To think women’s rights are actually bad for women

[crazydoglady6867]

I am sure I will get shot down for this but here goes:

I really think that women wanting and largely getting EQUALITY is the best thing that is happening in modern times. What I have an issue with is women wanting to be better than men, wanting more rights and with girls/women only groups sports events etc we are actually just segregating ourselves and making men feel ostracised in some situations which is making them feel they need to gain back this “power” they feel they should have over women.
I am in a bike group who have a ladies section and they are just recently going a bit OTT over the women riders and making them more inclusive than the men really, they have special ride outs for them but men are not allowed to have a male only one. Etc etc...

You can see where I am going with this, and I am happy to change my mind in how I feel if posters come up with a reasonable debate into why I am wrong here.

I want to be thought of as equal to my male counterparts I don’t feel I need to have special running races they can’t run in or special groups my son can’t join or special days to celebrate my gender.

I remember a sketch in the 70’s on the Two Ronnies with Diana Dors in it called “the worm has turned” and thinking yeah as if that will ever happen, well people I can honestly say I am getting a bit worried for our men.

I know MN has a good proportion of man haters but you can’t all be like that, am I really the only one who feels like this.

Who is teaching this to the boys though?

My DP and I do it, together.
I meant teaching boys to exhibit intimidating behaviour. Unless you and your husband teach that together? I guess that would be a form of equality

YeTalkShiteHen.
My DD has been called a lesbian and all sorts in her younger days for being in a football team, being in scouts from age 6 to 18 and now she manages a warehouse full of men. She has always stood up for herself and me and her dad taught her that, just like you taught your daughter to have that confidence. My DS likes to call himself a feminist (that is a whole new thread😂) we taught him that too. I just want everyone to raise young people to be more like that then we won’t need to “protect” our girls from anyone by having separate groups where they feel safe.

I meant teaching boys to exhibit intimidating behaviour. Unless you and your husband teach that together? I guess that would be a form of equality

Sorry I thought you meant teaching them not to!

It’s ingrained in what is shown to us from birth I think. Boys are “stronger, faster, smarter, more capable” girls are “caring, gentle, soft and compliant”. It starts as early as books, tv programmes, clothes....

*Only a small minority of women are suited to studying the high level physics and mathematics required for engineering and no amount of 'feminism' is going to change that.

The fact is, most women are just not 'wired' that way.

If we have 'science' brains, they're more geared towards biology and chemistry as opposed to mathematics and physics.*

Where’s the evidence for this pulled out of your arse

Only a small minority of women are suited to studying the high level physics and mathematics required for engineering and no amount of 'feminism' is going to change that.
Who the fuck told you that! (Whoever wrote it on here)

There was something someone on here said that really struck me:

"When you are used to privilege, equality feels like oppression."

They were absolutely right.

In reality though, a young woman who has a great voice always dreamed of being a singer, and is faced with a man who tells her that he can make her a star if she just wears this leotard and writhes around on this sofa, isn't going to turn it down out of principal is she?*
See then I think you are denying women power.

You're saying that women have to do what men want and actually no we don't.

If young women continue to do this then it will continue surely?

You same that some men or boys do it - but not many. Its unusual to see men on stage topless. More would be fully clothed.

Without counting up it seems like the same number of men were skimpy clothes on stage as the number of women who are fully dressed.

I do honestly think that women need to stop selling out other women. Ok so if refusing to dance near naked on stage stops you being a pop star do something else. Or if you're good enough you will find a way to succeed.

Attitudes need to change - of men and women.

crazydoglady6867 I find it wholly depressing that lesbian is even an insult!

I’m glad she didn’t listen!

I’d like to think my boys will be feminist allies, if they’re not I and DP have gone wrong somewhere.

Bluerinsesurrey - good lord it has been several decades since I heard ( from the right or the left) feminism equated with communism !! Laugh ? I could cry.

Oh behave.
What do you think girl guides is FOR? It’s to empower girls to be confident enough to be able to change the face of society, so they truly believe they are equal to their male peers.
I’ve run both boys and girls groups. Why was there a leadership crisis in scouting? Not enough men volunteering. So they had to take in female leaders and then had to let girls in. So women had to come in and do the work so that boys had the opportunity to be scouts. It’s not a fantastic environment for a girl at six who has already soaked up society’s view of her as smaller, weaker, more emotional, more caring, and wanting to do ‘girls things’. So get them in brownies and we’ll teach them they are equally as important, string and confident as the boys.
And then later, they are able to join mixed groups and not get sidelined. It doesn’t work to just insist that women are equal and so reduce their opportunities.
I’m ex-military. The number of examples of outright sexism (some formally sanctioned) and opportunities denied to me because of my sex? Lost count. And don’t trip me the ‘weaker’ line either. I’ve also been accused of cheating because I beat male peers in training.
Girls and women need sex segregated spaces where we can get rid of the idea that you need a big pair of tits, eyebrows on fleek, and your nails done in order to be a success. That it’s possible to swim without being ogled, that you can run in public without fearing that a man will jump out from behind a bush, or yell out of s van window, that it’s ok to ace your maths test and the boys will still fancy you, that you can rock climb or rifle shoot, or knit, or bake, and that it is okay to demand the space to find out who you are and what you enjoy, without men telling you that you have to look and act a certain way, or berate you because you don’t.
And bring on the same thing for boys. When I tried to do it as a youth leader, to allow boys the same freedoms, I had male leaders jeering at the boys ‘what are you doing that women’s stuff for?’
Toxic masculinity is the reason that women need separate spaces. And it’s also the reason why it’s perpetuated. Men know which side their bread is buttered. And they prefer it with well paid jobs, no wiping arses if either infants or elderly, and plenty of sex available to the eye.

It’s ingrained in what is shown to us from birth I think. Boys are “stronger, faster, smarter, more capable” girls are “caring, gentle, soft and compliant”. It starts as early as books, tv programmes, clothes....
I know but they arent born thinking like that are they?

If we as parents do better then things will change.

I just don't think it's popular to suggest that women are also part of the problem. It's much easier to just blame men for everything and then say it's down to men to solve it because they caused it.

If young women continue to do this then it will continue surely?

If the male execs in these industries stopped demanding that women take their clothes off in order to be successful then it would stop. Why isn't the onus on them to change things?

Arthuritis Just looking at the X Factor (don't judge me!) lots of girls and women audition wearing jeans and converse, sing really welland get through.

No judgement here! However, look at the change in those girls once they get through, they are presented in a completely different way to how they were when they auditioned, sometimes unrecognisable. Where is the pressure coming from for them to change so drastically? Could it be from the person/people who run the show and hold the prize they are trying to win in their hands?

On the subject of breastfeeding, I think attitudes across the board need to change regarding this. I have heard equally awful comments from both men and women in regard to this. Sadly, once you become a mother absolutely everyone has an opinion on what you are doing and somehow feels it is obligatory for them to voice it.

Where is the pressure coming from for them to change so drastically? Could it be from the person/people who run the show and hold the prize they are trying to win in their hands?

Honestly I don't know though suspect that you could be right.

Would love to see a woman refuse though and do it differently.

If we as parents do better then things will change

I agree, and many parents are.

Patriarchy (and therefore) men DID cause it though, I’m quite sure of that.

You only have to see the threads on here complaining about crap husbands, always, always the MIL is somehow at fault for her son's inadequacy and ineptitude. Never his father, that’s part of the problem.

Only a small minority of women are suited to studying the high level physics and mathematics required for engineering and no amount of 'feminism' is going to change that*

Only a small minority of men are capable too. I say this as someone highly qualified working in stem.

There’s nothing inherent about maths or physics that makes women worse at it ffs. There IS a huge problem with girls at school being told/shown that they’re a ‘boys’ subject.

@Arthuritis

You didn't answer the question I asked... (when you claimed none of your male family members have ever raped or sexually assaulted anyone...)

So I will ask again,......... How do you KNOW this???

You can't know can you? That's why you never answered my question.

I agree with a lot of posters on this thread, that you are a massive misogynist who thinks very little of women's rights.

Shame on you.

If the male execs in these industries stopped demanding that women take their clothes off in order to be successful then it would stop. Why isn't the onus on them to change things?*
But then if the men see no reason to change why don't women force the change?

Otherwise what is the alternative? Men carry on and women stand at the side wringing their hands and extolling " oh if only men were different"?

If I want to change something I'll fight for it to change. It doesn't always affect me. I've fought to change things for others who can't fight for themselves. That's the right thing to do. Not just leave it as is if you personally profit from it - and that is addressed to men and women.

Oh wait up. Is the OP Owl trolling? Only Owl has been banging on about biological fundamentalism and the binary structure being the cause of toxic masculinity. It’s not the menz or the penes. It’s the social structures innit.
Which is exactly the point feminists have been making for decades.
But at the current point, neither Owl nor the op can wave their wand and magic up a land where misogyny and MVAW doesn’t exist, and so women and girls must retain their rights to sex segregated spaces where they are needed. And they are needed bit just for physical protection, but to enable girls and women to break free of gendered norms and male-imposed rule.

@bluerinsesurrey
The failure of girls at physics and maths in the UK is probably cultural, given that there are now more women than men training as drs even here, and in Muslim majority countries 70% of STEM graduates are female.

Babel, one of my 14yo guides told me she deliberately flunked maths tests because the boys didn’t like girls who were good at math.
At 14, a girl has been taught by her peer group that mathsy women are unfuckable.
That’s nice.
Silly girls just don’t have the brains for it, eh, op?

Arthuritis they wouldn't get very far in the competition if they did refuse.

What if we or our kids choose single-sex spaces and events not because of an idea of "protection" or "difference", but because we enjoy them?

I don't go to women's discos or women's gaming groups because of 'protection' or because I think I am entirely different to men, I do it because I enjoy spending time with and meeting other women who enjoy activities that I enjoy. The environment is different to a mixed-sex environment or - in terms of gaming - a typically male-dominated environment, I don't see that as a bad thing.

Choosing a single-sex activity has never made me less able to deal with men any more than being in an otherwise all-male environment made me less able to deal with women (who can be just as if not more intimidating and difficult to figure out how to deal with, in my experience).

You didn't answer the question I asked... (when you claimed none of your male family members have ever raped or sexually assaulted anyone...)

So I will ask again,......... How do you KNOW this???

Ok. How do I know? You're right. I can't know because I can't see inside their heads to see all that they have ever seen or done.

I don't believe that they have ever nor would ever do it. They have never ever given me any reason to think that they have or would do it.

Let me ask you a question - how do you know that someone that you know has never committed a crime?

Or do you isolate yourself from every other member of the human race because you don't trust anyone?

Fundamentally we trust other human beings until they show us otherwise.

is It considered to be for the women's safety on the motorbikes? I spose it's possible a group of female riders might feel at risk from car drivers who take against women on motorbikes.
Or would it become a mainly male club with the occasional mixed outing because most men would prefer male only? There could be reasons for insisting on no male only outings.