Looking for support and inspiration - DP says feminism is 'totally outdated'

So no answer then?

What a pity.

Please do carry on with the digs about my education too, btw, I'll let you know when I start feeling academically outclassed.

I think you would do better to look inside yourself rather than ask someone else to analyse your shortcomings. Rules, rebellion... how about education after that, LRD? Wouldn't you like to be able to think for yourself and set your own personal standards?

Please, do explain how I'm confused then. I've explained, several times, why your logic is inconsistent. The fact that you've not replied does rather suggest you're unable to come up with a consistent logical explanation for your position(s) on this issue.

LRD - you are completely unable to run rings around me. I'm not going to backpedal because I am entirely consistent. You are mightily confused, however.

Cicatrice - just because things "are" doesn't make them aesthetically pleasing and civilised. What about the hair and sweat under your arms? They are "meant to be there" but most people find the smell unpleasant and do something about it.

It's possible by 'confused' you mean 'running rings around you'.

You think that unshaven legs are ugly. You think that older women's breasts are 'horrid'. Neither of these were put forward as 'my personal opinion' or 'just what I think, in certain cases'. You were given plenty of chances to backtrack, or clarify, and you didn't. It is therefore very clear you think there's an absolute standard of female beauty.

If you'd like to backpedal now, and tell us you don't really think unshaven legs are objectively ugly, feel free.

Oh dittany. I don't believe there are rules that need to be adhered to; sadly, lots of people love rules and having them to rebel against because they haven't (yet, hopefully) got a mind of their own.

You are very confused, LRD. Think about it. I haven't suggested anywhere that there is an external aesthetic standard - on the contrary, I suggested you look at art history because I think that looking a huge variety of images that have been appreciated across the ages helps individuals form their own personal aesthetic judgement.

But why is shaving your legs any improvement on not shaving them? The hair is meant to be there!

The time would be better spent reading an improving book, surely?

But your absolute aesthetic judgments imply an absolute standard. Therefore - by your own admission - they are akin to rules. If you read back in the thread, you'll see that you did admit you thought that unshaven legs on a woman were ugly, and that older women's breasts can be 'horrid'. Rather obviously, therefore, you are refusing to accept that there is no objective external standard here.

I think you need to decide which side of the line you fall on. Either you accept that there isn't an absolute standard of female beauty, in which case unshaven legs aren't 'ugly', they're just not your thing. Or, you believe there is an absolute standard, which allows you to judge hairy legs and saggy boobs and whatever else you like in absolute terms such as 'ugly' and 'horrid' - but you'd have to admit that you're bowing to social pressure.

It doesn't matter to me which you do, but I do find it strange listening to you trying to do both!

No, rules imply an absolute standard - authoritarianism. Self-improvement is the very opposite - making the best of what you've got without referral to any particular external standard. The mix and match approach. What it is not is "lettting it all go" in rebellious mode.

Most of this thread is about rebellion against rules with no thought for how to improve your life after rebellion (a sort of reversion to pre-civilisation of hairy legs and saggy breasts, which is just depressing really).

No, I don't think so Bonsoir.

You see, 'self-improvement' implies there's an absolute standard, right? You reckon that a women necessarily 'improves' herself if she shaves her legs or gets her no-longer-youthful breasts cut up.

You almost seem to think there's an objective aesthetic standard that applies to women's bodies, is what I mean.

You are confusing self-improvement with rules, LRD. Those things are really not the same and you ought to know that.

Really?!

You suggested yesterday that you'd think a woman who didn't shave her legs to go swimming (not a hot date, note, just exercising, not parading around, but underwater and out of sight for 99% of the time), would strike you as someone who'd failed to make the most of herself.

It seems clear to me that you've got a very strict sense of what you consider to be appropriate and what is not, in that situation. Same perhaps with the post-18 breasts being 'horrid'. You seem here to be seeing the world very much in absolutes: either you must conform, or you've failed. You don't consider that people who break the 'rules' might be using a different standard, or might not care so much - you suggest they be judged in absolute terms.

That's where my thinking came from. I do hear that you're saying you don't like to conform socially, it's just harder to understand what you mean exactly when what you've said paints the opposite picture.

Where on earth would you have formed that opinion, LRD? Very odd. I live in a world in constant flux, quite the opposite.

Bonsoir - my comments weren't just aimed at you, they were intended as a general point.

It seems to me that you often idealize the sort of society where people obey strict rules or are considered in some way faulty, yes?

LittleRedDragon - there are segments of society that operate according to strict rules, where everyone behaves much in the same way because they are scared of not toe-ing the line, and there are segments of society where people are much more liberal and able to make reasoned decisions and individual choices and pick and choose according to their own needs. That doesn't mean that people in the second segment live "outside" society or are lonely and isolated.

dittany - I don't need your "gentle" help. You attempts to patronise are really silly.

Interestingly (or it is interesting to me because I like languages), the word 'idiot' comes from the Greek word referring to someone who is incapable of participating in society, incapable of being influenced by it.

I know this thread has taken a jokey turn, but to be entirely serious for a moment: nobody wants to be outside of society's influence, not really. I know people who are lonely or isolated or don't manage to interact with people around them properly, and it is really sad. So let's have less of the pretense that it's somehow strong and brave to be able to ignore social pressure: you probably don't, and if you really did, you would be a very miserable person.

Sorry to spoil the light tone, but this is something I feel fairly strongly about.

dittany - I speak English, French, Italian, Spanish and German and the language I use with any particular individual is usually a function of whatever is our easiest common ground.