The NationStates Feminist Thread

[Threlizdun]

No, when one in four women are sexually assaulted you don't get to just say assholes are everywhere. When half of all trans women are sexually assaulted, you don't get to say assholes are everywhere. I'm a statistic. I was sexually assaulted and they explained to me while violating me that it was because I didn't uphold the expected standards of femininity. When that shit happens, you don't get to just shrug it off and say that it's no big deal. If you want to tell me to go fuck myself then that is fine, but don't you dare sit hear and say that I shouldn't be concerned about a social phenomenon that I've been a victim of.

I don't recall ever saying anything negative towards you...

Last I checked, I brought up a fact of life, assholes, jerks, twats, fuckwits, cancer, shitstrains, etc...whatever insult you want exist.

They will always exist, even in a utopia, it doesn't make your experience any less shit, because so long as there is free will, there will be bad people who do bad things.

But regardless of your experience, the situation in the western world is still far better than the middle east, you are a statistic, you make this claim yourself.

But that doesn't negate that everyone is a statistic in one way or another.

And despite your experiences, which I do have sympathy towards you for surviving, I have to question how those static's were made, because any chart or stat is rough, and can vary from institution to institution.

Regardless, the western world is a whole lot better than the Middle East, but that doesn't stop bad things from happening.

I'm sorry for what happened for you, and you're clearly not comfortable right now, you should probably take a break to cool down, I know it helps me when I'm upset, so maybe taking some time will help you too.

You dismissed what happened out of hand as just an individual problem rather than a social problem. You said before that the West doesn't need feminism anymore. I offered a widespread horror the West still faces that feminism directly concerns itself with addressing. You ignored it, opting as so many others have to argue that because the situation is worse elsewhere we shouldn't concern ourselves with the problems here.

[Russels Orbiting Teapot]

Touché. Well played, sir, er, ma'am. Cheers.

As I mentioned in one of the first posts in this thread, I am male.

[Nazi Flower Power]

The farther away I get from the west the more I tend to be in favor of feminism. Here in the United States I tend to favor it in the extremely conservative and fundamentalist parts of the nation - namely the midwest and south - and abroad I favor it in areas like the Middle East.

Yeah, the South is another problem...

Its likely no where as bad as people make it out to be, anyone who understands perception understands the Human mind overblows everything negative.

Its a survival instinct, so while the South is largely a problem in many ways, its still far better than the Middle East, which is just a nightmare I mean really...

Then again thats based off info I remember years ago, so I should look back into the situation once more to see if things improved in anyway.

There are sexists in the North too. There are some places where feminism is needed more to defend the rights we already have rather than to go on a crusade for massive changes, but it is still needed.

[Arumdaum]

The farther away I get from the west the more I tend to be in favor of feminism. Here in the United States I tend to favor it in the extremely conservative and fundamentalist parts of the nation - namely the midwest and south - and abroad I favor it in areas like the Middle East.

Yeah, the South is another problem...

Its likely no where as bad as people make it out to be, anyone who understands perception understands the Human mind overblows everything negative.

Its a survival instinct, so while the South is largely a problem in many ways, its still far better than the Middle East, which is just a nightmare I mean really...

Then again thats based off info I remember years ago, so I should look back into the situation once more to see if things improved in anyway.

Saying that things aren't really that bad because a situation somewhere else is worse doesn't really justify the original situation. There are still large problems to be addressed even in places such as the US Northeast and West Coast.

Comparing a situation to something worse only serves to trivialize real issues which women have.

[Pan-Dymaxis]

I think the male inventors of the vacuum cleaner, dishwasher, laundry machines, and microwave oven deserve credit for making feminism possible.

Oh you laughed. I'll go burn my own fish sticks now.

You're a few decades late.

And these rug-burns on my knuckles just hurt like a fatherfucker.

Levity, y'all.

[-The Unified Earth Governments-]

I don't recall ever saying anything negative towards you...

Last I checked, I brought up a fact of life, assholes, jerks, twats, fuckwits, cancer, shitstrains, etc...whatever insult you want exist.

They will always exist, even in a utopia, it doesn't make your experience any less shit, because so long as there is free will, there will be bad people who do bad things.

But regardless of your experience, the situation in the western world is still far better than the middle east, you are a statistic, you make this claim yourself.

But that doesn't negate that everyone is a statistic in one way or another.

And despite your experiences, which I do have sympathy towards you for surviving, I have to question how those static's were made, because any chart or stat is rough, and can vary from institution to institution.

Regardless, the western world is a whole lot better than the Middle East, but that doesn't stop bad things from happening.

I'm sorry for what happened for you, and you're clearly not comfortable right now, you should probably take a break to cool down, I know it helps me when I'm upset, so maybe taking some time will help you too.

You dismissed what happened out of hand as just an individual problem rather than a social problem. You said before that the West doesn't need feminism anymore. I offered a widespread horror the West still faces that feminism directly concerns itself with addressing. You ignored it, opting as so many others have to argue that because the situation is worse elsewhere we shouldn't concern ourselves with the problems here.

I stated earlier that the goal is impossible to attain, goals such as fair pay, rights to vote, right to wear whatever they want, etc have been reached.

And the only thing I can point at in the West that needs to be fixed yet is the abortion issue.

You can't fix crime, bad people exist.

You only treat it, and respond.

We teach our children that stuff like murder, theft, assault, and rape are wrong (Well...anyone who is worth a damn as a parent does teach a child this.) Society understands this, our culture make sit clear that we treat the issue seriously.

Such as Stubenville, when that whole shit fan went down I remember dozens of people getting ready for a damn riot after that, especially the justified hate towards the people trying to back the rapist, all because of football.

But even that place is a statistic of negativity, in a much more positive ocean.

The idea that the world can be turned into a nice shine of brightness is impossible, we have a lot to do, I know that.

But I am not an expert, as far as I can do, I'd at least suggest we finally find a way to fix our minority communities, because they don't get a ton of benefits due to the history of this country.

Yeah, the South is another problem...

Its likely no where as bad as people make it out to be, anyone who understands perception understands the Human mind overblows everything negative.

Its a survival instinct, so while the South is largely a problem in many ways, its still far better than the Middle East, which is just a nightmare I mean really...

Then again thats based off info I remember years ago, so I should look back into the situation once more to see if things improved in anyway.

There are sexists in the North too. There are some places where feminism is needed more to defend the rights we already have rather than to go on a crusade for massive changes, but it is still needed.

I'd rather go on a crusade myself, got to get my stuff in check and since the Vatican is lazy sitting on my ass I can ride a Feminist Crusade to the Middle East as an excuse.

[Dakini]

But regardless of your experience, the situation in the western world is still far better than the middle east, you are a statistic, you make this claim yourself.

The fact that women in much of the developed world have it better than women in many other places doesn't mean that there's no need for feminism in the parts of the world where women have it relatively good. There are still a large number of issues and they definitely vary from place to place and it's also all kinds of fucked up for people from North America or Europe to act like they have all the answers for women elsewhere because really, every region or country (and often different parts of particular countries) have their own unique problems and jumping in over the heads of the people who are from these places and have a better understanding of these problems is pretty shitty.

That doesn't mean that we can't support people who are working toward gender equality in other countries, but our roles abroad should generally be limited to just that (supporting local groups).

I mean, as you (or someone else who said that women in the west have it so good) mentioned, there are definitely obvious issues in Western, highly developed nations such as access to birth control and abortions, but that also extends to health care in general (which isn't strictly an issue just for women, but since men are generally not capable of becoming pregnant, women generally have greater need for health care at certain times in their lives) and issues like sexual education (because it's mostly women or teenage girls who end up bearing the bulk of the work from accidental pregnancies). Of course many of these issues are also tied up with issues of class and race (e.g. poor women generally have worse access to health care, birth control and sexual education than richer women) and these issues also have some affect on men as well (e.g. poor sexual education and limited access to birth control leads to more sexually transmitted diseases and early fatherhood, which are obviously not desirable for many young men).

There are also many other issues, such as women's underrepresentation in media or in many careers (an issue which also affects men entering different careers) or even issues like pretending that women are weak and frail and incapable of doing certain tasks (or, for example, harming men in relationships).

So yes. Things are better than other places. They're definitely far from perfect, however.

[Russels Orbiting Teapot]

There are sexists in the North too. There are some places where feminism is needed more to defend the rights we already have rather than to go on a crusade for massive changes, but it is still needed.

That brings up something that I think feminists need to be wary of.

Many groups, once they have achieved a fair degree of success, seem to reinvent themselves in a more radical direction in order to stay relevant. For instance, Mothers Against Drunk Driving has gotten more and more fringe since it achieved it's initial goal of getting strict DUI laws in place across the nation, and raising the drinking age to 21. Now MADD holds a number of more extreme viewpoints, like criminally prosecuting parents who would serve their 20 year old child a glass of wine with dinner.

I worry that as more and more of western society reorganizes itself to meet the demands of mainstream feminism, the movement will trend more to the fringe in an attempt to keep relevant, and end up undermining itself.

[Risottia]

Weird test. Quite biased towards American issues and sensibilities.

Liberal feminist 48
Women of Color 35
Socialist feminist 25
Radical feminist 18
Cultural feminist 16
Conservative 14

Then again, my personal variant of feminism is just the consequence of my despise for idiocy and inequality.

[Dakini]

I think the male inventors of the vacuum cleaner, dishwasher, laundry machines, and microwave oven deserve credit for making feminism possible.

Feminism started before all of those were invented. Also, the first reliable and commercially successful dishwasher was invented by a woman.

Oh you laughed. I'll go burn my own fish sticks now.

No. Your "joke" sucked.

[-The Unified Earth Governments-]

There are sexists in the North too. There are some places where feminism is needed more to defend the rights we already have rather than to go on a crusade for massive changes, but it is still needed.

That brings up something that I think feminists need to be wary of.

Many groups, once they have achieved a fair degree of success, seem to reinvent themselves in a more radical direction in order to stay relevant. For instance, Mothers Against Drunk Driving has gotten more and more fringe since it achieved it's initial goal of getting strict DUI laws in place across the nation, and raising the drinking age to 21. Now MADD holds a number of more extreme viewpoints, like criminally prosecuting parents who would serve their 20 year old child a glass of wine with dinner.

I worry that as more and more of western society reorganizes itself to meet the demands of mainstream feminism, the movement will trend more to the fringe in an attempt to keep relevant, and end up undermining itself.

Its an issue any group faces, Humans are a tribal species.

[Val Halla]

Liberal Feminist. 48
Cultural feminist 40
Women of Colour 38
Socialist feminist 36
Radical feminist 32
Conservative 17

I think this makes sense. I am not an active feminist (I'm only actively LGTBQ+), but I understand and agree with the results.

[The Blaatschapen]

Perspective Score
Liberal feminist 47
Women of Color 32
Radical feminist 17
Conservative 14
Cultural feminist 14
Socialist feminist 9

Though the test is biased towards American issues and sensibilities.

[Nazi Flower Power]

I occasionally feel uncomfortable calling myself a feminist, not because I view the term negatively (I view someone being a feminist as a very positive thing), but rather because there times when I feel that it's not appropriate for me to call myself as a feminist as a male and someone unable to fully comprehend the struggles of women.

imo, you don't have to be a woman to be a feminist.

I agree with this. I usually see it as a welcome show of solidarity if a guy calls himself a feminist.

[-The Unified Earth Governments-]

Weird test. Quite biased towards American issues and sensibilities.

Liberal feminist 48
Women of Color 35
Socialist feminist 25
Radical feminist 18
Cultural feminist 16
Conservative 14

Then again, my personal variant of feminism is just the consequence of my despise for idiocy and inequality.

Most test are now that I think about it.

[Kumuri]

As a Marxist and also a woman I do find myself sympathetic to Marxist feminism. However, I rarely engage in feminist discussions online since they usually just degrade into people whining about "misandry" and such.

I feel the same way, although I'm not sure if I count as a "Marxist."

[Kumuri]

imo, you don't have to be a woman to be a feminist.

I agree with this. I usually see it as a welcome show of solidarity if a guy calls himself a feminist.

sorry for double post but

I find men wanting to become feminists a welcome break from all the "men's-rights-but-does-nothing-to-actually-sole-problems-facing-men-and-instead-just-hates-feminists" bullshit.

[Herrebrugh]

Take gamergate for an example. It started off about gaming media being shitty, and then turned into an argument over white male dominance in gaming. Eventually, both of these perfectly legitimate causes were lost and it just became a fucking shit-flinging match which created enemies rather than solved problems. What makes it even worse is that both sides were/are different sides to the same coin.

I'm pretty sure it started with some guy printing a bunch of lies about his ex which resulted in a whole barrage of harassment and stalking, but there's a different thread for that and it's pretty much bullshit anyway. Suffice to say both sides are not different sides of the same coin.

Why the hell didn't I hear anything about this? I only heard something vague about Sarkeesian (whose clip I had seen on Youtube), but hardly anything specific. I can't believe I almost entirely missed something this big...

In any case, I do consider myself a feminist simply because I support equality for men and women. I don't particularly read a lot about the feminist movement, though; I like to watch the occasional clip (like the one mentioned above).

EDIT:

Apparently I have been living under a rock for the past few weeks...

Somehow I forgot about it... Even worse :/

[Hirota]

Liberal feminist 38
Women of Color 34
Conservative 25
Cultural feminist 18
Radical feminist 16
Socialist feminist 14

Why the hell didn't I hear anything about this? I only heard something vague about Sarkeesian (whose clip I had seen on Youtube), but hardly anything specific. I can't believe I almost entirely missed something this big...

I'd be happy to try and explain it in the gamergate thread. Or alternatively you can look in my sig.

But honestly, lets not hijack this thread further.

[The Huskar Social Union]

This is what i got in the test:

Perspective Score
Liberal feminist 45
Socialist feminist 42
Women of Color 41
Radical feminist 38
Cultural feminist 32
Conservative 16

I'd say its pretty spot on, though ive always seen myself as more of a socialist Feminist than a Liberal one, but both fit very strongly into my views so doesn't bother me that much.

[-The Unified Earth Governments-]

I'm pretty sure it started with some guy printing a bunch of lies about his ex which resulted in a whole barrage of harassment and stalking, but there's a different thread for that and it's pretty much bullshit anyway. Suffice to say both sides are not different sides of the same coin.

Why the hell didn't I hear anything about this? I only heard something vague about Sarkeesian (whose clip I had seen on Youtube), but hardly anything specific. I can't believe I almost entirely missed something this big...

In any case, I do consider myself a feminist simply because I support equality for men and women. I don't particularly read a lot about the feminist movement, though; I like to watch the occasional clip (like the one mentioned above).

The Gamergate thing...

Its complicated, last I check its ambiguous on whether or not that guy did anything or not in regards to lies, I honestly don't know. But that was the Five Guys, Burgers and fries incident, which questioned if Zoe was in collusion with journalist for high ratings...

Honestly that was the catalyst...anyways it eventually resulted in the release of the journo list, and all the gamers are dead articles, and it pissed of a lot of gamers, and then SJW's were being annoying, and third party trolls got involved.

Some GG guy went nuts and accused several people in GG of trying to ruin him or whatever.

Most of the major Gamergate people that actually are proven to be sane (Because its a fucking has tag movement on twitter I can't tell if its overall sane or whatever.) are on about ethics...well...

An ally, TB is about ethics, the others are but it has turned into a larger cultural war that no one is gonna win because its mostly taking place on twitter and it attached third part trolls and now everything is shit...

And here I am just wanting to play games.

Really it didn't have to be a thing, but history repeats itself and we have ourselves a culture war in the vain of a world war's structure.

Like I could go on talking shit about anti gamergate, gamergate and the third party trolls for hours on end.

And then there was that stupid sock puppet thing with that fat guy, I don't remember his name but he pissed off Not your shield.

Just...please trust me on this, as a space battler to someone who...likely isn't.

Just leave it be, don't get involved, both sides are prone to accidents, it just...stay away if you have twitter, or facebook, or a reddit or tumblr.

Just wait until everyone just calms down.

Trust me, you're not involved right now, stay that way...

[Dakini]

I'm pretty sure it started with some guy printing a bunch of lies about his ex which resulted in a whole barrage of harassment and stalking, but there's a different thread for that and it's pretty much bullshit anyway. Suffice to say both sides are not different sides of the same coin.

Why the hell didn't I hear anything about this? I only heard something vague about Sarkeesian (whose clip I had seen on Youtube), but hardly anything specific. I can't believe I almost entirely missed something this big...

The ongoing harassment of Sarkeesian predates Gamergate, but you should consider yourself lucky to have missed it all. You're really better off avoiding it as much as possible.

[Herrebrugh]

Why the hell didn't I hear anything about this? I only heard something vague about Sarkeesian (whose clip I had seen on Youtube), but hardly anything specific. I can't believe I almost entirely missed something this big...

In any case, I do consider myself a feminist simply because I support equality for men and women. I don't particularly read a lot about the feminist movement, though; I like to watch the occasional clip (like the one mentioned above).

The Gamergate thing...

Its complicated, last I check its ambiguous on whether or not that guy did anything or not in regards to lies, I honestly don't know. But that was the Five Guys, Burgers and fries incident, which questioned if Zoe was in collusion with journalist for high ratings...

Honestly that was the catalyst...anyways it eventually resulted in the release of the journo list, and all the gamers are dead articles, and it pissed of a lot of gamers, and then SJW's were being annoying, and third party trolls got involved.

Some GG guy went nuts and accused several people in GG of trying to ruin him or whatever.

Most of the major Gamergate people that actually are proven to be sane (Because its a fucking has tag movement on twitter I can't tell if its overall sane or whatever.) are on about ethics...well...

An ally, TB is about ethics, the others are but it has turned into a larger cultural war that no one is gonna win because its mostly taking place on twitter and it attached third part trolls and now everything is shit...

And here I am just wanting to play games.

Really it didn't have to be a thing, but history repeats itself and we have ourselves a culture war in the vain of a world war's structure.

Like I could go on talking shit about anti gamergate, gamergate and the third party trolls for hours on end.

And then there was that stupid sock puppet thing with that fat guy, I don't remember his name but he pissed off Not your shield.

Just...please trust me on this, as a space battler to someone who...likely isn't.

Just leave it be, don't get involved, both sides are prone to accidents, it just...stay away if you have twitter, or facebook, or a reddit or tumblr.

Just wait until everyone just calms down.

Trust me, you're not involved right now, stay that way...

This sounds... Odd... And a bit scary. But I don't have twitter, or facebook, or a reddit or tumblr so I guess there's not much for me to worry about.

Why the hell didn't I hear anything about this? I only heard something vague about Sarkeesian (whose clip I had seen on Youtube), but hardly anything specific. I can't believe I almost entirely missed something this big...

The ongoing harassment of Sarkeesian predates Gamergate, but you should consider yourself lucky to have missed it all. You're really better off avoiding it as much as possible.

So I've heard...

[Kumuri]

Socialist feminist 50
Women of Color 46
Radical feminist 42
Liberal feminist 37
Cultural feminist 21
Conservative 12

So what is the scale? Is it out of 50, or 60?

[Dakini]

Socialist feminist 50
Women of Color 46
Radical feminist 42
Liberal feminist 37
Cultural feminist 21
Conservative 12

So what is the scale? Is it out of 50, or 60?

Since nobody seems to have surpassed 50, I'm guessing it's 50.