posted April 03, 2013 05:41 PM            

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Originally posted by AcousticGod:
What? I find that hard to believe.

I have to say, I haven't finished reading this thread, but Aquaguy does have a point. I see it a little differently than he does, but it's there nonetheless. I have myself pointed out the sexism against men many times in my life.

It was asked which rights do men have that women don't, and the answer was none.

What strikes me sometimes is all of the gender-specific services and products there are, and how most of them are geared towards women. I don't know that men are so intensely concerned with the promotion of their gender to the exclusion of the opposite gender.

Women are often claiming superiority. Hard to deny that. From thinking that they're smarter to thinking that they're better multi-taskers, there's no shortage of gender-based pride. Sometimes I think about how we might have (or have had) multiple lives, and chances are we were different genders in those lives. If you believe in reincarnation, there shouldn't be this gender bias. You probably spent time as a man as well as a woman. Why should you spend time in one gender pumping it up, when in the other lives as the other gender you just accept your gender and move on? Or do you think that your gender pride follows you through these lives making you a feminist in one, and an anti-feminist in another?

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posted April 03, 2013 07:23 PM            

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Originally posted by AcousticGod:
What strikes me sometimes is all of the gender-specific services and products there are, and how most of them are geared towards women. I don't know that men are so intensely concerned with the promotion of their gender to the exclusion of the opposite gender.

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Gender specific products are necessary because men are the default model and that doesn't appeal to all women, so there is a market, just as there is for those who aren't average in size, are left-handed, or who are a minority in some way. Of course some of it is garbage just trying for a niche market which is often rightly mocked, like making pens for women that are pink (and I'm also finding it morbidly fascinating to watch the fashion industry now go after men, and succeeding, as it was to read about how the cigarette industry successfully expanded themselves to women). As for services that's also because of unusual needs, and many will help men who come to them, and even when they don't they have a reason for it (like some abuse shelters won't let men in under any circumstances because too many violent men have bluffed their way in that way before to get at someone who was supposed to be safe).

I'm not saying that's the case at all times, but it often is. Just to be fair I'll share how Mom gained the help of a feminist legal group during a divorce (after a male lawyer screwed my mom literally & figuratively, and I gotta say I'm glad the feminist legal group Mom got help from with gave him hell over that at least), but they got her to file a useless restraining order (and probably unnecessary, though filing it certainly provoked Dad) and I think they HOPED Mom would be killed (and me getting killed would be bonus in their book) as they could use it in their stats of violence against women as part of their political battle, though I can't truly say for certain that was the case. But part of why I see them as diabolic rather than well-meaning reckless was they tried to get me to lie about Dad on the stand. My Libra asserted itself and said I'd point out the TRUTH of how bad Dad could be, but also Mom as well who was far from blameless (and she was more abusive of me than Dad, and I told them that point blank), and furthermore I didn't want to live with Mom I wanted to live with Granny (which would spoil Mom's welfare and child support judgment about to be made), so instead they assigned an "advocate" to lie "on my behalf" to say the things I refused to say for them and lie about me wanting to live with Mom, and Mom gained full custody as a result of those willful lies (and knowingly placing me in an abusive sitch because I guess it's ok for a little girl to be abused & neglected as long as it's the mother doing the abuse, but again I suspect they hoped Dad would kill us both when he heard the judgment or soon after).

Dad was so screwed over (though I think I was screwed over even worse) that I don't even blame him in retrospect for the violence he attempted and at least one murder attempt (where he sabotaged Mom's brakes after she won his beloved Camaro, and I was in the car with her when the brakes finally gave out on the highway), though I should point out that the cops didn't really care (according to Dad a detective only questioned him briefly over the brake pad and never contacted him again, and they never arrested him for violating the restraining order even when neighbors called in reporting he was trying to kill Mom and the cops took so long to show up that he'd been gone several minutes while Mom was hid by a neighbor and I hid under my bed terrified Dad would return learning a valuable lesson on how much a restraining order is worth) so it's not like he didn't have some advantages of his own. Had the brake job worked I think he'd have gotten away with killing us, too, not just merely allowed to do it before prosecuting. Everyone has their perks and flaws to deal with.

Nevertheless, there are bad apples everywhere. Doctors facilitating the black market drugs or letting someone die to harvest the organs (as has been known to happen) doesn't mean that all doctors are therefore evil or that we should do away with the medical profession. 'Course vigilance is always warranted, but careful about not entering into "treat them all as guilty" territory.

quote:

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Originally posted by AcousticGod:
Women are often claiming superiority. Hard to deny that. From thinking that they're smarter to thinking that they're better multi-taskers, there's no shortage of gender-based pride. Sometimes I think about how we might have (or have had) multiple lives, and chances are we were different genders in those lives. If you believe in reincarnation, there shouldn't be this gender bias. You probably spent time as a man as well as a woman. Why should you spend time in one gender pumping it up, when in the other lives as the other gender you just accept your gender and move on? Or do you think that your gender pride follows you through these lives making you a feminist in one, and an anti-feminist in another?

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Reincarnation is irrelevant because if women & men are better at different things then that's based on the body...one doesn't carry over "intelligence" from one body to the next, just like someone who is brain damaged doesn't retained previous intelligence. The brain is just another part of the body as the muscle.

Claiming women are better multitaskers isn't claiming superiority, because men can still be better at other things. Furthermore, these are usually intended as general (as opposed to universal) statements. I personally believe that women are better than men in SOME ways, but that men are better than women at OTHER things...generally speaking of course, with exceptions both ways. And that negates the "superiority" angle that you're trying to impose. It's no more about "gender superiority" than pointing out how musical talent runs in one family means they're superior to the rest of us (nor is it a claim that it would be impossible from a family not so talented to produce a member who could outperform them).

Finally, feminism isn't based on gender...plenty of men claim to be feminists and plenty of women claim not to be. There are also different kinds of feminism, some of it rabid, some of it truly about equality, some of it claiming there is only socially-created gender differences (these types typically hate transgendered folk) while others accept evolutionary psychology, some that are suspicious of men (a few who see themselves as "at war") and other types that actively recruit men as natural allies. Likewise, I do not believe that the bizarre example AG pointed to in Sweden is truly "Swedish feminism," though I have no problem believing someone is really doing that...and MIGHT even be a sincere feminist in doing so, but even then that doesn't define feminism, not even in Sweden.

For it to be damning of feminism it would need a lot more popular support, including of the actual organizations. For example, one deserved black mark on feminism in general is their part in the Satanic Panics. Though I think that was mostly the Christian Right who got help from shock talk show hosts (like Geraldo Rivera) AND some snake oil being peddled by the psychiatric industry (before they became drug pushers), mainstream feminism (that includes the National Organization of Women, Ms. magazine, etc, and thus not just some whack job or radical organization) also pushed it with a "believe the children (no matter how leading the questions are)" thing with an emphasis (on their part) of sexual abuse. Of course in retrospect we can see how many innocents suffered (including children sexually abused by government assigned doctors conducting cruel tests to confirm such abuse, including sticking in painful instruments and taking graphic pix of them that they didn't want taken for law enforcement and juries, in addition to their families being destroyed over a moral panic) for greed and political ambitions, and the mainstream feminists are just as filthy as others, but of course the factions (and major politicians involved, including Al Gore) want us to forget it ever happened as they remain as selfish as they ever were and don't want us to ever speak of it again, let alone learn from it in the hopes that such a hysteria is never repeated.

posted April 03, 2013 07:52 PM            

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Originally posted by aquaguy91:
^but you forgot to mention it is politically incorrect when a study finds that men are better at something. You see articles and studies popping up all the time saying women are better at this or women are better at that but you never see articles or studies saying men are better at something. Just yesterday I saw an article talking about a study proving that women are better corporate business leaders. If society is trying to reach equality why is it that society constantly tries to pump women up amd put men down?

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Only if you look real carefully and ignore other parts. For example, plenty of books by women point out just how nasty females are to other females.

posted April 03, 2013 08:09 PM            

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aquaguy91: You see articles and studies popping up all the time saying women are better at this or women are better at that but you never see articles or studies saying men are better at something

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posted April 03, 2013 09:17 PM            

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Originally posted by aquaguy91:
Just yesterday I saw an article talking about a study proving that women are better corporate business leaders. If society is trying to reach equality why is it that society constantly tries to pump women up amd put men down?

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Perhaps the article was pointing out the absurdity of the fact that women are severely underrepresented in the corporate world, even though we have the qualities of great leaders: "Barton further explained that at the entry-level, 53 percent of new hires are women. However, their participation rate steadily decrease as one ascends the corporate ladder -- 37 percent in lower-middle management; 28 percent at the vice-presidency level; then only 14 percent at the executive committee; then finally only a pitiful 3 percent at the highest echelons of corporate America."
http://www.ibtimes.com/why-are-more-women-men-going-college-213255

posted April 03, 2013 11:04 PM            

Yes the emphasis looks skewed toward women right now but it comes after decades of being relegated to the "little woman" stereotype that comes from god knows where.

It wasn't brute strength that was required of women and children in the sweatshops of the garment industry that led to our current labour laws. It wasn't the soldiers who defended the home front, say, in europe when the men were off at war.

The fact is feminism WAS about choice..to not be expected to raise children and run the house if that was notwhat fired you up.

posted April 03, 2013 11:12 PM            

When i chose to be a musician and worked with other women it was called a "publicity stunt" and when we chose not to push the Feminist trip we were called "bored housewives".

posted April 04, 2013 06:32 AM            

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aquaguy91: so why do we keep hearing the "oppressed women" narrative? everybody had it hard back in the day.

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posted April 04, 2013 11:14 AM            

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" Some define good as that which preserves, and evil as that which destroys; but destruction can be cleansing and purifying, for there is such a thing in both men and races as spiritual constipation, which comes from too much preservation of the status quo." ( Dion Fortune )

posted April 04, 2013 12:10 PM            

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Originally posted by aquaguy91:
sorry,the whole narrative of opressed women is completely false.

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What you described about the division of labor has nothing to do with oppression.

Oppression is when, for instance, a woman has ability and is forbidden (by men) from using that ability. To deprive women of the right to vote is oppressive. To demand women reproduce (as the churches have) and preventing them from speaking (as the churches have) is oppressive.

The list goes on, especially in other countries where women were valued as worth less than cattle.

posted April 04, 2013 12:15 PM            

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Originally posted by katatonic:

When i chose to be a musician and worked with other women it was called a "publicity stunt" and when we chose not to push the Feminist trip we were called "bored housewives".

So you, and men, are not alone in being picked on!

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I know

It's true~ women can't win. Especially if we have kids!!!

Leave your kids in daycare to go to work? You are a heartless wench.

Stay home with them? You are an idiot, lazy, refusing to pull your own weight.

I can't count how many well-meaning people have tried to counsel me into how I could make money. Like, I am not a real human without an income, even though I am taking care of my five kids.

quote:

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Originally posted by katatonic:
So you, and men, are not alone in being picked on!

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posted April 04, 2013 03:03 PM            

The thing that concerns me about ag is that his views are based on ignorance. He lacks knowledge and appreciation for what women have gone through, and still go through, and instead focuses on extreme feminist groups (who do not represent the average woman) to affirm his opinions. Like, the last post he made was pretty ignorant, and you and other members corrected him. Sadly, I know so many men who share his views. After I saw the reaction to the Steubenville rape case (i.e. the unconscious drunk girl 'was asking for it', and the 2 rapists were the 'victims'), I realized how backwards society still is. It makes me think we're nowhere close to gender equality