Feminism

[slightreturn]

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

I think misogyny is a perfectly evident and widespread belief - is there anyone who wants to deny that? You have women in many many countries being locked up or killed by their families or the state for being supposedly impure, where a man behaving in the same way would be acceptable. You have rape used as a weapon of war. You have the constant nitpicking over the appearance of e.g. female politicians, which is just not the case with male politicians (bar party leaders on occasion). You have girls denied education in many places, or not allowed to go in favour of their brothers being educated regardless of ability. You have bride burnings in S Asia.

All of these things stem from a belief in the low value and general subhumanity of women, the belief that they should be judged differently (more harshly) than men, are less able and their lives are less important.

These are things that are happening literally every day.

If you want to come up with some roughly comparable evidence of man-hating by women, and its effect on real people, please do.

Until then it is very irritating to be constantly batted back with this illusion of "man-hating" for which no-one can produce any examples. Is it maybe worth considering that what you are experiencing is hurt feelings? And that one response is to put those to one side and engage with the point someone made so well above - do you think that women are still undervalued and hurt and killed in the world because of their sex? Do you think it's worth thinking about what we can do about it?

And of course you can love individual women and still be a misogynist. I know a supposedly devoted dad who steered his daughter towards being a legal secretary because being a lawyer was "men's work". That's misognyny, thinking that women are less capable and their "femaleness" is the defining feature - not individual ability.

Or can we have one single example of a man locked up or hurt or killed purely because he is/was a man?

Great posts, Elephants.

In fact, an almost perfect illustration of your point

Except that it starts off slagging off the woman. But I'd be cross with her too, tbh.

Eleison,

This must be my last post for now because it's getting late where I live.

The problem is that social justice, equality and (perhaps) respect are all determined by what is fair. This leads to the further problem that there are different standards of fairness. Feminism had (and has) to break the mould if necessary to achieve what it sees as necessary for women to achieve.

I think this is an extremely important point. If feminism had simply been about objective fairness from the start, I very much doubt it would have achieved as much as it has.

"Interesting discussion of misogyny - maybe the definition would include not respecting women as equals"

We've got a word for that already - "sexism". Sexism isn't good either for individuals or society as a whole but I do see sexism as being very distinct from misogyny. Yes, a misogynist is also a sexist but the converse is not necessarily the case.

yy, I agree. feeling quite dim atm!

Ok but sexism to me is the result - women don't get picked for jobs or whatever because they are women, that's sexism. But misognyny is the underlying belief (IMO) that women are worth less etc that leads to the sexism. Does that make sense?

Habbibu - don't really get the link in your post of 10:20, sorry I'm probably being thick

It was the loving individual women and being a misogynist, E&M - Gordon Ramsay's actions rather seemed to illustrate what you'd said.

ah yes, thanks. Get a terrible case of the red mist when it comes to racist arse Gordon R.

(Yes I like that post too Elephants.)

I think what a lot of otherwise intelligent and aware men don't realise is that misogyny is a constant drip-drip throughout your life. To be fair, a huge number of women don't see it either, until it comes and knocks them over the head, often when they've had children and all previous goalposts have changed suddenly, internally and externally.

On another message board once, I got involved in a thread about sexual assault and rape. The number of women who had been assaulted or raped was astonishing. Just mind-boggling. I told dh about it and he refused to believe it. They were making it up. It couldn't be true. WHAT?! Because he is not a rapist, he can't see that the problem exists. People he knows will, statistically, have sexually assaulted a woman or girl. He can't take that in. Yet women live with that reality all the time and are criticized for voicing it. Man-haters, apparently. The frustration of it makes me want to scream.

Also mildly unbelievable (it seems) is the behaviour of men towards women in the workplace. The comments you are supposed to be able to take. The sidelining once you have children. The messing about with contracts every few years so your maternity package is reset to basic. Being told your job no longer exists so they don't want you back after maternity leave. Or welcoming you back but sticking you in a windowless basement office on your own. All of these things have happened to me or women I know: a tiny sample of women. An insignificant number. But this is our normality. (And I haven't even touched on younger women and appearance and sexuality and 'pole-dancing for fitness' aarghghghghg)

And of course when you compare being told that 'your breasts cheer an old man up every day' to being murdered for a family's honour, it's nothing. I do wish that more men could acknowledge the more hidden misogyny, though.

Great post UnePrune, I can imagine my DP acting in a similar way.

The thing about being a man is, you get the right to ignore sexism. I think that's why BB & UQD etc are free to take their hurt feelings and use that to paint the whole of feminism in a poor light. For men, paying attention to and believing in sexism - let alone doing anything to combat it - is an optional extra. That's why we all need to be nice and sit on our hands if we want them to deign to take part.

The thing about being a woman is, dealing with sexism is pretty much compulsory. Whether it's the man talking to DP (straight past me) telling him that I am DP's most precious possession, or being locked up for being raped (in Libya for instance).

BB & UQD - sorry I didn't mean "deign" etc as a dig at you two specifically although it looks that way.

Yes it is compulsory to just deal with it - sexism and misogyny, the line is blurred. It is also compulsory to stay quiet about a lot of it for various restrictive reasons. One of the saddest things is when you get together in a group of women only and things start to come out - it can be like a floodgate has opened. The feelings of anger and defeat (on a massive scale) are very real.

I read digs at women who eg talk about the potential for sexual assault - which IS real, I'm sorry, it is - and you know, downgrading it to a 'man-hater labelling every man a rapist' is just so demeaning. It's fair to say that a woman stepping into the stereotype and labelling every man a rapist is bloody irritating. But the statistics are not changed just because men get annoyed by that.

I never get how the dad who tells his daughter "don't walk home, I'll come and pick you up no matter how late it is" because he doesn't want her walking through the dark streets is never seen as "man-hating". But a feminist saying that 2000 rapes happen in the UK every week (Home office figures) is seen as man-hating and vastly OTT.

Any men reading: if you agree that there is a huge history of sexism/misognyny whatever you like to call it, you should get what I'm about to say. Women are & have been the underclass as far as anyone can remember, and as far back as books can tell us. Men have been the ruling class - not all men are in charge obviously, but those in charge have been (99%) men. Men nowadays retain the right to ignore sexism, or not to notice it (as i said above). Women don't. So if you come and talk to a group of women, and tell them that because one of them was rude or questioned your motivation/because the word feminism is out of date/because anti-man feeling is hurtful to you/because the moon is gibbous you will be taking your male power and potential to change things for the better elsewhere, it is upsetting not to say maddening. You can do something to change things, because like it or not a man saying something feminist has 50 times the impact that a woman saying it has. If you look at that chance you have to use your male voice (and with it the unlikelihood of being called "shrill" or "bitter" etc, and the extreme likelihood of being taken seriously) to make the world a fairer and better place for your daughters and granddaughters, and you toss it away because of any small reason you have to ask yourself why? Why waste your chance, your voice?

Ok, the original poster asks us to "please feel free to express ourselves honestly". So, here goes...

I fully believe that all people should be equal in law and have a right to be treated fairly. Where I struggle is where it is assumed (in the UK in 2010) that there is a "patriarchy" and that there is still rampant misogyny and sexism. Of course misogyny and sexism exist. There are plenty of bigoted men but also plenty of bigoted women who look down on men. People will quote a lot of stats about differential earnings, sexual assault etc. However, in education, for instance, there is a clear bias towards females. In addition, in ads today, the woman is typically portrayed as the omnicompetent runner of house and career and the man almost as another child or a laughing stock.

I really dislike the argument that because some women are assaulted, a large proportion of men have it in them to assault. Clearly there are rapists and nasty men out there. However, I suspect the proportion of men is quite small. I would, as a relatively slight white person, feel nervous about walking down Brixton (predominantly black) area late at night. Using that as an argument against black people as a whole, though, would be racist and deeply unpleasant.

As soon as feminism ceases to be about equality and becomes about assuming men are oppressors and trying to do something about it, as a man I clearly lose sympathy.

Globally, however, I accept there is a patriarchy and women have not won the struggle.

Elephants - you have misunderstood what I have said.

"...to paint the whole of feminism in a poor light".

I have never done/thought/felt that. I agree with many aspects and aims of feminism. I just disagree with a very small minority of feminists who use it as cover for their dislike of men.

Not that it matters, but for what its worth I dont feel you dislike me because I am a man or because you call yourself a feminist. I agree with many/most things you say in your posts.

"I really dislike the argument that because some women are assaulted, a large proportion of men have it in them to assault. Clearly there are rapists and nasty men out there. However, I suspect the proportion of men is quite small. I would, as a relatively slight white person, feel nervous about walking down Brixton (predominantly black) area late at night. Using that as an argument against black people as a whole, though, would be racist and deeply unpleasant. "

Firstly, only a relatively small number of women use that as an argument against all men. Clearly there are other things going on with them.

But look, if 50% (roughly) of women I know have been sexually abused, assaulted or raped, sometimes by more than one man, and none of them have been attacked by the same man, I have to assume that the proportion of men who are capable of assault or rape is far higher than 'quite small'. I don't want to.

It's really easy to say that women are using the fact that rape happens as an attack on all men. It's not true, though. Most women enjoy men's company and (if heterosexual) want to pursue happy and fruitful relationships with them: isn't that obvious?! But there is a risk there, whether you like it or not. At least you getting upset about it doesn't actually have to change your patterns of behaviour or expose you to danger.

Uneprune,

I had a look at the home office statistics. These said that there were 61,000 rapes per year (the year they surveyed). That would kind of assume that maybe 1/25 men were rapists (assuming no serial offenders which there clearly are). It is a horrifically high number but still implies that 96% of men are NOT rapists.

Most violent crimes are committed by young men. However, that is just a consequence of the nature of testosterone coupled with bad upbringing and maybe bad genes. I really do not think most feminists would advocate castration of men as a remedy (though it would probably work). Most reasonable people would also see some upside to women and men having a different hormonal make up.

Where I cavil is the going from the specific "there are bad guys out there who do bad things" to the general "guys do bad things and this is a result of a patriarchal society and needs to be changed". Most dangerous people are men but that does not mean that most men are dangerous.

I totally agree what most women enjoy men's company. However, I think "most" women would only consider themselves feminists in the sense of desiring equality and fairness, not is feeling the need to challenge the "patriarchal" underpinnings of society.

When there is a common theme to the way a specific group of people is abused/oppressed, it makes sense to define it in terms of the ethos of the society. So when people say that women are disproportionately abused by men (you know the 2 women a week killed by their partners current or ex statistic), when women are on average paid less than men, when women are objectified more than men etc etc it makes sense to explain it in terms of a societal attitude towards women, and label it as such.

You looked at Home Office statistics for rape.
I was talking about sexual abuse, assault and rape.
How many instances of those go unreported? How many instances of rape are reported but not pursued? Taken to court but no conviction results because of a technicality? Women are like a stuck record, aren't they? Been saying these sorts of things for generations now and STILL it isn't going in.

I can't say that my '50% of women I know' is anything like a watertight statistic, and I wouldn't try to, but your statistical comeback is disturbing.

Uneprune

I am allowed to reply to a statistic with a statistic. It is unfair to call it "disturbing". In addition, if you think of the amount of men and situations your "50% of women" have been in with different men throughout their lives, the two do sort of concur.

I am curious. What proportion of men do you personally think have committed violent crimes against women?

And, I still think that to look at the most unpleasant men in society and make judgements on men's role in society based on them is a sad way to look at intersex relations.

I think most violent crimes including murder happen to men by men
so there isnt some massive conspiracy of men vs women.

I don't think you can use the people you have direct contact with or know to
describe the nation there are many different things that come into play like
area, crime rate, poverty etc and many are repeat offenders.