Not sure I am on board with feminism any more.

[AWildThoughAppeared]

When I was first presented with feminism, I was sceptical. Then I saw the light, I was a convert. But recently I don't know what I think any more.

First of all let me say that I'm 100% opn board with women. But I'm deeply concerned about today;s feminism and its message.

This is the message that our young people are being repeatedly schools and media, about women:

A woman is a victim
A woman will be beleived
Femininity is precious
A woman is strong
A woman is empowered
A woman can be anytrhing she wants to be.

So far .... I'm 100% behind that; But lets look at the message our education programs and media messaging is telling to our children about men:

Men are violent
Men are abusers
Men are rapists
Men are not to be trusted
Masculinity is toxic
Men are dispensable
Men should stand aside

What young boy hearing this isn't going to be deeply confused. How are boys going to grow up as strong, responsible, confident and useful if we don't tell them that boys are amazing too.

Is it any wonder so many school age boys are wanting to transition to be girls. Of course they feel like a woman inside when they are constantly told that girls a kind and precious and strong and can do no wrong, and boys are evil, disgusting and worthless.

Where is the celebration of men? Responsible, loving, kind, strong men.

Maybe I'm getting it all wrong. Maybe I'm missing something.Tell me.

When misogynists criticised men for carrying their babies, there was a big social media campaign about Dads baby carrying in papooses.

This is feminism being man positive.

I'm really not sure where you are getting feminism not doing anything positive for men from? It's not true.

"Why does Battersea dog shelter not rescue dolphins? Bastards."

Dunno, but why do they rescue cats lol

I mean teach kids kind AND strong. It's not either or. Surely these aren;t contentions ideas???

I do. Learning about their bodies, capabilities, what violence is, how what it means to hurt someone - it is best done through playing at it.

Bloody hell no. I'm not sacrificing the little ones so the bigger, stronger ones can 'learn about their bodies'

They can learn their capabilities without beating each other up - through sport, art, living day to day cooking and running and jumping.

If they learn what it's like to hurt someone, that means someone has been hurt. Sure it happens accidentally, but this isn't Sparta, two boys don't enter, one man leaves - we've moved on a bit from that.

Are you equally concerned that girls are more strictly policed and aren’t allowed to explore aggression and violence to nearly the same degree boys are?

PurpleOva - re. defending men with papposses. Yes that's a good start!

Are you equally concerned that girls are more strictly policed and aren’t allowed to explore aggression and violence to nearly the same degree boys are?

Yes.

I have a 19 year old DS who started university last year. His take away from his first year was “men are trash”.

He was and is appalled at how the young men he sees daily treat women. He sees them belittle and demean women as default. He’s seen first hand the ‘any hole’s a goal’ mentality. He’s seen men target drunk women at parties. He’s seen them turn on women who dare to challenge them.

DS calls this out, as do his friends. They step in when they see girls being targeted - 3 times since September they’ve put a woman in a cab rather than let her leave with someone who would have raped her.

They step in when a man gets nasty when challenged by a woman - it happened this week, DS called out a guy who turned on a young woman who didn’t agree with an academic point in a lecture.

DS doesn’t feel like the world at large hates him for being Male - he sees very clearly that his life is easier, safer and far less challenging than it is for any of the young women he knows.

nona, if you feel it’s the staff in your children’s school who are reinforcing damaging gender stereotypes, ask to speak to the head about it.

Family thank you I did challenge the school. After DD challenged the “Mum’s favourite chore” exercise it was confirmed to me that the school wouldn’t use that format again.

Dress codes are rather more insidious but we challenge as we go.

So you’re not worried about messages being sent to boys specifically but that all children are prevented from learning more about themselves through violence?

But in practice it shames boys and men with nothing positive to say.

No, feminism recognises that men CAN be better and encourages them to be.

So you’re not worried about messages being sent to boys specifically but that all children are prevented from learning more about themselves through violence?

Yes although I concede that I have focused on the message to women.

Let's not get hung up ion the violence bit.

I'm positve about the way feminism is encouraging women to embrace "trasditionally male" traits whilst equally embracing "traditionally female" traits.

My concern, maybe wrong, is that feminism would have boys embrace ONLY the "tradiitonally female" traits and suppress the "traditionally male" ones.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe feminists equally care about boys being be well rounded individuals, just as the want women to be, because they know that will benefit all in the long rin.

I wonder if the pro-violence between children brigade have thought through how that might come across to randoms.

Unfortunately randoms will take anything out of context and blow it out of prooprtion.

jelly frizz - give me some examples of feminist messages to boys that aren't based around telling them what not to do.

Let's not get hung up on the violence bit.

Hard to do when men are killing 2-3 women/girls a week.

Part of the problem is that girls are taught that fighting back, standing up for themselves and embracing their inner capacity for power and aggression is 'unwomanly' by the patriarchy and 'conforming to masculine norms' by the feminists. Instead of crippling boys the way that sexism crippled girls, both sexes should be taught to embrace and channel their rage and will-to-power equally.

Don't teach young people that freezing is an appropriate response to aggression. 'Femininity' pure social brainwashing to induce vulnerability. Emotional incontinence is a sign of immaturity whether the individual is male or female and the fact that we tell young girls that it's normal and expected is part of the patriarchy's programme of infantilisation for women.

Society strongly sends the message that
boys = active, leaders, brave, strong girls = kind, caring, quiet, calm.

Feminism points out that these expectations inhibit boys from valuing other characteristics in themselves such as compassion and kindness and inhibit girls from valuing being strong and active.

That’s not to say that boys can’t also be active and leaders and that girls can’t be kind and compassionate but that imposing sex based stereotypes causes everyone to lose out by not allowing them to flourish as well rounded people who embrace and value all parts of their personality.

It addresses the imbalance that exists but doesn’t mean that feminism is trying to suppress personality traits - it just points out that it does a disservice to everyone to promote and inhibit certain things based on sex.

Yes and that is disgusting. Your post takes the topic out of context though. My whole point is to reduce violence against women by making feminism more effective.

PainInTheEar - I agree 100%

The purpose of feminism is the liberation of women and girls. It has no more responsibility to provide positive images of men than a black rights campaign has to provide positive images of white people, or a campaign for disabled people has to provide positive images of the able-bodied.

I agree that it's important for boys to hear positive messages, but that is in no way the job of feminism. If you're worried that there isn't enough celebration of good, kind, responsible men, then you do something about it. Feminism isn't a catch-all category for solving every problem in the world.

Do you honestly think that feminist mothers of boys (there’s quite a few I would imagine) go round berating their sons, stifle their ambitions, talk them down etc...

Judging by the views on the "male children in female toilets" thread sadly, yes I think some do. I can't believe that if some of those posters have male children that the sons don't pick up on their mother's view of them.

If the genuine aim is to improve things for women then you have to realise that males who are men now, so have grown up in a male centred culture, aren t necessarily the best people to effect the change that we all hope to see. That change will be driven by boys raised today in a different culture (if we can expose them to it). We have to change the views and expectations of both girls and boys. Teach both that gender is nonsense, that no one is limited by their sex, that men don't automatically forge careers while women raise children and work part time but also teach that girls shouldn't expect to be treated differently, that they shouldn't expect to work part time after babies and that should be a joint decision, that they shouldn't judge either themselves or other women on their appearance.

Yes men need to change but so do women.

I'm a little confused why the message feminism has for males- 'Don't rape, murder, hurt or oppress women. Challenge and stop other men who do." Is a negative message?

And as for not engaging with traditionally 'masculine' traits, surely protecting the vulnerable and leading others in virtue are part of that message?

Not sure how allowing children to thump each other is meant to make feminism more effective. Not convinced the OP knows either, it all just seems to be a bit "well I've decided these women are nasty and wrong and now I will work backwards in order to find justifications for that position".

Not worth the bother of a serious counterargument, as Bunbury would say.

I'm a little confused why the message feminism has for males- 'Don't rape, murder, hurt or oppress women. Challenge and stop other men who do." Is a negative message?

The OP seems to have conveniently forgotten all these feminist campaigns that they are referencing so they cannot point us to which ones in particular they are referring to. Weird that.