is there a new cognitive dissonance thread?

[kickassangel]

if so, please link, i can't find it.

if not, i'd like to add some things

using personal experience to prove a point is not a great argument. we have to start with the bigger picture, then see personal experiences as a case study which exemplifies, but does not prove a point.

i'm not even sure that i view myself as a feminist. i view myself as someone who believes in equality (not just on male/female issues). the generalisations about feminism being a religion i find offensive, as they both ignore the patriarchal society we live in (and this assertion can be backed up by endless statistics & experiences), and assume that one particular viewpoint is religious.

is marxism a religion? what about other schools of thought?

feminism is a broad range of thought, and there will be changes and shifts within the arguments, just as there are in other sociological concepts. and there will be women who abuse, just as there are men who do so.

however, look at the structure of society, and it is impossible to say that it isn't patriarchal. just look at the possession of wealth, the media representation of people, the male/female ration in positions of power.

if it was as simple as some women 'not bothering' to push themselves forward, there would still be enough women to fill 50% of all key positions in society, and to hold 50% of the wealth, but that isn't what happens. so, it sin't due to a lack of women exerting themselves, it is due to the inherent sexism within society.

Elephants,

There is one thing that I can indubitably say that I know better than you and that is what kind of a person I am! Although, maybe you would dispute that.

You again dodge the thrust of my analogy. Which is that there are some things only men can do and some things only women. So, to judge men because some pervert something that only they can physically do is analagous to judge women on the same basis.

And you know I am not talking about late abortions due to horrible things like birth defects. Maybe I should have said that only women smoke and drink in pregnancy, so damaging their unborn babies. Maybe a better analogy. No men ever feed their unborn babies cigarette smoke or alcohol. Does that tell you anything about society or men or women?

I seriously think you do get me but choose not to engage. So, disingenousness rather than obtuseness.

I'm just going to reply to this one post by larry, and then leave it.

I understand perfectly well that "there are some things only men can do and some things only women".

Late abortions are only carried out for these "horrible things like birth defects". No mother gets a late term abortion because she wants to cause harm, or just because she can. There are real reasons.

There are no real reasons to commit rape. That is why that analogy is leading to you being called a rape apologist.

Women who smoke or drink in pregnancy may not be doing the best thing for the foetus, but they are not doing those things to harm the foetus. They are putting stuff into their own bodies, which is their prerogative as adults. Sometime foetuses sustain damage as a result (I hear, I don't know stats etc), but many healthy babies are born to mothers who smoke and drink.

Every woman who is raped sustains harm. It is no man's prerogative to rape.

There is no comparison to rape, and trying to excuse it via these completely disgusting analogies is execrable.

No-one is saying "men commit all these rapes and women don't commit (m)any - why?

We're saying men (as individuals, or sometimes in groups) commit all these rapes, why are they doing it? Why are they allowed to get away with it?

Larry, the Home Office estimates that annually there are about 100,000 rapes a year in this country. Approx 12,000 are reported to the police. Of these only 6% result in a conviction. A woman living in the UK over the age of 16, has a 5% chance of being raped during her lifetime.

Please could you tell me about a prominent male campaigner in this area. Could highlight some of the policies our predominately male government propose to deal with these issues. Could you also tell me why our predominately male judiciary and police force have been so unsuccessful at dealing with the conviction rate for rape and why so many women are stil raped in the UK if they have made adequate steps to address this?

Sakura & Lenin thanks for the replies. At the moment, I've settled for simply accepting things until the children start school and reassessing things then. It simply isn't practical for me to change anything before then, as although I have wonderful friends who have been incredibly supportive in my life, all bar one of them work themselves and I have no family to help (they're all in their 80s apart from my sister, who lives abroad). I think my biggest fear is that by the time I am in a position to effect change, maybe my drive to make it happen will have died away. I guess all I can do is keep an eye on that to try to ensure it doesn't.

I agree about the wifework thing. One of the things that surprised me about becoming a single parent was how much easier domestic life became. It was quite an eye opener to discover that the one person who should be helping to ease the load was actually the cause of more of it than two newborn babies! If I ever have another relationship, I would be watching for that from the start. To me it now symbolises a huge lack of respect for the other. To be honest, though, I don't particularly want another relationship. I don't get lonely and I have plenty of RL people to talk to. I think I may be asexual as although I have always enjoyed sex, I don't seem to have any libido. What I would like is remain single, but to manage a career and children, without a partner or very helpful family or friends, you need to be in a career that earns quite a lot of money. Better make sure I don't lose that drive to retrain in a year's time then...

larry has refused to respond to lots of simple questions, and continues to mansplain feminism on unrelated topics. He is not interested in feminism

OMG @ Larry's rape/late abortion analogy. No matter what the thrust of the analogy is meant to be, how could anyone be so unbelievably crass as to post that on a parenting site?
Larry, if you have a shred of decency you will ask MNHQ to delete that post.

should I ask them to delete my replies too do you reckon SSM? I just couldn't bear to leave that analogy (how to put the anal in analogy) there unquestioned. :(

lol Frosty!
Yes, he doesn't regard his wife as a skivvy, he said. Don'T be such a misandrist!

Same goes for me. If Larry has the decency to get the original post deleted I would be happy for all trace of it to go too.

Have to go out now but will check later - if inbetween time the whole sorry lot gets deleted that is fine by me.

Right. The reason that I started reading this thread last night was because I don't know what cognitive dissonance is. I am still a bit hazy after reading the thread (probably because I spent too long getting angry at two posters).

Please, if anyone can spare five minutes to post me a link on where to start looking. Google gives way too many hits and I am getting lost in a myriad of information.

'I would love to name names.. but that is hardly constructive.'

Oh gwan, Footlong, name names -- to heck with constructive...

Here's something to occupy yourself with:

"The cure for unhappiness is lobotomy"
Discuss

Sethetc,

"OMG @ Larry's rape/late abortion analogy. No matter what the thrust of the analogy is meant to be, how could anyone be so unbelievably crass as to post that on a parenting site?"

What you do not seem to get is how offensive it is to the 90 whatever percentage of men who are not rapists that some so called feminists really believe that the "patriarchal" society is somehow to blame for some men's criminality.

Let me try one more analogy, no idea why really as I am tired of just being insulted for existing. I am Jewish by descent. Some of my relatives were gassed in the holocaust. The majority of the people doing the gassing were christians. Do I therefore say that there is something wrong with christians in totality or we need to fight against the UK today being COE. No, I don't. I recognise the capability of individuals to do evil without trying to generalise it to a group of people.

can we start a MN Feminist nursery section?

It could start with simple lessons on how to logic.

old thread

the first post kind of explains it, this is the 2nd thread on this topic.

about half way through there is a great expalnation by marenmj - you could search for her posts.

OptimistS -- your problem in trying to find retraining opportunities, work, and at the same time manage care of your children is an example of cognitive dissonance in the education system (as far as it may be defined as inconsistency between beliefs or stated purpose and performance anyhow).

Clearly, it is in everyone's best interest to have a workforce capable of retraining, of performing at a higher level, and paying taxes in a higher bracket, of having more disposable income as a result of retraining, as opposed to bumping along underemployed, under-spending, and paying less in taxes while possibly taking more from the communal kitty -- this is especially true in the case of single mothers. Yet when a woman who has children and sole responsibility for their care (exactly the person who really needs the chance to do better) tries to climb the career ladder by going back to school she finds obstacles in her path that are not in the path of childless women, or men who do not as a rule have sole responsibility for chidcare.

The system is there, paid for by the many, benefiting a select few, because the needs of a large constituency are not anticipated or accommodated. Childcare in the education system is an afterthought if it exists at all, just as disabled access used to be.

Catitainahatita -- it's a state of tension that arises when you find yourself holding two mutually opposing ideas or when your actions contradict your beliefs.

Lenin - Sakura just posted a quote: "it is the women who ignore men, not hate them, who incite the patriarchy?s most dystopian fears."

I am aghast to think I'm not exciting larry, footlong etc's most dystopian fears, hence I'll be ignoring from now on.