“Women basically already have equal rights in the West”

[Ethelfleda]

I’ve heard this statement from a few people over the past year or so, always from men.
I know they’re wrong but I so rarely know how to tell them they’re wrong.
I want to tell them they’re wrong without patronising them because it is my belief that once you do this, you alienate your audience and they won’t ever come around to your way of thinking.

What do you say to this statement??

The sex on Pornhub is so caring, tender, respectful and protective towards women. Makes me feel really safe and valued and reminds me, if I ever start to doubt it, how much men secretly love to make us feel like equals in our relations with them, even if they don't always show it in the real world

I agree, pornography and prostitution are both damaging for women, even as they are adopted as liberating by some sections of society.

I know I'm playing devil's advocate - I can't help it - but I've come to a point in my life at which I tend to see these types of conflict as to some extent inevitable....At least we do have recourse to law and equal legal and civil rights, even if just in theory.

I've read all of the feminist texts...

Thank you for making that perfectly clear for 12 pages.

As an experiment, you might wish to compare the behaviour of feral children - raised completely without the input of human socialisation - of both sexes. How much difference do you think you're likely to find

That would depend on whether you studied them before or after puberty......and also whether any of the females then came to be pregnant and give birth. I imagine that, as with wild animals, there would be similar differences...since all animals are sexually 'dimorphic' as you put it. ...even as each sex shares similar general traits and drives. Feral children tend to be adopted by the females of the species. Romulus and Remus were suckled by a she-wolf.

Thank you for making that perfectly clear for 12 pages

When confronted with a brick wall, there is natural tendency to repeat oneself. At least I've attempted to share, rather than to put down, as my first instinct. Maybe I'm just being stereotypically female, and I should rather view sarcasm and concealed aggression as a feminine virtue. Even though a sin in a man.

God, I’m waffling now, but part of my point is that I’m always driven to do something and this is likely just an exaggerated manifestation of something that most humans experience. I think it’s potentially against our nature to not ‘focus’ on something

Thanks! Your post has not been lost on me.

So you're conflating purpose with biological imperatives?

That's pretty sexist.

Why is it sexist that worker ants’ biological imperative is to forage/build the nest etc?

Are you saying the queen is sexist for not getting off her sizeable rump to help the male workers?

Unless we're talking rape, the hypothetical feral child isn't going to be getting pregnant after puberty without being exposed to the social behaviours of other humans.

She's going to have to undergo a degree of human socialisation in order to conceive.

You are not wrong about the brick wall, however.

TehBewilderness she looks like she'd really enjoy a good ear-frumple. Does she?

Wtf are you talking about ants? Ants don't engage in sexism. Sexism is not a biological phenomenon; it's a sociological one.

Wtf are you talking about ants? Ants don't engage in sexism. Sexism is not a biological phenomenon; it's a sociological one

All species differentiate between males and females...even if much of the time the sexes have common purposes. You're going to end up very disappointed if you think that all differences are ever going to eradicated, even if you see it as desirable.

Wtf are you talking about ants? Ants don't engage in sexism.

Which was kind of my point. 🤷‍♀️

It seemed like you were trying to shoehorn sexism into biological imperatives/purpose, when they can exist entirely independently - e.g. plants spreading seeds to reproduce without having any sociological aspect to their existence.

On a similar but tangential note, why do you think 50 Shades of Gray was so overwhelmingly popular with women?

Are you seriously comparing a female point-of-view novel, a work of fiction that no people were harmed to create, to filmed rapes and beatings?

Are you seriously comparing a female point-of-view novel, a work of fiction that no people were harmed to create, to filmed rapes and beatings?

No.

Yes, you did, "On a similar but tangential note..."

So there’s no similarity between erotic literature and erotic video. As different as pineapples and jumbo jets, right?

If it must be explained though, I was referring to your assumption that women want ‘caring, tender, respectful’ sex.

It’s just not true. 50% of women enjoy rough sex according to surveys, more than half have had rape fantasies (according to meta analysis of over 20 different studies), and the recent analysis of Pornhub’s user data (by an ex-Google data scientist) showed that women were twice as likely to search for violent and abusive porn than men.

Ah, didn’t mean to italicise the first paragraph..

Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960) — 'If you are silent about your pain, they'll kill you and say you enjoyed it.'

Are you really comparing your struggle to that of an African American woman living in Southern US during the early 1900s?

Again, the best way to deal with the same tired MRA arguments that you've been seeing for at least a decade (centuries in some cases) is not to engage at all. Obviously I can't make anyone do that, and shouldn't be able to, but I can keep gently suggesting it in the hopes of returning this to a space that's worth being in.

Quite a few posters seem to share my scepticism of the same old views we always seem to encounter on here and seem willing to discuss it like adults. A discussion forum is for discussion at the end of the day and I’m always happy to listen to other people’s opinions. If I disagree I’ll challenge them, but ultimately I accept that nobody is obliged to agree with me and that my opinion is no more than that.

However, what I won’t do is resort to silencing tactics or try to undermine the other person with accusations of them being a man/MRA/misogynist/transphobe etc (standard practice on here it seems).

I’m not going to try and force anyone to engage, however, so if people would prefer only to speak with those that won’t challenge their views then crack on with it I guess.

Are you saying the queen is sexist for not getting off her sizeable rump to help the male workers?

Worker ants are female.

Didn't the Pixar movie get that wrong too, or was it bees?

Both I think! Male ants dont live long - their purpose is to provide sperm and then die.

It's perfect though, isn't it? "This bee is called a worker so it must be a manly man bee obviously".

Dont tell them about soldier and army ants