Feminism

[slightreturn]

Please feel free to express your views honestly re; Feninism.
What to men really think about it?

snorbs - like you I feel the phrase 'what about the menz?' is insulting, belittling and deliberately designed to rubbish and ridicule what men have to say and feel. Its the same as when men belittle and ignore what women have to say. It is the one thing I would ban on MN but like UQD said, the Feminism topic seems to have different rules

Bling - its not the 30 women making interesting points on a thread that make me walk away. Its the 3 women who are dominating it and personally attacking any man who dares to make a post.

some of them did though

No - people were talking about man haters, and that there wasan anti-men vive from A Minority yjat put them off feminisim. So, should an anti0white vibe have the same effect?

"Did the calls of Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam for the destruction of all the "white devils", justify a refusal by white people to engage in the fight for legal equality by the much greater number of black people who simply wanted to be regarded as fully human?"

Absolutely not. But Malcolm X's choice of language and vehemence did cause problems for the majority of people fighting for equality.

omfg did you see what Brian Cox said?

Well, yes, snorbs, but that's my point - as an individual do you look at the cause and say, well some people are jusdt mean and back off, or do you accept that there is a broad church, and trhe cause is just?

yeah, think brian rather missed the point.

Does an anti-white jibe have the same effect as an anti-men jibe, is that the question? It's not an easy question to answer. They're very different. It depends on the person receiving it, and the way in which the person doling it out says it, and the relationship between them, and the rest of what is being said.

Sorry, I know that isn't a clear answer, but I don't think these questions lend themselves to quick glib responses.

Not asking for a quick glib response, but I do think you're ducking this rasther. the whites had political and economic power, and bl;ack people had less power, less influence, kept down, assumed to be less intelligent/weaker - many parallels in the history of feminism. And divergences, naturally - but analogies aren't ever meant to be exact - just to trigger a fresh perspective.

I'm going to have to come back to this later - dinner to cook and DCs to put to bed...

sorry for cod typing. bfing and not well.

And if you want to know my opinion on men - here!

'It can sound a bit wanky, a man saying "oh I'm a feminist, doncha know."'

How come, UQD?

There were plenty of white people involved in the Civil Rights movement in the US, who were proud to stand up and be counted as members despite not having much in common with the black members except an intellectual grasp of the issue.

What holds a reasonable man back from declaring for feminism? What makes it wanky?

but a well-embedded one, apparently.

Posts on this thread have often begun from the premise that feminism can't be defined, and that it is therefore ok to respond to how (some) feminists speak, rather than to what feminism is.

Do we agree that it is hard to define? Obviously there is enormous diversity of views within feminism, but that doesn't rule out there being a unifying definition.

Some here have said that it is just the belief that men and women are equally worthy of concern and respect; and they then go on to say 'why not just speak of equality of some sort instead of presupposing a disproportionate conern for women?'

My own thought is that broadly feminism has two components -- the belief that men and women are equally worthy of concern and respect; plus an analysis that shows that societies have systematically disadvantaged women in the realisation of that equality.

If a definition something like that is available and can be agreed, then the ad feminem complaints against the minority of feminists who are abrasive can be see not to undermine feminism as such?

Don't think I am ducking it. I am just saying analogies between different "rights" movements don't always have exact cross-references.

:) at cod typing. I miss cod.

I agree that if 30 people are being reasonable and 3 are being a bit wanky, it should be easy to discount the 3 and debate with the 30, but we have all been in these situations and it isn't always possible. (I'm thinking of the adult class I taught last semester - 8 reasonable students, one loud bolshy opinionated type, one total weirdo.)

Often it can be a case of "it ain't what you say, it's the way that you say it." One always has to ask "is it the actual opinion I dislike, or the way it is being expressed by this person?" (Which can cut both ways, of course - when one of the tossers says something reasonable for once and you either have to acknowledge it or ignore it. Again, we have probably all been there.)

I'm reminded of conversations with DD.

"What? I didn't make it up. I didn't say a LIE."

"No, DD, but there are ways of saying these things." (Again - I bet that is so familiar!)

But why, when feminism or any feminist issue is discussed, is the focus immediately on this mythical man-hating element?

Why not just discuss the issue? Does every thread about racism have to have a long boring bit in the middle about the minority of black power activists who hate white people?

A lot of male behaviour is put down to "woman-hating" when it patently isn't - or at least, doesn't necessarily have to be.

(Does every thread about racism have to have a long boring bit in the middle about the minority of white supremacists who hate black people?)

My definition of feminism is pretty simple: the belief that women are fully human.

That might sound pretty uncontroversial, but for centuries there has actually been doubt about it - Plato wasn't all that sure, and it wasn't till the eighteenth century that a bunch of Anglican bishops grudgingly admitted we might be.

From that basic acknowledgement, stems everything else. If you believe someone is fully human and you value humanity, it becomes impossible to argue that one group within humanity should be regarded as less valuable or treated less favourably than another group.

(There are quite a few people out there who don't value humanity of course.)

"A lot of male behaviour is put down to "woman-hating" when it patently isn't - or at least, doesn't necessarily have to be."

What behaviour?

LOL

Herbeatitude loving men (energetically) since 1984