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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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245 replies

UpForDiscussi0n · 28/06/2017 13:14

Full transparacy, I am not a mother nor a woman. English is not my first language so exuse any misshap. I only made this account to be able to talk to a feminist first-hand to be able to see their view-points. I am myself not a feminist as i don't belive that the feminism in today's society promotes equality on some levels. I have also read several news outlets such as bussfeed and the huffington post but find them to be (as i said, bad english so don't really know how to put it) downlooking towards myself as a man. Would love to hear people out and debate or discuss feministic issues, have a good day.

OP posts:
BertrandRussell · 28/06/2017 16:15

"Just FYI, International Men's Day is the 19th of November."

Is that you, Richard? Grin

slug · 28/06/2017 16:15

I guess he'll blame us when his GCSE grades are poor as well. My tip, should you ever come back OP, is to:

Read the question
Give evidence for your points
Work on your spelling and grammar
Answer the question on the paper not the question you want to answer
Structure your answers in a logical format (essay plans are a good thing to learn how to do at speed)

Popchyck · 28/06/2017 16:15

Anyone think that the OP is already on a CIA Watch List?

Lots of anger there.

DixieFlatline · 28/06/2017 16:25

Bertrand, who the hell is Richard? I feel like I've missed something significant...

slug, he's Swedish, I'm not sure it's entirely fair to keep having a go about his SPAG. Though I do realise it's part of your joke in the second post.

Dervel · 28/06/2017 16:27

I suggest you re-read this thread from a less subjective perspective. You came here wanting to learn and to be challenged, I endeavoured to illuminate and challenge you. If that is in fact not what you wanted then perhaps you should be clearer one what what you wanted.

People suggested to you to research and even made some suggestions on some books, but you said you learned better from a personal debate structure. If that were the case you would understand that debates involve an often passionate back and forth, well if you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen.

Your initial post opens with a desire to engage, but reveals an anti feminist starting point straight after. My mind boggles that you couldn't fathom coming on a feminist board and saying "I want to learn what you all think, but I am anti-feminist" would get anything other than a robust challenge.

If by you own admission you don't know what feminism is (as that is why you are here right? To learn about it?), how can you reasonably have anything resembling a coherent position against it?

Either say "I am here in good faith I don't know about feminism, please help me understand it" or "I take an anti feminist position and here's why...." and engage in that manner. You can't realistically do both.

BertrandRussell · 28/06/2017 16:39

"Bertrand, who the hell is Richard? I feel like I've missed something significant..."
Oh, sorry. There's a comedian called Richard Herring who has taken it on himself to spend all of International Women's Day on Twitter answering the idiots who whine about when is International Men's Day.....I thought you were referencing him!

DixieFlatline · 28/06/2017 16:40

Oh, sorry. There's a comedian called Richard Herring who has taken it on himself to spend all of International Women's Day on Twitter answering the idiots who whine about when is International Men's Day.....I thought you were referencing him!

Oh, of course, I did see mention of that this year. Had forgotten already! Grin

user1498662042 · 28/06/2017 16:41

"We are asking that you think critically and answer our questions, which you have failed to do."

The thing is, that injunction goes both ways, and while the odd MRA jerk pops up in here, sometimes someone appears with some legitimate criticisms of feminism (or what is described as feminism these days). But because they deviate from the third wave borg mind, they're rounded up on and hounded out of the MNF like a witch from a medieval village. If they're male, they're an MRA; if they're female they're a 'hand maiden.'

While this is a feminist forum, I don't see how any good can come from the tacit ruling that all must comply with an intransigent class politics that simplistically divides human beings, in all their infinite variety, into oppressors and oppressed - or be driven out. I'm not making an exception of feminism. As a socialist I'd say class identity was a dumbass way of looking at economic inequality (if it wasn't then my the working-class electrician wouldn't be raking it in while the political science graduate is sleeping in an underpass). Yes, misogyny exists big time, but guess what - power in human societies is dynamic and complicated. There are a residue of very powerful men at the top of our corporate and political institutions, and that's wrong; but in the normal world that most of us inhabit, things are a bit more complicated. While women bear the brunt of sexual violence, more men are homeless than women; more men kill themselves than women; more men than women are unemployed. "Why is this feminism's problem?" you say. Well, it isn't directly; but it is an issue if you're promulgating the notion that most of the male population are in elite boys clubs, screwing their secretaries and blowing their millions at strip joints. I mean, yeah some of them are - but the guys sleeping on the streets and filling your supermarket shelves aren't that powerful are they? Where do they fit in to the ideological narrative? Surely, with all the privilege their born into they'd have made something of themselves?

What I think many feminists do these days (and in fact many identity ideologues, left and right) is see the entire world through one prism, and anything that can't be shoehorned into their narrative is rejected. So they go into their echo chambers and talk to lots of other people who agree with them.

So if someone comes in here and starts being an abusive, misogynist arsehole and saying 'all you feminazis should be raped;' then ban the fucker; but sometimes someone comes along and merely...wait for it... disagrees with you; and for that crime they're treated as no different from the misogynist troll.

I'm not attacking feminism per se, just saying that the balkanised, echo chamber ID politics in evidence in forums like this sucks - only reinforcing the divisions that social justice movements were once in the business of breaking down.

QuentinSummers · 28/06/2017 16:51

Oh fgs.
Someone asking questions and not listening to the responses is just annoying, not disagreeing.
Yes men have issues but it's not for feminism to deal with. The clues in the name. Come on here with an idea about how to solve these issues and we will talk. Come on to bitch about echo chambers and act like feminists owe it to you to fix mens problems, nah.

slug · 28/06/2017 16:57

User, this is the third thread of this ilk in the last 2 days. Frankly I can't be bothered with (usually) men who pop up on a feminist board demanding that women educate him about something that he could damn well do for himself with a simple internet search.

They're just lazy, which is why I usually direct them to this site for some simple education

SpaghettiAndMeatballs · 28/06/2017 16:59

more men are homeless than women; more men kill themselves than women; more men than women are unemployed

Oh good God - as you so rightly say, these things are a little bit more complicated.

The good men project has a good article on this - If a family is homeless, the adult in that family is more likely to be a woman. If single (who are the majority of homeless) then a man. Men are less likely to seek treatment for mental illness or substance abuse, they are more likely to be veterans - all of which makes it no surprise they are more likely to be homeless, plus, if you have kids, you are a priority for housing, so women (with kids) are more likely to be housed, PLUS, women are more likely to engage in survival sex - i.e. - it's not exactly all roses for those women.

Men are more likely to successfully suicide. Women make more attempts though - so make of that what you will.

More men than women are unemployed only because of the way stats are accumulated (and lets face it, there's no one true way to do that) - plenty of women are trapped as SAHM because there's no way for them to find a job that fits with childcare/school, and their partners are unwilling or unable to share the childcare burden.

The kid didn't even disagree with people - he didn't actually bring anything to the table, and expected us to fill his plate for him. I'm not sorry if we have enough of that in real life and don't leap to mother him.

Dervel · 28/06/2017 16:59

I'm a man, been posting for a number of years, and have never claimed to be a feminist and haven't been hounded off the boards. Broadly speaking (as is similar to everywhere else) most people are nice here.

user1498662042 · 28/06/2017 17:00

Come on to bitch about echo chambers and act like feminists owe it to you to fix mens problems, nah.

That's a wilful misreading of what I said. Where did I even vaguely imply that that it's feminism's job to fix male problems?

Btw, I agree some of what this guy is saying is bullshit. What I have a problem with is the way these kind of discussions promote the notion that men as a class oppress women as a class. I'm saying I disagree with that. Can that disagreement be accommodated here or not?

Is that point permissible?

user1487175389 · 28/06/2017 17:01

Why does Feminism have to take up issues men are facing? We already have socialism for that!!

SpaghettiAndMeatballs · 28/06/2017 17:04

What I have a problem with is the way these kind of discussions promote the notion that men as a class oppress women as a class

OK, we can debate that - make a thread and lets have a chat

Popchyck · 28/06/2017 17:05

Well, lots of people disagreed quite sensibly with the OP, User.

He didn't take it awfully well.

But then his reaction would be our fault, right?

user1498662042 · 28/06/2017 17:07

Spaghetti a lot of what you say has validity, and there is little of it I would disagree with. But the fact remains (and maybe I'm making too obvious a point here) that while there are such things as patriarchy and misogyny, within the complex, ever-shifting mess that are human societies some individual women have lots of power while some individual men have jack all - which is why I think class is not the most productive way of looking at issues of power. Power is a matter of systems. What identity politicos do is say 'you're a white man, therefore you have more power than that woman over there'. Which is dumb.

PoochSmooch · 28/06/2017 17:12

Oh, sad. OP went to the massive trouble of making a whole 17 posts on an internet forum and we didn't manage to convince someone who explicitly introduced himself as an anti-feminist that feminism has worth.

Like you said, bigdeskbob, it's been a great missed opportunity, and that's a failure that's on us Sad

Anyway, enough with the blame, feminazis, eyes down for a full house!

Want to talk
Popchyck · 28/06/2017 17:13

Yes, better to start another thread, User.

You'll get people responding only to the OP (who has left the thread).

user1498662042 · 28/06/2017 17:13

Why does Feminism have to take up issues men are facing? We already have socialism for that

It doesn't, but if you are suggesting that men as a class have power then that's a problem - because they don't as a class. Some of them do in very specific ways. Discuss those - go on about pimps, crooked bankers, porn barons, dodgy catholic priests and wife beaters all you like. But to suggest that all men have power is wrong. Because they don't.

And I'm not sure about separating feminism and socialism. Power always involves economic systems, and economic systems involve men as well as women - so even if you're making a feminist argument then surely the issues facing men have to come into it because they're inextricably tied to the problems facing women (see Spaghetti's point about male homelessness etc above).

M0stlyBowlingHedgehog · 28/06/2017 17:15

Oh, has the OP shown his true colours, sworn at us a lot because he thinks we're all nasty bitches and then flounced? What a surprise.

And after I'd gone to all the trouble of finding him a word of the day from the Meriam-Webster learner's dictionary, to help him with his English: disingenuous.

PoochSmooch · 28/06/2017 17:16

Of course you're allowed to disagree, user. It's just that on a feminist board, you can't honestly be surprised if that viewpoint doesn't get much traction, can you?

You could try going on a board for eco warriers and telling them global warming doesn't exist, or on a board for discussing BME issues and telling them that White Lives Matter, but you wouldn't really expect to get far with it. It's similar here.

user1498662042 · 28/06/2017 17:18

Pooch I'm not rejecting feminism. I'm disagreeing with particular tenets of a particular school of feminism.

QuentinSummers · 28/06/2017 17:19

Haven't you posted before user? Your "socialism is more relevant than feminism" stance seems.......familiar.
But to suggest that all men have power is wrong. Because they don't.
No one suggested that. Go and read up on class analysis.

PoochSmooch · 28/06/2017 17:21

Well, that didn't come across from your post. Why don't you start a thread discussing what you want to discuss? Then it won't get tangled up with this silly thread.