standards? I was already forgetting about them. For years black people humiliated and laughed over white people, what made them to hate their bodies, their facial traits, their skin color. In this beauty standard it is expected that "acceptable" white women curl their hair, have naturally wide or widen their noses, and use various techniques to make their lips fuller. Their men fully shave their head hear, for it is laughable according to common gender roles to try to curl them (after all, women are the ones most supposed to show themselves respectable through appearance).

There is a group of Caucasians that are self-professed justice-seeking egalitarians, but actually only want to seek privileges to this lazy people that doesn't want anything to do with finding a real job. They ask for affirmative action in Universities, more representation, equality and respect. Something related to an equality statute in some laws... but nobody cares about any of that."


We actually know that indeed happened and still happens, but the characters are inverted. If all of that had indeed happened with Europeans, would then make sense for us to believe that what we now brand "reverse racism" indeed is real. But I feel so much for disappoint you and say that this title is a fallacy. It exists and is visibly permanent, in Brazil and elsewhere, an attempt of showing the oppressed in the light of actually an oppressor group to the majority.

To finish and avoid any possible confusion in text interpretation I use this citation from Fran Vasconcelos that I believe to have a very important function in the understand of what is racism and how it inserts itself in a social context:

"Racism is a system with material and historical senses, it is not subjective. It is a manner of social organization in which a 'race' is hierarchically above another, affirms itself as the paradigm of human existence, naturalizes itself as the rule and oppresses all the others [as unnatural]. Racism is not a subjective, individual attitude, it just is manifested through agents in the form of common people. It is structured and added within the frames of society, in the manners in which this society organizes and perpetuates itself, in the job market, in the media, among the victims of violence, among the prison system members, among the poor in the whole world, as a relationship between those who detain private property and means of production and those who do not."

-

Could you then draw a parallel to discussions of feminism that solely center around how supposedly bad and victimizing it is as a movement only relevant for how it puts the huge threat to human condition that is misandry into practice, such misandry defined through defining men as a privileged and indeed structurally oppressive societal group and social construct?

[Dyakovo]

The feminist movement in America started way before the 1950s and 1960s.

The Suffrage movement and the Feminist movement were completely different.

Wrong.

[Geilinor]

The suffrage movement was the first wave of feminism.

It's a looooooong explanation as to how they're different and I haven't blinked in over 3 minutes so for my health I am not going into it.

You're the only person who considers them different.