To what extent, is female competition a significant factor in the problem.

[anonymousjoe]

I am a man, I have no clue how hard it is to be you. I do however believe in equal rights for women in every sense of the word. My sister is my closest family member, and all that I want is to be a good role model for my feisty little niece.

So thats basically my uneducated views on feminism. What brings me here is that I have been assigned a poster on social issues for my graphic design program. I am thinking about promoting either a 2 tiered health care system for Canada (which in real life I am actually a huge supporter of the ideal), or promoting Camaraderie amongst women which was inspired by this: www.upworthy.com/nailed-it-this-ad-calls-out-5-ridiculous-double-standards-women-face-in-less-than-60-seconds-2?c=ufb1

I noticed that the last two; Neat/Vain, and Smooth/show-off are not compliments or insults any man (ok, maybe a very select few) would EVER throw at either gender. Which tells me that this ad is clearly written by women, about how OTHER women judge them. I have asked the females in my class (Which is predominantly female) if they have ever experienced anything like that and they say that they have not. Granted, most are fresh out of high school, and therefore have very little experience in the actual work place. However I have encountered one particularly vocal feminists in other classes who claim this sort of thing happens every day, primarily because women are taught to compete with EACH OTHER.

So really my three part question is rather simple

1. Is it a reasonable preposition to promote strength of gender through camaraderie? or is that just me being ignorant?
2. In your opinion, is this supposed competition between females a "statistically significant" factor
3. They referenced a Heidi/Howard syndrome study, and I would be very interested to read the breakdown of how many men disliked Heidi vs how man women disliked Heidi as we need articles to support our view point.

Also, I would be very interested to hear your opinions on gender inequality in general, and I am kind of glad to have found this site.

No it's not ALL about women putting degradation on women, but from what i have listened to the last few days, it is most definitely a factor. And I don't demand that you listen to me, hence why I asked YOU if you don't like my idea, lets throw it out, and you tell me what is an important message. lol but all you said was that men can't help.

now when you read the sarcasm, try and understand why I came to a feminist forum to focus on solutions. Think about how helpful you COULD have been

"WAH WAH WAH! Wimms makes me angry by not listening to my important opinion! They must be BITCHES!!!!

I am a 20 year old man who must be listened to or fuck you."

Reddit is not the watermark for feminist discourse but feel free to fuck off to reddit if you think otherwise.

"when you guys tell me there is nothing i can do to help because i am a man, well i simply can't accept that. And it makes me angry"

wah wah wah! angry me is soooo important!! This may be your first lesson that privilege =/= respect. It's tough, isn't it?

lol i came here because I agree with you about reddit. YOU make me angry by suggesting that I have nothing to offer feminism and therefore should not try. I think YOU are a disgraceful excuse for a feminist because you would rather say "don't try to support feminism because you are a man" than "here's what little girls should hear." It's a damn shame I DON'T have more time to read a book, but after reading your I can certainly see where the negative stigma about "femi-nazis" comes from. I can't help but wonder if thats how YOU behave in real life.

If you actually contribute something other than "men can't help" i WILL listen to you, but so far that's all you have said. You are probably so bitter because you HAVE experienced so much sexism, thats what I want to hear. I can't send a reasonable message if nobody explains it to me. I have been looking up articles on it all day, but the stories that the ladies i have listened to, (and coincidentally the only ladies that will actually see the poster, hence the perfect message for the demographic) suggested to me that the message was relevant. If you disagree I would literally LOVE to hear alternatives. Is it silly that I am determined to make an incredible, feminist poster because some bitter sexist online said I can't? maybe. But if a man told you that there was no way you could possibly create a message that would resound with me you had talked to because you were a woman, wouldn't your resolve be just a TAD bit bolstered by the idiocy of that statement?

So Florafox, what message do you think would be good for the future ladies of our world?

Lol there is literally nothing important about me. I am firmly in the middle of the pack in my class, i can think of 4 women off the top of my head I regularly ask advice from because they are so bloody obviously more talented than I am.

is there a message you think the women of tomorrow should hear?

lol and before you say to go LISTEN to them... I did, and they told me what I originally posted.

Before I regularly read these boards, I would have said that I had experienced very little sexism, then I sat down and thought...

I'm very careful in my working life not to mention my children - because I've heard conversations between colleagues regarding other women with children, and it's not in their favour at all - my DP has never had to think like this. I even carefully planned throwaway remarks regarding having children before I did have them, so that I wouldn't seem risky in interviews.

I've been groped, unwantedly kissed etc. - before now I just thought that was one of those things, yet my DP has never had to spend a Christmas party shimmying around advances and hiding behind friends.

I've been bypassed in DIY stores to talk to the male with me - even when I'm the one asking the questions, and wanting to buy the drill (or whatever)

It's assumed that I'll do the paperwork or take notes during Uni courses or at work - just because I was the only woman in the room - forgetting that at work I was the head of department, and I had subordinates in the room.

All of these sexist things have been done to me by men.

At school there was some bullying, that was done by girls, but I haven't hung around with the kind of women who would do that now that I'm an adult.

I wonder if that goes something to explain why the other students on your class feel they haven't experienced any sexism? They're dismissing groping, and haven't had to think about careers and children yet - which just leaves bullying.

We're not being mean here, but we're not here to educate you as a public service either - I'm afraid we're not going to write reams and reams for you to do your school project when google exists - we have our own lives to live and want to talk about things we find interesting, rather than respond to demands from young men to help them blame ourselves for our plight.

I like the Fresh Meat episode where Howard asks one of the woman if she has ever been objectified. No she replies confidently. Then adds, - oh there was the time...and reels off a stream of incidents....and then finishes with, but apart from that, no never.

if it's not too rude of me to ask, and if I am going too far feel free to tell me to bugger off, but if you left that kind of female behind, why do you keep that kind of male around? they seem equally useless to you.

Just do the other one. This is way over your head.

Imagine a building with 40 floors. The understanding of politics and social organisation required to do justice to your poster project is on floor 40. You are currently in the basement. And you haven't even figured out where the stairs are yet.

(Plus the concept you want to cover is actually way too complex to be usefully communicated in poster form.)

And use google to read about token torturers i.e. how women are used by patriarchy/male dominated society, to keep other women in line.

All oppressive systems do this. There have been black people telling other black people that if only they acted in a more acceptable way, there wouldn't be racism.

And expecting that feminists will be pleased to educate you, really is an example of male entitlement in action.

I changed my mind. I don't want to help.

If you have missed why women being empowered a cosmetic company might be offensive and damaging you are so far behind the type of think that I would identify with as feminism.

You don't have to read hours and hours of academic research but you do need to have an understanding of your subject matter before you make a poster about something so important as feminism.

If you genuinely wanted to learn about feminism then there are pages and pages in the board alone that would help you. However you want to bitch and moan about how us women wont help you help us to understand the world better. Oh do fuck off!

and I absolutely agree that it is nobody's job to educate me, and I have been googling articles, i just find that it never really tells a human story. Where i find fault is that fact that some have taken time out of their day to respond, yet all they tell me to do is stop trying.

Is that really the message you want to send to young men? if it is, far be it from me to interrupt.

joe - you have had good advice here actually, in the usual honest MN style. You don't understand the issues enough to attempt this. And it will take masses of reading before you do.

The suggestion of Cordelia Fine's book Delusions of Gender is a good starting place.

downloading a torrent now actually

took me a while to find. No PDFs were available.

No PDFs are available because authors make (a little) bit of money from selling books, not from circulating free PDFs.

Read the everyday sexism site, too.

Joe, you've made the usual mistake many men make. You've asked a question, which is A Good Thing, btw, you've been given advice and you've ignored it, and instead you put forward your own ideas.

A short list of where to start:-

1. When discussing feminism with women listen to them. I mean really listen.
2. Check your privilege. When you realise the world is set up for you the veils drop and you can be empathic.
3. Read ChunkyPickle's post of 07.52 and take as much time as you need to understand it.
4. hazchem put it best: "Feminism is the radical idea that women are people too"

Honestly, until you can make a start to understand do the other project.

Joe, as far as I understand it you are attempting to design a poster on the theme of solidarity among (young) women. Your purposes in doing this are presumably a. to pass your course and b. because you care about feminism.

I do not believe in the 'not my job to educate you' sentiment; it is social justice warrior nonsense. It is my job to educate you, but the difficulty I have is that you are trying to run before you can walk and I am not Canadian (as this is a UK site) and I do not have the knowledge or experience to speak on behalf of Canadian women or teach you how to do it. I do know that a far more major issue in uniting Canadian women is the divide of ethnicity, class and sexual orientation. If you put together a poster of a bunch of young women and they are generally white, non pregnant, able bodied, stereotypical heterosexual looking colege student types, that in itself will be massively offensive, particularly if you then make allusions that the main divide amongst women is bitchy remarks!

My advice (like others have said) is to do another topic that you know more about. Then pursue your commitment to feminism at a less complex level, perhaps by looking at things that can help your niece if that inspires you. It is not because you are a man but because you are simply not skilled enough at this point to deal with the issues. You need to start at a more basic level with feminism as all of us had to do. There just is no substitute for hard work in understanding feminism or any other subject.

Joe, try thinking about this: "the default setting in life is MALE, females are 'other' " and see where that train of thought takes you.

It is pretty likely that your young female student friends have experienced sexism - but that they haven't recognised it as such yet. You see, it is just their life - they have no other frame of reference. Their female friends have all experienced similar, to them it's all just a part of life.

Here are some things that have probably affected them so far:

Judged on their attractiveness to men;

Judged on how they dress.

Bombarded with media/pop culture images of scantily clad, overtly sexualised women (eg, miley cyrus)

Probably have to brush off comments about their bodies/looks on a daily basis, or even physical assaults;

They shouldn't walk home alone at night;

They shouldn't drink too much, wear high heels, low cut tops etc, because if they are raped, they will be blamed for it;

They have to guard their drinks on a night out;

They are expected to be the gatekeepers of virtue.

When they start work and then a family - they will have to fend off interviewers suspicions that they will get pregnant and go on maternity leave, they will most likely get paid less for the same job. They will most likely have to give up their job/go part time/arrange childcare and probably, do most of the housework too. Working mothers are more likely to take the day off to look after their children when they're sick. The term 'working mothers' is commonly used/heard, 'working fathers' isn't - they're just 'men with families.' They are more likely to stagnate on their career ladder than fathers whilst bringing up a family - or be seen as selfish for pursuing a career rather than looking after their children.

And yes, the patriarchy does pitch women against women - but it's not other women that are at fault, it's patriarchal society.

I'm not sure what stage of education you're at, but I think you need to learn to write good, clear English before you grapple with complicated concepts. Frankly, your first post is painful. I understand that this is difficult, more difficult for some than others for all sorts of reasons. I'm not too bothered about the SPAG, btw, but more about the register of language. I think you're tending to use rather over-complicated terminology you don't fully understand, which is why you are confused by what are really quite simple concepts.

Try to re-phrase your points as clearly as you can manage, without extraneous verbiage (it's often thought by struggling students that this will make you look more intelligent; the reverse is true unless you actually know what you're talking about). Then you might have the basis for this poster.

Good luck!

Kickass link, Buffy.

OP, try looking at these posters.

don't be a rapist