feminism has now turned into straight male bashing. I’m all for women to be liberated, but to what expense? Remember JJJ and his theory that Women do not have the reasoning potential to understand philosophy due to years of genetic evolution? Well that essay he posted here had it’s good points. One of them was that women have been so excluded from being materially equal to men, that they now feel that they must purchase great amounts of clothes, etc. to feel equal.
And in the same fight for equality, they destroy the will of young boys.
There are, indeed differences between women and men. Just like there are differences between blacks, whites, latinos and asians. There are differences between people in the north and south (U.S.). There are differences between me and the people in the next house over.
Some of these differences are physical, some psychological, some social. These differences shoulden’t effect how one is viewed as human and as such their entitlement to equal human rights.
on another note, I find it hillarious when I hear a woman go around calling all men chauvinists.
This is also taken in a completely western, middle class point of view. Can you imagine living in a country where you had no right over your own body. This excludes rape as that is an abuse of that right and rape does happen to men, by men. It is easy for you to say who wants woman’s rights when you’re living in comfort, you are not forced to marry someone at the age of 12 and forced to give birth to ten or so children thereafter, not being able to leave your home as you please, not being able to speak to anyone unless they are a close female relative, not given the choice of an education. This is occurring today in many societies, but this also occurred not too long ago in the west.
No one is created equal. You can’t say all men are stronger or smarter or more logical than women because there are women who are stronger, or smarter and more logical than men. This isn’t a question of whether men and women are different, this is about not being discriminated against based on your genitals. Women are still not getting equal pay for the same job a man does. This is discrimination solely based on sex and not on their level of competency.
Feminism isn’t about a woman having a whinge about all men being pigs because she got in a fight with her boyfriend. You see the same thing with men.
This is a whole lot of nonsense generalisations and stereotyping. You use them because of your own failings.
Actually, women make far more generalizations about us men than men do about women, generally.
I beg to differ. Differences between people does not mean inequality. Hell, we’re all the same species aren’t we. I think you’re making the mistake of judging a people on their comparative ability to “produce” or “achieve”. That person A is not equal to person B because person A has a greater ability to solve complicated number problems. And person B is not equal to person A because person B is more athletic and can fight well. Neither is better, but because their abilities differ they are not equal.
Or how about this: we have the same person A but this time person B is mentally handicapped. Person A has a clear advantage in their ability to produce and contribute to society on a practicall level, so not only can one be considered to be “better” but they are even more unequal because there are tasks that person B does not have the capability of performing.
Actually in both situations there are tasks that person B is not capable of performing, but in the first scinario person B can beat the crap out of anybody who tries to mess with person A, so there is a trade in practical abilities. Whereas the handicapped B doesn’t have the coordination to fight effectively and there is no trade off in ability.
But does that make the handicapped person B any less of a person, at least they have equality on the level that they are both people. I suggest that we take that as the measure of equality, being born a person. That being born human gives you equal potential in human society. In that way all people are created equal.
If the mother takes a the main or a majority of the work at home, with children, food and cleaning etc it is not fair. For example. A couple gets a kid, often, they woman gets to stay at home to take care of the child. While the man gets to follow up on his career. Which leads to the fact that men earn more money than woman in general. I want a law where men are forced to stay at home with the children as much as woman are, 50/50.
I think everything in life functions well insofar as you have a balance between things. Too much or too little of something is harmful. The balance has to be established on the basis of the need for the particular thing with reguards to fulfilling your purpose as a human being.
Now to give more rights to females, the statement alone implies that they do not have enough rights to begin with. I agree with that to a certain point because women have been kept as housewives and many of them were used for sexual pleasure and other things in the past and still today somewhere. (hookers, prostitues, whatever you wish to call them)
The problem here is the problem of the 2 ways of living in the world. If you read George Konrad and his novel called “The Loser” you will understand that there are only 2 types of people in this world. There is the opressor and then there is the opressed. The hardest part in life is to find a balance between those two and figure out a way to not be an opressor but also not to have will imposed upon you. The issue gets the be a problem when woman get rights and keep getting more and more and they tip the scale in the other direction too much.
Once again the issue can be solved by finding some sort of a balance (but many would dissagree where that fine line is between a fair amount and too much)
Another similar issue to this is the idea of affirmitive action. I personally would not limit a woman to the role of a housewife but let her choose. Believe it or not some men make good housewives (lol). As long as you are happy with who you are and the things that you do everything is fine.
Feminism totally about equality. The bottom line is men still objectify us, even when we are “treated” equally. There is no “weaker” sex, only those who have been socialized into thinking that way. The inequality begins with brainwashing by the media that ascribes to the myth of the feminine ideal: the anorectic/albeit beatiful woman who does nothing except adorn her boyfriend/husband. Those of you who have young female children ask them how many want to grow up to be doctors, lawyers, university professors and how many of them would rather grow up to be a model, or Britty Spears or some other feminine type icon.
If a man is unmarried at the age of fifty he is viewed as being motivated by his carrier. He is hardly ever criticized. If a woman does the same thing, in a typical middle class social circle people wonder what
“has she done wrong that she isn’t married?” The double standard is applied incidiously in many different ways its impossible to list: from women in Southwest Asia who get sold into sexual slavery for as little as $18 to girls being subtly told that their appearance is more important that their actions and their ability to think.
Feminism is about self-determination. It says a woman’s place is anywhere she wants to be whether it be in the home, workplace, or the university.
I’d like to draw a distinction between ‘Feminism’ and ‘Feminist Philosophy’–yes, there is a difference.
Feminism is a social movement based on a certain set of ideas and principles. It is thereby mostly political in nature (and consequently more open to heated debate and extremism). In this sense, feminism is mostly about rights, equality, justice, etc.
Feminist philosophy, on the other hand, is a branch of study in philosophy (one that I have studied at length). Not to imply that philosophy is removed from society and politics, I am only saying that if one of the goals of philosophy is to promote critical thinking skills and improve our quality of discernment, then feminist phil deals with this in terms of the unique experience of females, and more specifically, issues of sex and gender. Most people would agree that sex and gender are ever relevant issues in this society and worthy of analysis.
In my opinion, one of the goals (realized or not) of feminist phil would be to get past the polarization of the political arguments, cliches, and traditional ideology, with the goal being a deeper understanding of the effects of sex and gender, perhaps in terms of epistemology or ethics, for example.
One of the challenges of studying feminist phil is to keep it, on some level, separate from ‘feminism’. Point being: It’s not entirely about the law, rights and equality, that is, IF you want to talk about ‘philosophy’, which I’m assuming we do…
After reading the posts is appears that is debate has no opposition. Which makes little sense for the democratic states. I too belive women and men are equal, but for some reson society is cought in the misconception that being a house wife is of less importantce than being a working mother. I am all for women in the work place. I’ve noticed that they add something to a work enviorment, but this reverse discrimination is realy pissing me off. My uncle who i am very close to is a firefighter. He like others before him had to pass tests to get the very physicaly and often times mentaly demanding job. I don’t know the scoreing chart to the “T” but you need something like 100 points to get the job. But all minority aplicants recieve and extra 5 points! A woman could not could not carry my 250 pound uncle form a burning building(unless she happens to be the covergirl for Muscle magazine). The government is giving jobs to less qualified minorities because that are minorities! Keep in mind the whole idea is to provide equal oportunity for all people, but is this not screwing over the white male!