"Feminism is equality"

[MrGHardy]

This is a response by a woman to a man talking about feminism:

"Your understanding is wrong. Where does everyone get this idea that feminism is some kind of for-all happy umbrella? It's for the equality of women vis-a-vis men. And men, Mr. Read, don't get to decide what feminism is."

I have come across this so often recently, where feminism is portrayed as "for equality so it is also for men" etc. and this Twitter user used a good phrase: "some kind of for-all happy umbrella".

I think it's a deliberate misrepresentation of feminism, in order to distract the discussion away from the issues, away from women, and to paint women in a bad light as some sort of female supremacists if they disagree with the idea, feminism is equality for all i.e. also for men. The idea "feminism is for women does not imply it is not for equality" seems also hard for people to understand and is easily misrepresented.

How do you deal with this? If you constantly have to first convince people that feminism is not for men, not a blanket "for-all happy umbrella", it gets very frustrating and distracts from the issue at hand (and instead leads to a debate about what feminism is, and what its goals are and who it is for). Additionally, as a man you are quickly accused of mansplaining (especially by women who for some reason believe that feminism is also for men) or at least asked for a definition which is a) difficult to do for me b) at least in my case necessarily leads to accusations of mansplaining.

When men are equally subjected to violence from women, to rape, to sexual exploitation, to human trafficking, then we will be equal.

Far better that we are all liberated.

I think there is good reason why only 7% of British women identify themselves as feminist

Go on then. Enlighten us

Because the vast majority of women, don't want what you want.

That structure has been around for 200,000 years or so

so what

I thought you were a radical

oh yes, you've identyified out of that

now your a (small c) conservative

super!

Because the vast majority of women, don't want what you want

what do we want?

If it's about mammoths I'm all ears

what do we want?

Mammoths

when do we want them?

10,000 years ago

what do we want?

Judging by the current feminist civil war, I don't think you know what you want.

That structure has been around for 200,000 years or so.

Well which is it? Are we programmed? It's a choice we make? Or is it just 'historical'?

I bet you will come up with two or three other reasons why you want to maintain the power dynamic between men and women.

Right before you ask your mum what's for dinner and has she washed your jeans.

what do we want?

Mammoths

when do we want them?

10,000 years ago

Hahahaha!!

are you capable of answering a question or following a line of thought DrNuShooz?

Still waiting for an answer on what feminists want that 93% of women don't want

I'll be over here inspecting this sabre toothed tiger

It's more than that

Yes, sunshine, that it is.

You're going to learn a lot more if you are prepared to do the work. And I'd really recommend not basing your theories on cavemen chasing mammoths and sabre toothed tigers.

That structure has been around for 200,000 years or so.

Feminism seems so easy to me. If anyone questions ever why more women don't want to be feminist or tries evopsych bullshit the proof is that whenever a change occurs. Women run at it.

100 years ago women wanted to vote.

Men said: You don't want to vote. You aren't clever enough to vote. LOTS of women said "I don't want to vote". But once voting was legal and the structure changed slightly...

Fucking loads of women started voting. More women than men. Almost like there was never any biological reasoning for them not being allowed to vote in the first place.

Women wanted to go to university.

Men said: Women can't go to university, their brains would not be able to take the undertaking.
Why, math might drive her rover the edge!

lots of women said, "uni not sure about that thanks!"

Women were let into university. Women did really fucking well and over took men at getting into university.

Women wanted the same jobs as men.
Men said: You aren't clever enough. Your wombs will make you crazy and your patients will die if you become doctors!

But then women were allowed men's jobs. And every year, more women entered the workforce and took male jobs.

It's almost like it's all based on bullshit, and yes it's an ancient structure. But it can still be changed.

Shooz
I'm fully versed and educated in the struggle women have faced.

If this is true, why are you unable to demonstrate it? In fact you have shown that your knowledge is deficient. Your analytical skills also need work. The main problem is that you don't seem to done the reading. Engaging with a broad range of relevant sources would improve your argument.

Just out of curiosity nushooz why do you think black and minority ethic people are so underrepresented in the UK and American governments and media and at the top of the corporate ladder?

Were mammoths more plentiful in Africa resulting in black people not having to work quite so hard making them incapable of competing against white men who were better prepared by their ancestral mammoth hunts?

Yes, I'm loving the devastating argument that 'it's always been like this' because men hunted mammoths 200,000 years ago, therefore women don't agree with feminism.

Single women weren’t allowed birth control up until the 1960s

I guess in case they had enjoyable sex

I've enjoyed this little pinball tour around the inside of DrNuShooz's head. There's loads of stuff in here like pre-historic creatures and all that lovely entitlement.

I mean we've pinged from one ludicrous argument to another, but it's whiled away a rainy Friday afternoon.

Right, now I'm off to the Littler Tray to tell them how you should really look after cats.

I ‘freely chose’ to give up my home and my job (worked/lived abroad) when my mother was dying of cancer in order to care for her. My career is still fucked but I’d do the same again. My brother freely chose to visit every other weekend, he likes to remind me how free my choice was as he ‘would have’ done more but then hey he didn’t have to because I did it instead.

I’m not sure what point I’m even making, just that not all choices are as free as they appear and that I might have freely made a different choice had I been born and socialised male.

Oh and also this @Shooz

www.theguardian.com/science/2015/may/14/early-men-women-equal-scientists

are you capable of answering a question or following a line of thought DrNuShooz?

I know, right? This happens a lot.
You lay out say the first three reasons for feminism. They're never addressed, except to say you're wrong, you're choosing this.

And it's always about the gender pay gap and raising children.

I deleted my very first post which predicted exactly what's happened.

For certain men, who don't give a hoot about abortion, or maternity law, or period poverty, as soon as you mention anything that threatens their power structure, they go into overdrive.

It's one step away from God designed you to do this - another patriarchal structure. Marriage laws, property laws, employment laws, education, sex laws, all of it designed to keep men with their foot on the neck of women.

And yet it's women's choice!

No explanation for the relentless drive of women over several hundred years to redress the balance.

No acknowledgement that women across the country are at this very moment, enjoying the fruits of that campaigning.

It's privilege in action. And quite unpleasant to behold.

Judging by the current feminist civil war, I don't think you know what you want.

Question for you.

Do you think women want:
Men to stop killing women [feminism]
Women to start killing men [equality]

@IncrediblySturdyPyjamas

I mean .... it’s a toss up some days gotta admit

Nobody to be killed- equality

Nobody to be killed- equality

the way you achieve that is to stop Men killing women FarFrom

Nobody to be killed- equality

Equality is a byproduct of feminism. It's the end result. But it's not the means.

Lobsters. What about the lobsters?