Forums / Discussion / Serious Debate

In my perspective it's not. The term is just wrong (and quite frankly a disgusting sounding word. By working for the equality of both genders, you are not a feminist to me. To me if you fight against Abuse of stereotypes on gender roles, issues on rape, abuse, slander and harassment based on one’s gender, that doesn't make you a feminist but something else entirely. Something far better. A feminist to me would believe that if you somehow fix the issues for women, that makes both genders equal. Just because you focus on women's issues first doesn't make you a feminist to me, that means your tackling a feminist issue. Feminist means you work to tackle the issues of women, which is good, but that isn't overall equality. I'd rather not be called what I think is a grossly misused term such as that even if the desired outcome is the same. Logically I don't see how feminism came to mean what I think people mean. It's comprised of feminine, which is about women, yet the goal is equality between both sexes. Equal isn't the core part of the word itself. Fundamentally either the word is flawed, misused or illogical.

In my perspective it’s not. The term is just wrong (and quite frankly a disgusting sounding word. By working for the equality of both genders, you are not a feminist to me. To me if you fight against Abuse of stereotypes on gender roles, issues on rape, abuse, slander and harassment based on one’s gender, that doesn’t make you a feminist but something else entirely. Something far better. A feminist to me would believe that if you somehow fix the issues for women, that makes both genders equal. Just because you focus on women’s issues first doesn’t make you a feminist to me, that means your tackling a feminist issue. Feminist means you work to tackle the issues of women, which is good, but that isn’t overall equality. I’d rather not be called what I think is a grossly misused term such as that even if the desired outcome is the same. Logically I don’t see how feminism came to mean what I think people mean. It’s comprised of feminine, which is about women, yet the goal is equality between both sexes. Equal isn’t the core part of the word itself. Fundamentally either the word is flawed, misused or illogical.

In that case you're choosing to define the word feminist in such a way that the vast majority of people who identify as feminists wouldn't be feminists. That makes your definition pretty useless, tbh.

People can call it whatever they want, I really don't care, but to say someone is wrong for thinking feminism = gender equality is silly to me. I think going by literal definitions is the wrong way to go about this. Words change their meaning constantly and their connotations change with it. Remember when people used "gay" and "queer" in contexts that had nothing to do with sexuality? Feminism used to be 100% about women's rights/issues and as time went on they started to focus on issues not just affecting women alone, even taking up issues affecting the LGBT community. Even though the focus changed, there's really no point in forcing a new label on it.

mfw feminazism (becouse feminism is other thing)

As I said that's my perspective, I don't care about anyone else's if it doesn't sit right with me. The whole point really is just why I hate the word and definition and will never self identify as a feminist. It's just that people tell me that I am a feminist because I support gender equality. It irks me because I would never associate myself that I believe feminism is. There's also the issue that there a good amount of people identify as feminists yet don't actually support gender equality even though I have been told that's the point of feminism (such as radicals) and people still call them feminists. It baffles me how radical feminism is still considered a type of feminism even though it appears they don't support the same values as the "good" feminists.

That's how I came to the conclusion that feminism doesn't inherently mean gender equality and that just because you are a supporter of gender equality doesn't mean you are a feminist.

The best analogy I can think of is imagine there are 2 people and 1 does exclusively brick work (feminist tackling exclusively women's issues) and there is 1 who builds an entire house (someone who supports gender equality who tackles issues for both genders). You wouldn't say the brickworker builds entire houses and you wouldn't call the person who builds entire houses a brickworker.

Just because most people are identifying with the wrong terms and labeling others incorrectly doesn't mean they are doing it right or that it isn't a problem.

The problem here is that gay and queer were just single words with a single meaning that changed. Feminism is comprised with the word feminine, which is all about women and stereotypical woman related things. It's like changing the meaning of equalism to mean people who support inequality when that clearly contradicts the meaning of the word it stemmed from in the beginning to me thinking along those lines is just silly to me.

If we're going by textbook definition, then I would call myself a feminist, but I really don't like that word, if not for the radical culture associated with it, then for the whole "Guys VS Girls" mentality it seems to always create in my presence. So, moving down the list, I find the term "gender egalitarian" more definitive and fitting, but I try to avoid that terminology as well, because the word "egalitarian" seems to have been contractually affiliated with Marxist and Keynesian philosophy, both of which I abhor. So I'm just gonna take the relatively safe route and say that most of the things we associate with gender, aside from their respective roles in reproduction, are in our heads.

@Spider-byte:

As I said that’s my perspective, I don’t care about anyone else’s if it doesn’t sit right with me.

Which, again, makes your definition pretty much useless. The purpose of words is to convey meaning between people. If you choose to personally define a word differently than how everyone else defines it, especially those who use it to describe themselves, that's not an effective use of language, because people will get a different meaning from it than what you're trying to convey when using it, and vice versa.

There’s also the issue that there a good amount of people identify as feminists yet don’t actually support gender equality

Those are few and far between. In my experience, most of the feminists that are tarred as not wanting equality actually do, they just differ in their opinions of how to go about it, some more radically than others. And again, radical feminism isn't a catch all term for feminists you think are bad – it's a specific point of view with its own thought out ideas, foremost being that basically our society is broken and needs to be radically changed in order for equality to be reached. You may disagree with this and their methods of going about it, but that doesn't automatically make them bad or not actually wanting equality.

You wouldn’t say the brickworker builds entire houses and you wouldn’t call the person who builds entire houses a brickworker.

How many people honestly build an entire house from scratch? The reason we have bricklayers in the first place is because it's generally impractical for a single person to do everything simultaneously. That doesn't mean a bricklayer doesn't want the entire house to be finished just because she personally is focusing her efforts on the bricks, or that she's actively working against the finished house by doing the bricks and not everything else.

Moreover, I disagree, if someone has professionally laid bricks they're a bricklayer. They may be many other things too, but a bricklayer they still be.

Just because most people are identifying with the wrong terms and labeling others incorrectly doesn’t mean they are doing it right or that it isn’t a problem.

Technically, there are no wrong terms since language is inherently arbitrary. The closest we can get is using it in a way that conflicts with its commonly accepted and/or most useful definition.

Feminism is comprised with the word feminine, which is all about women and stereotypical woman related things.

Assassin is derived from Hashishin, which literally means people that use hashish (weed, basically), yet we use it to mean someone who kills people for money, and if someone used the word literally nowadays people wouldn't have a clue what they were on about. The meaning of words isn't always their literal components. Quite apart from that, the "fem" in feminism makes perfect sense and doesn't in any way contradict the stated goal of equality. Feminism arose because women were getting the short end of the stick and had no voice in discussions, so the movement that strove to change that obviously put its name and focus on the people it was advocating for – same reason gay rights activists don't call themselves "sexual orientation equality advocates".

In my view, the problem with "equalism" is that, while it seems nice on the face of it, it assumes that the movement itself will be immune to the inequalities and privileges that rest of society has; that the people who have the power to dominate conversations in the rest of the world will suddenly stop doing so when it comes to talking about inequality, which simply isn't the case IMO. Feminism usually focuses on women vs. men (civil rights movements usually focus on ethnic minorities vs. white people, LGBT social movements usually focus on LGBT people vs. cisgender heterosexual people, working class movements usually focus on poor people vs. rich people etc.) because otherwise they would get barely any focus.

The reason we need these specific specialized movements, and why they had to arise in the first place is, however warm and fuzzy it may make you feel, when it comes to actually doing something about real inequalities, having a vague general movement that claims to focus on equality for everyone doesn't work. Those who have power and privilege will inevitably dominate the discussion to focus on what they think is a problem (i.e. mainly stuff that affects them), and the problems of those who are most powerless and underprivileged will be ignored and their voices unheard. That doesn't mean those with the advantage are necessarily controlling the discussion on purpose or are bad people or never have any problems or don't have a right to an opinion or should never have anyone doing anything about issues they face, but it does mean there should be places where the focus isn't on them like it is everywhere else.

Dang, I wasn't going to write this much. Oh well, I hope some of this may be helpful to some people.

And again, radical feminism isn’t a catch all term for feminists you think are bad – it’s a specific point of view with its own thought out ideas, foremost being that basically our society is broken and needs to be radically changed in order for equality to be reached. You may disagree with this and their methods of going about it, but that doesn’t automatically make them bad or not actually wanting equality.

As far as I agree with mostly what you said, I beg to differ on this point. Equality can't be achieved when people are seriously thinking that penetration from a man to a woman is always rape regardless of consent, equality can't be achieved when there are serious manifestos about male castration being a solution against sexism, equality can't be achieved when the privilege card and the victim card are raised for every arguement, equality can't be achieved when, in some groups, LGBT, transgender, aromantic people and the like are denied voicing their opinions, equality can't be achieved when they are still people feeling it's fair to make generalizations (see the responses to the #notallmen event and how it seems assumed that men have to accept that they are all potential rapists), equality can't be achieved when sexualization in any piece of media is frowned upon instead of being shown as sexual freedom (not counting the usual tiring stereotypes being reused over and over again, mind you, I'm thinking more of the Spiderwoman debacle).
Thus, certain feminist niches and their actions have to be criticized by other more moderate feminists, and should be, in my opinion. It's a question of public credibility. People has to stand against so-called "feminists" who aren't because their beliefs aren't at all for equality of all genders.

I would like to state that women should not be allowed to vote or own property, their lifestyles must be approved by their father or husband, and that if you are a feminist that statement made you mad.

I noticed something today that's sort of an issue. It's not the most sexist issue I've ever seen, but it is a problem in a way in my opinion. Since now is election season in the US and all the ads are spamming up the commercials, I noticed one thing that's similar about nearly every campaign ad for female representatives: nearly all of them include the theme of motherhood in some way or another. The guys usually just include their qualifications for the spot, but the women state their qualifications as well as some almost obligatory comment about being a mom or some shit. It just kind of bothers me and it's not necessary. It also sort of implies one of the only jobs women are good at is being a mom. I am looking a little too deep into this and at least half of the people running in my area are women, so I don't think there's a patriarchy or intense discrimination involved, it's just a little annoyance. More like a really small detail left over from a more sexist period of time. Thoughts?

That's a pretty good observation to make, actually. I think it says a lot about our culture still being caught on this concept that any woman worth her salt wants/plans to be a mother someday. I think it also has to do with politicians being relatable too (I have seen some mentions of family in commercials for male politicians, but not at the same level as woman politicians), but these types of subjects are the things I love talking about.

Speaking of political commercials, in my own area there was a commercial for this guy and among his list of things he plans to do in office, "fighting for women's rights" was one of them. That's… nice I guess? I don't know, I just feel weird about him blatantly putting it out there like that and treating women's rights as if it were a hot button issue like gay marriage or gun control. It's not to say the discussion of feminism and women's rights isn't an important part of politics, but the way he put it somehow bothered me.

@Thalion:

Abortion is not a feminist issue but rather a religious one.

I mostly agree with this. In a lot of ways I see abortion as a moral issue rather than a feminist one. Still, I find it relevant to feminism seeing as, well, women are the ones having babies.

I think most people don’t have a problem with breastfeeding. I think the problem is more in nudity.
If a handsome guy undresses, most girls will also look.
But I can understand people who are in a restaurant and want to eat in peace. So de woman should think where to breastfeed. But in the end it’s obvious not against the law so a woman can choose to breastfeed where ever she likes. In conclusion breastfeeding is also not a problem or an equal rights issue.

Maybe you don't see many scenes caused by women breastfeeding, but that's anecdotal evidence and not very useful in an actual argument. There is a huge sensitivity to nudity (a part of western culture I detest) but I think that makes the problem all the more relevant. Should this sensitivity mean women can breastfeed in public or not? I'm not quite sure what point you're trying to make by saying girls will look if a guy undresses in public. I also don't like this idea that women shouldn't breastfeed in a restaurant. Verbose made a very good point earlier in the thread that choosing to not breastfeed just makes everything more complicated than it needs to be considering how often babies get hungry. Really, when women choose to breastfeed in a place like a restaurant they usually do it quietly and often bring a blanket to cover them and the peace is broken only when other people decide to have a problem with it. Women shouldn't have to go to unsanitary places like bathrooms to feed their babies (which a lot of people have the gall to suggest) babies are humans too and deserve to eat in the same place as everyone else, and the options are quietly breastfeed the child, have the baby cry when they get hungry and really disrupt the peace, or bring formula with you that you have to somehow keep at a good temperature while you're out and about. Is looking at a nipple for a couple minutes really so disturbing to people? As long as there are people across the country trying to pass laws to ban breastfeeding (which there are) this does count as an actual problem and possibly an equal rights issue as well.

Woman are in fact physical weaker. So being treated that way is not all that strange. Besides many woman abuse this fact when they manipulate the opposite sex in buying them stuff. Or doing stuff like open doors. For example when I was young my gym teacher would always let the boys to pushups and the girls not. But the girls would complain if a substitute teacher would make them do pushups sure this is a small example but it happens everywhere. So this is also not a real issue in equal rights because men and woman are not physical equal.

Sam was not just talking about physical weakness and you know it. Even if he was, that still does not excuse people holding it over women and treating them differently, and this behavior isn't somehow justified because some women take advantage of it. Women use their physical weakness to manipulate men into buying them things and opening doors? What? I want you to read that back to yourself and ask if that makes any sense whatsoever. What does shopping have to do with physical strength at all? Women expect men to buy them things, open doors, and do other "chivalrous" things because it's culturally expected of men to do those things and certain women love to take advantage of that. Is that fair or right? No, but it has literally zero to do with physical ability. There is indeed a biological disadvantage for women when it comes to physical strength, but seeing as many women overcome that disadvantage and many more women could probably take on the neckbeards that go around touting these statistics as reasons men are better than women I find this fact barely applicable. The fact that people still treat completely capable women as weak just because of biology is still indeed an equal rights issue.

This one is a bit harder to explain. In my experience for some reason woman find it hard to cooperate with other woman in a team especially when there is more than one other woman. Cooperating with men doesn’t seem to pose a problem.
Also there decisions are far more ruled by their emotions. men think without their emotions and can make better judgments because of it.
Least there is pregnancy. A company has to take in account that a woman can take twee maybe four month’s maternity leave. In some country’s even longer. They don’t have to ask the company but they will be the one who will pay for it.
So in short some women do qualify and they will make it. But for a lot of women this will be impossible. In conclusion also not a real equality issue because men and women are not equal.
 

Once again, you are using useless anecdotal evidence. And on top of that, you are using pretty misogynistic stereotypes (such as women somehow being incapable of making decisions without emotion involved and all men somehow being totally capable of doing without emotion). Bringing up maternity leave is also an indication of how sexist employers can be. Many women won't get hired over men just because there might be a risk that she might get pregnant and need maternity leave. That is basing judgement off of one's gender and that is textbook sexism. The idea that one can hold a woman at fault for having the ability to get pregnant and that's considered ok and acceptable shows just how much feminism is actually needed in the workplace. "In conclusion also not a real equality issue because men and women are not equal." Wow. Bravo. You have officially insulted me with this post and have earned the title of the most sexist post in this thread. Really, good job. "Men and women are not equal" You really deserve a gold star for that gem of a quote. Do I really need to say more? Of course this is a fucking equal rights issue and your post right there proves my point.

So when I see them protest I can only see people who look for attention.

You may see it that way but I feel you only see it like that because you haven't had to go through what just about any woman has had to go through and you do not open your mind to the idea that these things may actually be a big deal. The toughest part about feminism today is that not only do western problems not compare to the horrors of the third world (although the issues in the west still remain important) but a lot of modern feminism issues tend to be hidden in the background, not easily seen or noticed by the people who don't experience it. I am certain that if you had to experience the same things you would not find feminism to be a big attention grab. Honestly, your whole post just reeks of not knowing anything about feminism. At least a lot of people in this thread that were anti-feminist could make a decent argument and good points.

First of I like to give the definition of the word sexism. It seems a lot of people don’t know what this word means and using it wrongly when discussing feminism. This is the same for discrimination and racism, but that is besides the scope of this thread.

Sexism
First of all sexism is a form of discrimination. Discriminating someone is “TREATING” a person/group differently because of characteristics that are not relevant to the issue. Sexism is discriminating someone based on their gender.

Feminism
Early feminism was focused on gaining equal rights. That meant that by law male and female where the same. In most western country’s this was accomplished at the end of the 19 century

In world war two Women had worked in factories to support the war. After world war two. Feminism was focused to get equal treatment concerning work and education

Conclusion
The question is: is feminism still necessary? My personal opinion is it is not. Women have in fact by law equal rights. For instance when a women wants to breast feed her child, she has the freedom to do so wherever she like. No police will arrest her for doing so. On the other hand everyone has the right to yell, point, laugh or any other reaction concerning this. As long as no laws are broken like sexism or maybe physical abuse etc…
Sexism can’t really apply here because women are not treated different than men, because men can’t breastfeed.
Protesting for this specific issue is useless. Because of protesting people will not stop disliking breastfeeding. And protesting is mostly only effective to change politics and laws etc.
Maybe it’s difficult to hear this for some people, but a woman should just ignore others when breast feeding. And it is not an issue that can be solved with changing laws. Because the people would have to give up their freedom and before we would know it we would wake up in a dictatorial system.
Although when certain laws are admitted where women can’t breastfeed in public, then we are also in very dangerous territory. Because this should be a freedom!!!

Some things like threating women differently are seen as sexism. But this is untrue. This only applies to issues / situations where they are threated different for characteristics that don’t apply to the issue.
But many times, like the example of women that don’t get manager jobs, this is in fact a characteristic that plays a part.

Source: http://www.gallup.com/poll/164618/desire-children-norm.aspx
Like stated in this article 74% of all women in the USA want children. So when hiring a manager the chance of their new employee taking a maternity leave is almost ¾. When considering that some managers will get at least 100.000USD a month a three month “vacation” will be very costly.
So people are not sexist and it is not against the law to think things over when hiring a women.
But most companies will make necessary arrangements to take these costs in account by paying women a bit less to compensate for when the take maternity leave.

In short this is also not sexist because it is an issue where the aspects and facts concerning women really matter. No matter how difficult some people find to hear this. The same here: protesting does not accomplish much here because people will not change their opinion (based on facts). They will just be annoyed by people who are ignorant and don’t know how the sexism and laws of their country works. Changing these laws would force businesses to hire women, this would also limit people’s freedom to hire anyone they want or think that are suited best for the job. And we would be just a step closer to a dictatorial system.

p.s.
Down voting my posts because your opinion differs of that of mine is really ignorant.
My opinion should just as much be respected as any other person here on this forum.

@ Crimson Locks
Don’t call me sexist for no apparent reason. I think women and men are not fully equal. There are lots of research supporting this. Take a very small example that women can give birth and men cannot. Having this opinion alone does not make me a sexist. I don’t treat women unfairly in anyway

@thalion
You have a cruel lack of empathy and understanding, in my opinion.
Also, if it wasn't clear enough, modern feminisn doesn't want to have changes in the laws, necessarily, but more in the behavior and mindset of people. There are sexist behaviors that are still widely considered "normal".
And, to pick your job example. Then, it does mean that no manager would pick a black guy, even if his qualifications and his resume are exceedingly good, because it is widely known that black people are more prone to being violent than white people… right?
What matters really when selecting someone for a job is what impression this person gives and their qualifications, regardless of their gender, skin color and sexual orientation. Period.
If gender comes into play because of that maternity thing, then yes, it's kinda sexist.

"is feminism still necessary? My personal opinion is it is not. Women have in fact by law equal rights."

dude, just because they have legal rights doesn't mean that feminism should disappear, their are still a lot of social issues that need to be fixed, things like slut shaming, victim blaming and myriad of other things still plague women.

Couldn't have said it better myself, my friend.

While I agree with the majority of this (maybe not the #notallmen thing; I don't have enough time to go into that now, though rest assured I don't think all men would ever rape people), again, these aren't the positions that all radical feminists ascribe to. There are radical feminists with male partners, that are as against male castration as anyone, don't use privilege etc. arguments any more inappropriately than anyone else, who are LGB and trans* friendly, etc. My point isn't that we shouldn't disagree or criticise with these sorts of positions, we totally should, but we shouldn't lump all that in with radical feminism, because that's not what radical feminism is and is an unfair generalization in and of itself.

Also, while I agree that equality can't be achieved through these positions, certain people disagree, and while they're probably wrong, that doesn't mean they don't genuinely believe in equality for all genders, they just have a very different view on how to go about it (okay, advocating castration may be the exception to this). I don't think we need to damn people's motivations in order to disagree with their views.

Re: thalion's posts – Lewis's law proved once again!

@Tomberry


"You have a cruel lack of empathy and understanding, in my opinion."

Maybe, maybe not but it doesn’t really matter.

"Also, if it wasn’t clear enough, modern feminisn doesn’t want to have changes in the laws, necessarily, but more in the behavior and mindset of people. There are sexist behaviors that are still widely considered “normal”."

Yes they don’t because it was fixed like i said at the end of the 19th century. Also when somebody exhibits “real” sexist behavior it is then also not a feminist issue because “real” sexism is against the law and can just be reported. So there is no need to protest, but just report or go to a judge.

You don’t give any examples but I can guess the issues that you mean are “inconveniences” not real sexism. Like the breastfeeding or even getting less money than men of not the job at all. Like I said the cold hard true is that these are not sexism issues but more inconveniences for women. Like men almost never ever get custody over their kids. At the very least if the situations of the father and mother are the same the child goes to the mother. Is this sexism? it is proven that in percentage the child feels saver with their mother. Maybe because they spent 9 months together or something.

Everybody has to deal with their own share of problems. A person is blond so they must be stupid. A person is from the Middle East so he must be a terrorist. Black people are thieves. Rich people get only friends who want their money. Women are weak, etc…
As long as these things don’t interfere with the law, they are no real problems. People have the right to see / say / do those things as they want.

Feminists only protests. At least this is what I only see them do. But like I said protesting is not the solution here. It literally does not accomplish anything.

If people want the world to change they should educate their children to be nicer to people. But I don’t think we should only do this for women but also for people of another race, people in other countries, Nicer to the elderly. This list is endless and it comes down that we should be nicer to everybody on this world.
For example the comity members who would choose their new manager should be educated that money is maybe not the most important thing in the world.

I am a cynical person and don’t think this can be ever accomplished. But I also think feminism as it is now would only work against this because they will ignore the real solution.

So no I don’t think feminism has a place in the western society anymore.

"And, to pick your job example. Then, it does mean that no manager would pick a black guy, even if his qualifications and his resume are exceedingly good, because it is widely known that black people are more prone to being violent than white people… right?"

I don’t know the numbers but if it’s a function where violence is not tolerated. It can play a PART when choosing a manager.

"What matters really when selecting someone for a job is what impression this person gives and their qualifications, regardless of their gender, skin color and sexual orientation. Period.
If gender comes into play because of that maternity thing, then yes, it’s kinda sexist."

If its scientific proven that things matter then it matters even if it has to do with race, sexual orientation, gender, etc..

@TripleA9000

"dude, just because they have legal rights doesn’t mean that feminism should disappear, their are still a lot of social issues that need to be fixed, things like slut shaming, victim blaming and myriad of other things still plague women."

I only think I know what you mean by “slut shaming”. Women live by a double standard in society where when a men does it with lot of women he is a “player” and if a women has lots of men she is a whore / slut.
The issue here is that men will give in for having sex way way way more easy then women. So the challenge for a women is almost zero. And the definition of a whore is when someone does something that everybody can do for personal benefit.
Men can’t do this, a classic example that women are not the same as men. And so saying somebody is a whore can be based on gender without being a sexist.

@thalion
"So the challenge for a women is almost zero"

how does that make it okay? Those are some backward views dude

Yes the nature of men are that they easily have sex and this negatively effects women.
Yes life sucks
Nobody forces you to think this is okay.

but it’s the freedom of men to have sex with anyone they want. Just as women have this freedom.
People have also the freedom to call people anything they want.
But they don't have the freedom to not hire you because you sleep with women/men.
(as long as it doesn't matter for your job).

I'm gonna be honest with you, dude, your arguments make literally zero sense to me. I don't know if maybe english isn't your first language (which I can't hold against you) but your grammar makes it really hard to understand what you're trying to say, but really it doesn't matter that much anyway because your logic just isn't sound. I honestly don't know where you make these connections in your head of "X happens and Y happens, so therefore it isn't sexism". And then you make up your own definition of sexism and enforce that definition on everyone else, effectively changing the rules to make sure you win the argument.

I'll give it a go, Crimson Locks.

thalion wrote:

but it’s the freedom of men to have sex with anyone they want. Just as women have this freedom.

This isn't a debate about the legality of sex. I have no idea where you got the impression that TripleA and co. were claiming that it's somehow illegal for women to have sex.

This debate is about social attitudes. Your statements here are irrelevant.

Yes the nature of men are that they easily have sex and this negatively effects women.

…and the reason why it negatively effects affects women is because society views sexually active women as outsiders. It actively discourages female sexuality and encourages – even bullies – men to have sex. You've kinda justified feminism while attempting to refute it.

“And then you make up your own definition of sexism and enforce that definition on everyone else, effectively changing the rules to make sure you win the argument.”

Discrimination (a brief explanation)

Beginning of discrimination
In Europe discrimination laws were made after WW2. These laws were made because the Jews were treated horrible by the Germans. E.G.
-They could only live in parts of the city that was especially designated for Jews.
-Only Jews needed to wear a star on there close so they could be easily recognized.
-Jews could not go in parks or restaurants.
-They could not keep any personal belongings they had before the war.
-They had to work in work camps and could not keep the jobs they had.
- Eventually they were systematically killed.

In the US discrimination laws were made to protect the black community.
Somewhere after they got equal rights. E.G.
-When they wanted to vote they were publicly lynched
- there were schools separating white children and black children.
-Black people had to sit in the back of a bus.
-They could not shop in every store.
-Random lynches / hangings

discrimination now
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrimination
An individual need not be actually harmed in order to be discriminated against. He or she just needs to be treated worse than others for some arbitrary reason.

The most important keywords in this sentence are “arbitrary reason”
This means that discrimination only occurs when people are treated worse based on characteristics that do not matter.

Arbitrary reason is a relative term. This can mean a lot of things like gender (sexism)
For example:
-Women may not buy houses
-women cannot work
-women cannot vote

But it does not mean that gender is always an arbitrary reason. There can be instances were women are being treated differently because they are a woman. Take for example the maternity leave.
There are studies that 74% of women wants to have children. Because of this there is a high chance it can be very costly for a company compared to when they hire a man.

But if the woman can't have children anymore this whole point would obviously be invalid.
Then when a company excludes this woman solely on this fact at that moment they would be sexist.

Take another example:
An AUTHENTIC Japanese Restaurant. They promote that they came from Japan to make the best sushi in the US and are recruiting for a new waiter. Would they hire someone other then somebody who looks remotely Japanese? If a black or white person applies to this job and don't get the job because the person is white or black. Is this racist?

The answer is of course not. Race in this example is not an arbitrary reason anymore.
It effects this company financially who they hire. If they would hire anybody other then somebody from Japan or at least Asian. The costumers would lose faith in the only reason they would come to this restaurant in the first place.

When men do not differentiate between reasonable and unreasonable a free country cannot exist.

I can give a lot more examples but I think I made my point.

.
@Particle Mare is 2spooky4u
I thought I had to clarify all rights that people have in a free country
because for some reason you guys don't seem to know.

No it still does not justify feminism. Like I said in my earlier post protesting does not work. It should not change these laws and it will not. Besides people are the ones calling women whores, males and females alike. And people protesting will not suddenly change their beliefs. (or you are really really really optimistic)
Like I said it can however be changed if we would educate are children better. (to treat everyone better though)
Feminism does not really help. It just got hated in stat.

@Crimson Locks
Strange… you did not seem to have any problem criticizing every last bit of my first post. Suddenly you cant read my sentences anymore.

Okay, time to math this shit up.
You said yourself that maternity leave is 4 months, but that's being generous. The government mandates at least 12 weeks, which translates to just under 3 months, so I'll use 3 for this purpose. The average number of births per woman is 1.88 in the US, and that factors in the women who do not end up having children. Women make 81% of what men do for the same work on average. (I could be using the popular "77 cents for every dollar a man makes" statistic, but it is somewhat questionable.) And Americans work roughly 45 years out of their lives (22-67).
So, over their lifetime an average woman would get 5.64 extra months off (3 months/child * 1.88 children). Those 5.64 months are 1.04% of a woman's entire working career (5.64 months / 12 months/year / 45 years * 100).
You could possibly say that "justifies" women making less, but it would end up as them making 98.96% of what men do, not only 81%, and especially not only 77%.
So what I'm really saying is that you are a fucking idiot.

Plus the whole thing could be solved by encouraging men to take as much paternity leave as a woman would (plenty of them have families too and would probably love extra time to spend with their newborn children), and then paying them both the same like a non-sociopath would do.

thalion wrote:

No it still does not justify feminism.

Like I said it can however be changed if we would educate are children better… to treat everyone better

I'm starting to get the impression that you have no idea what feminism is, because changing the way that people are educated is one of its goals. In fact, one could argue that since women are now more or less legally equal to men, the use of education to create social change has become feminism's main goal.

@Erin

Your numbers are pretty solid, but you haven't factored in the fact that men and women tend to pursue different jobs and thus different paygrades.

Strange… you did not seem to have any problem criticizing every last bit of my first post. Suddenly you cant read my sentences anymore.

Frankly I was still confused by some aspects in your first post (which I blatantly pointed out) and to figure out the rest of what you were trying to say took vast effort, effort I am no longer willing to put in. And as we go deeper into the rabbit hole your arguments and counter-arguments just continue to make less sense. Your arguments didn't make sense from the beginning, so don't act like this I suddenly decided I just don't get you.

@thalion
"This means that discrimination only occurs when people are treated worse based on characteristics that do not matter."

Hahaha, no. Sorry but that is a backwards view, so then its okay to say a woman can't breastfeed in public.

"And people protesting will not suddenly change their beliefs."

feminism is meant to change these attitudes, i don't understand how we can make this less simple.

Modern feminism is geared more to fixing backwards social attitudes than it is towards legal issues. Period. So yes its still needed.

Sorry guys, I tried to let you learn something and also post my own opinion. But I see now this was only one useless effort.
I can only hope someone will actually find this thread and maybe learn something, maybe something about a life lesson or something. So this effort isn't totally wasted.

I will leave my last reply as a parting gift. So see you on the interwebs

.
@TripleA9000
“Hahaha, no. Sorry but that is a backwards view, so then its okay to say a woman can’t breastfeed in public.”

Don’t know if u can read or just being lazy? IF you had tried to read something you could have seen I did not ever say it’s ok to stop women from breast feeding. Even the opposite is true; I have said they should have this freedom. We life in a free country!! (I hope) but if people are against it, it is certainly not sexism or discrimination.

But in a restaurant it could be true that an owner could decide not to let women breastfeed in his restaurant. It’s not sexism it may be discrimination, but only if costumers would already be ok with her breastfeeding. If not he would lose money.

Hahahaa, I watch the news every day and I haven’t seen one feminist doing something useful, in other words accomplish something aside from third world country issues. (Even this is very rare)

.
@Crimson Locks
I’m amazed that I don’t even know where I should begin to make fun of. Maybe I should start that you reply to people without knowing what they are really saying? Maybe it’s the fact that you saying my arguments and counter arguments don’t make sense but in the same post saying you aren't even reading it anymore.

Maybe it’s this?:

“And then you make up your own definition of sexism and enforce that definition on everyone else, effectively changing the rules to make sure you win the argument.”

In other words here you say: you win the argument as long as your definition of sexism and discrimination is right.
Hahahahaa, so you already forfeit this argument.

Sorry but at this point all I can see is a scared little girl.

.
@ Erin ω
Yay the first person coming with a solid argument. It has taken only like 10 replies but I think it finally happened.
First of “no” never ever said 4 months it was 3 months. But that’s completely beside the point because the US is not the only country alive. There are many countries that would let women take leaves much longer. But failing to read that this was only an example is the saddest thing. This argument was not about maternity leave.

Now for criticizing your numbers. First of all a person doesn’t work at the same company for 45 years, at least not the average person. A owner can decide to take 10 or 20 year as a number (don’t know what the average is)

Even if you like to bash everything I just said, nobody said this had to be the only reason why women make only 71/83% in the US.

.
@ Particle Mare is 2spooky4u
Don’t ever seen result of this so called goal.
But there is no doubt in my mind you will post something back, some bullshit accomplishment.

thalion wrote:

Don’t ever seen result of this so called goal.
But there is no doubt in my mind you will post something back, some bullshit accomplishment.

The point of a goal is that it has yet to be achieved. If the goal had been achieved already, it would be an accomplishment, not a…

This is why I drink.

First of “no” never ever said 4 months

A company has to take in account that a woman can take twee maybe four month’s maternity leave.

your supid

But anyway, just because you can never completely stop bad things from happening doesn't mean that there shouldn't be any effort put into keeping them from happening. People are going to murder and rape and do horrible things to each other, but that doesn't mean we should ignore the problem and resign to letting it happen.

Hahahahaa, so you already forfeit this argument.

Sorry but at this point all I can see is a scared little girl.

Yeah, I'm real fuckin scared of the kid that made an account to only post in this thread and can't even form a coherent sentence. I'm not forfeiting the argument because that would imply there was even an argument to begin with. I'm really sorry that you have to insult other people to make your arguments feel stronger, but I suppose that's the closest you've ever gotten to an actual argument so far.

Sorry guys, I tried to let you learn something and also post my own opinion. But I see now this was only one useless effort.
I can only hope someone will actually find this thread and maybe learn something, maybe something about a life lesson or something. So this effort isn’t totally wasted.

That would imply you said anything smart to begin with. But, sadly, you didn't, and instead just wasted you and everyone else's time and gave me an amusing last couple of days.

Thalion, please stop trying, but if you do, please try harder to make good arguments instead of… whatever you're doing right now.

At this point you're just gloating about how you just won an internet argument in your own head. Also, thanks for giving this thread some mlre activity after a long period of deadness. Triple and Crimson are having fun because of you. Just know that you're not completely hated. So, anything else? An actual point perhaps? One that they didn't counter 500 times already?

@thalion
"but if people are against it, it is certainly not sexism or discrimination."

saying that a guy can be shirtless and a woman can't is discrimination

And as for your definition of discrimination here goes the definition from that same wikipedia page

"Discrimination is action that denies social participation or human rights to categories of people based on prejudice"

Prejudice:"Prejudice is prejudgment, or forming an opinion before becoming aware of the relevant facts of a case"

So you cherry picked the page in order to find a definition that fit your view, wow.

And yes like i said feminism is necessary for social issues not just legal ones
(i know thats been said like, a 1000 times, but for some reason you just don't seem to understand that concept)

What are your guy's thoughts on this?

Ignoring previous posts:

Anyway, I'm fine with it, but it looks like recently people have been using it as an excuse to commit misandry.

I saw a facebook post the other day, where someone posted about a boy being raped at a party used it to basically say 'rapes not a joke now is it fellas?'. And of course everyone sees that, gets angry and theres a huge war in the comments. Its hard but people need to chill, take a step back and discuss rationally, because what keeps happening is a guy or girl will say one thing, everyone gets defensive and it gets completely out of hand. Misogynists suck. Feminazis suck. It should be about equality and thats it. Making things fair for everyone. If you approach it like that how can people disagree? Are you against equality?

Was that question at the end rhetorical?

I thought it was clever. But, it does imply that it's only dangerous for women to get into a car with strangers. Sure there is a lot higher chance of something bad happening to her, but overall everyone I knew was taught to avoid strangers completely because no matter what there is a risk they aren't good people. Hell, one guy I knew was just beat up by a group of strangers one night because "he looked and sounded gay", now he avoids people like the plague.

But of course that isn't always the case and there are good people. But in an ideal world everyone can just get in a car with strangers and have them be really nice. But everyone should know the risk of strangers, especially if your a woman in today's society.

what do you guys think of this

The way i feel about it there is some definite truth to it but i feel as though it’s basically saying that sexism is never committed against men simply because they are men more like “men have sexism because of how women are seen”(taken from the imgur comics) plus i hate how it imply’s that. And I see guys get called shallow for not dating fat women all the time.

I share your opinion about it.
The "kick me in the groin part" is just awful. It happens too often that a man who wants to go to the police to report on a rape case gets mocked on or is not taken that seriously either.

Oops, I meant to click the plus.

Yes sir.

In fact, I never want anyone to answer it. EVER.

OK.

@TripleA
What I think of it is that it needs to be in a spoiler button.

What I seriously think of it…I don't think calling a boy/man/guy a pussy or anything like that is sexism per se. Honestly, I don't think I ever really heard of a case of sexism against men.
Not being happy with your body is something both genders deal with, so that seems more like a social issue more than a gender issue.
Hell, I'm sure I gossiped more about fat men in my life than women.
Hell, I'm a man and I am unhappy with my body.

Can't really put my thoughts into words that make any sense I guess.

It's a complicated topic that would be much less complicated is people were just nice to everyone.

@TripleA:
My opinions on this video were basically already stated in the comments section when this was on the front page, but the gist of what I think is this: Calling it "harassment" is a little excessive, but it's still a bad thing. A simple greeting like some of the examples in this video is fine in my book, but I honestly think anything beyond that is inappropriate and shouldn't be as accepted and defended as it is. Having strangers come up to you on the street and talk to you or make comments about your body is honestly creepy and uncomfortable and saying things like "You should just take the compliment" just feels insulting to me. I'm not obligated to take a compliment from someone that obviously has ulterior motives behind said compliment (i.e. trying to get in my pants). It's all about context, of course. Believe it or not, it's actually pretty easy to tell when someone says hello or gives a compliment to be nice and when they do it to come on to you, and doing it just to be nice is marked "ok" in my book. For instance, one time I was walking downtown in my relatively small city when a guy walking by me said I was beautiful. Now, usually I would be skeeved out by an out of nowhere comment like that, but I could tell the guy that said it was genuinely just being nice. I didn't really say anything in return as I was just kinda surprised by an out of nowhere thing like that, but it's stuck in my mind as a nice experience instead of a horribly uncomfortable one. So I've had my bad experiences and I've had my good ones. Let me just tell you that getting wolf whistles and "hey baby"s is not fun. It gets old real fast and should not be as lightly brushed off by people as it is.

Agreed. Some people are just being friendly, and others want to friendly in…other ways.

Crimson Locks wrote:

Let me just tell you that getting wolf whistles and “hey baby”s is not fun.

As if you've ever gotten any of those.