mollymawkattack:

lostdollsclub:

ill-be-here-by-the-ocean-:

And I face-palmed SO HARD
Because take out the “don’t” and that is pretty much the DEFINITION of feminism

[EDITED for brevity - read here]

^ This.

I don’t think that the original sign has anything to do with seeing feminists as “lesbians who don’t shave and hate men”, rather it has more to do with seeing feminism as a movement which perpetuates the theory of universal female victimhood. Which is often a good thing, especially where it concerns oppression of females in areas which may not be immediately obvious to the public, but such an approach can sometimes end up disregarding individual experiences and beliefs. Everyone sees the world in a different way, and should not necessarily be expected to conform to the views of others.

Painting anyone who does not agree with your definition of feminism as someone who hates equality and/or is completely subservient to the wishes of men is quite disrespectful, I think. 

I read & reread the OP & this response & vacillated between diplomacy & well, face-palm.

To start with, just to get it out of the way, because the rest of this is going to be long: I think it’s important to clarify that the OP was not saying that the woman with the sign must be anti-equality, but rather asking why, assuming she is not anti-equlaity, does she have a problem with a movement that is pro-equality?  Big difference, & not disrespectful.

Moving on to my main problem with your response:

The sign the OP refers to argues that feminism is the obverse of what those of use who do call ourselves feminists consider it to be.  So quite apart from anything else, if someone-else doesn’t consider themselves to be a feminist, how can they comment on what it means to be a feminist?

Because when that happens, what we are told is that to be a feminist is to be too strident, too outspoken, not listening to men’s voices, taking up too much space, anti-science, anti-history, and (now) “perpetuat[ing] the theory of universal female victimhood”.

Well, fuck that.  

I am not a victim. However, just as I am aware of the freedoms - privileges - that I have because I am white, middle-class from an educated, liberal background in a developed nation, I am aware of the constraints upon my actions & my will in my life (& anywhere in the world I might go) because of my gender.  Around the world women are killed because they are women - because they refused to marry & women are chattels to be bought & sold, because they were raped & lost their value as chattels, because they spoke out, because no-one would prosecute the murder because a woman is worth nothing.  In the West, after decades of feminism & change, there are studies that show that men still think that women are dominating the conversation if they talk for more than 10-15% of the time.  In between these disparate points there’s a continuum that repeats, like a broken record, “women are worth less, women are worth less, women are worthless”.  Feminism is NOT about being a victim, it is against being systematically victimised.

Unfortunately, there are an increasing number of young Western women who very quickly, with little provocation will tell you “oh I’m not a feminist” as if it were a bad thing to be, a troublesome thing (& no-one wants a troublesome woman).  Why? because they are told over and over again that to be a feminist is to be too strident, too outspoken, misandrist, etc…  Just like they’re told over & over again that they’re too fat, too skinny, too tall, too short, not pretty enough, too pretty!  Hear anything enough & you can start to believe it.  They’re told that they’re being radical & having self-determination, rebelling against their mothers who alienated their fathers by being too much too…  Strike a pose girls, & stick it to feminism!  

But the question that all this begs is: who benefits?

Oh, yeah, that’s right.  Men.  Again.  As women gain rights, men’s privileges reduce, & they think it is an attack on their rights.  Nope.  Saying that someone-else is entitled to the same rights as you is not taking your rights away.  So, anyway, we get Men’s Rights Activists (MRAs), & all this rhetoric - that feminism is about victimhood, that it’s anti-men, that it is no longer relevant - comes largely from MRAs*.  So yes, we can argue that a woman, of any age or background, who shows such non-comprehension of what feminism is whilst making a stand against it, is acting as an unwitting functionary of the patriarchy.

*Or alternatively from women in a position of privilege, who having never experienced noticeable systemic oppression themselves, are incapable of imagining that other women in their own society may have a different experience.  It’s not that different to: “I made lots of money in a capitalist society, so anyone who is poor is just lazy.”

ill-be-here-by-the-ocean-:

And I face-palmed SO HARD
Because take out the “don’t” and that is pretty much the DEFINITION of feminism
Feminism gets such a bad rep because people picture lesbians who don’t shave and hate men
But that’s really not what feminism is
Feminism is “the advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men” MEANING that a feminist is one who is against the treatment of men as the superior being. THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT WE WANT TO BE THE SUPERIOR BEING. This means that we want to be EQUAL. We want to not feel judged for having/showing masculine traits and qualities AND we want men to not feel judged for having/showing feminine traits and qualities.
I just literally do not understand why any woman would not want equality with men.
Any woman who disagrees with feminism is pretty much saying “yes, men are the boss of me and always will be”.
IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR GENITALS
Guys can be feminists too
IT IS ANYONE WHO HAS EYES TO SEE THAT WOMEN CLEARLY GET TREATED LIKE CRAP COMPARED TO MEN

^ This.

“I have been fortunate to have experienced the kind of life in which such an awakening occurred free of violence, trauma or pain. Instead, it was a trickle of indignation that gave rise to a mighty river. I grew weary of the routine way I was expected to contribute to my own diminishment, laughing at jokes that positioned women as a punchline in order to stroke the egos of boys whose limited experience of disapproval resulted in gendered name calling and the withdrawal of erectile approval.”

deafmuslimpunx:

While in some parts of India, many expectant parents still say they’d prefer bearing sons, members of the Piplantri village, in the western state of Rajasthan, are breaking this trend by celebrating the birth of each baby girl in way that benefits everyone. For every female child that’s born, the community gathers to plant 111 fruit trees in her honor in the village common.

This unique tradition was first suggested by the village’s former leader, Shyam Sundar Paliwal, in honor of his daughter who had passed away at a young age.

But planting trees is only one way that the community is ensuring a brighter future for their daughters. According to a report in The Hindu, villagers also pool together around $380 dollars for every new baby girl and deposited in an account for her. The girl’s parents are required to contribute $180, and to make a pledge to be considerate guardians.

“We make these parents sign an affidavit promising that they would not marry her off before the legal age, send her to school regularly and take care of the trees planted in her name,” says Paliwal.

Over the last six years alone, as population there has increased, villagers in Piplantri have planted nearly a quarter million trees — a welcoming forest for the community’s youngest members, offering a bit of shade for their brighter future.

via Micropixie / The Hindu

More stories like this please! Great to hear of communities working together for everyone’s benefit & celebrating their girl children, & of course I’m always happy anytime someone plants a tree.

(via womenwhokickass)

wristwatchesareneat:

likeigiveafuckwhatmyusernameis:

Show me an example of Feminism helping men; I’ll wait.

A trickle down effect does not work. And until you can prove to me that feminism is DIRECTLY helping men, I refuse to believe feminism is for equality, and that there is a necessity for the MRM.

One? I’ll give you ten off the top of my head. These are all things have have occurred through the direct intervention of the Feminist movement:

1. Men are no longer expected nor required to be the primary (if not sole) economic contributor in the nuclear family unit, because women are equally capable of working.

2. Men are no longer limited only to “masculine” occupations: they can be nurses, secretaries and primary care givers for children because it is not only women who are ‘nurturing’. Similarly, though it is hardly in equal measure, men are not expected to bear the brunt of hard labour alone as women help bear it as well.

3. Men are not required to marry women they have sex with or impregnate because women are no longer property to be claimed through sex. They can choose, as can women, wether or not to be married at all.

4. Men, though many are still stifled by patriarchy, are encouraged by Feminist) to express their emotions, and, y’know, be a real human being. This effect has hardly reached it’s apex, but it’s still an improvement.

5. Men are no longer considered the only gender that is permitted to defend a country, because women are capable of fighting too.

6. Men are now legally able to sue women for dangerous behaviour such as abuse or stalking, because women are capable of such things.

7. Divorce. Enough said.

8. The challenge that Feminism makes against patriarchy encourages men to disregard archaic gender stereotypes and “machismo” and look after themselves.

9. As women are no longer bartered like cattle, a heterosexual man can know that his partner is with him not out of obligation but of her own volition.

10. Previously it was thought that a women were raped because men were entitled to do so, because they “couldn’t help themselves”, because of how women dressed or acted, because of the myth of “blue balls”, or even just because of gender inequality — Feminism challenges the assertion that men are mere animals.

wristwatchesareneat:

While it has definitely decreased over time, even in countries where it is much less pronounced such as Australia, the fact that people are still being discriminated against because of their genitals is absurd.