I don’t know if this will turn into a real debate or whether it will fall in to complete obscurity on this blog – but like all posts I add, your comments are most welcome.
If this should turn into a debate – all I would ask is that people play fair.
The Beadden asked me why I keep bringing up feminism in posts. I actually checked and it isn’t that many – but that said, she is a regular reader of this blog so it is something she has seen and wants to address this subject. And as she has asked I will post my comments.
Let me start with two definitions of feminism:
Cultural Feminism
Definition: Cultural feminism is a variety of feminism which emphasizes essential* differences between men and women, based on biological differences in reproductive capacity. Cultural feminism attributes to those differences distinctive and superior virtues in women. What women share, in this perspective, provides a basis for “sisterhood,” or unity, solidarity and shared identity.
* The phrase “essential differences” refers to the belief that gender differences are part of the essence of females or males, that the differences are not chosen but are part of the nature of woman or man.
Radical Feminism
Definition: Radical feminism is a philosophy emphasizing the patriarchal roots of inequality between men and women, or, more specifically, social dominance of women by men. Radical feminism views patriarchy as dividing rights, privileges and power primarily by gender, and as a result oppressing women and privileging men.
Radical feminists tend to be more militant in their approach (radical as “getting to the root”). Radical feminism opposes existing political and social organization in general because it is inherently tied to patriarchy. Thus, radical feminists tend to be skeptical of political action within the current system, and instead support cultural change that undermines patriarchy and associated hierarchical structures.
Both forms of feminism edges toward the refining of dominance in society – but for the supposed oppressed gender, that of the female. I will not argue that over the annals history we did find that women were assigned the kitchen sink and the bringing up of the children and upkeep of the household.
My view on that is we have to look at the suffragette movement of Emily Pankhurst prior to WWI – she and the other women suffered terrible abuse for wanting something we all take for granted, the vote – or the right to vote. The fact that it took a world war to aid these women in their cause must not be missed, and certainly not water down what they did for their cause. I was a just cause that should never have been fought by the establishment – yet, in addition to that, working people were only allowed the right to vote only a few short decades before this. In addition to this, and a greater cause was the way that the populace has been – and still to this day, subjugated by the few who stand at the top of societies tree and dictate to all.
Are women then any different from men? My argument is no. I fully believe in equality between all people. I do not believe that men should be given any more rights over women because they are born with a penis and a woman a vagina. I do not believe that colour or creed should come into the equation – yet, as we still see today that it does. What we do find is that we are silenced when we see the inequality and wish to speak out – whether this be an issue that a man finds wrong in the allocation of jobs for women only or affirmative action in its many guises.
The brashness of the issue of feminism is that it now takes on the roll of a power struggle and one where the power is being requested to be linked to femalehood and the dominance over men rather than what is started out as: Men and women are equal and should be treat so.
That is my part now all I can do is ask what do you think?
04/23/2008 at 9:43 PM
Saving Our Young Men
By Marty Nemko
This year, almost twice as many women as men will earn bachelor’s degrees.
For the same work, women typically earn at least as much as men.
Yet society continues to do more for girls and women, usually at men’s expense.
By Marty Nemko
Twenty years ago, when I began career counseling, my male and female clients were equally upbeat about their future. Today, for the most part, the girls and women are confident, feeling the world is their oyster, while the boys and men more often are despondent, scared, or angry. The phrase that best defines my male clients is “beaten down.”
What happened? Most of the guys can’t put their finger on the cause, but having had 2,800 clients over 20 years, I believe I’ve pieced it together.
Starting in elementary school, boys are made to feel inferior. Take Your Daughter to Work Day implied to boys that they count less. Endless lessons highlighting the contributions of women (from Pocahontas to Rosa Parks to Hillary Clinton) and the evils of men (from Hannibal to Hitler to McCarthy) make boys feel inferior. That inferiority is reinforced when they come home from school and see TV shows and movies with Doofus Dads or Scuzzball Sams being put in their place by Wise Women. In the effort to boost girls’ self-esteem, boys’ are destroyed.
When boys start to look into college, the very first thing they see are the colleges’ brochures and websites, with far more pictures of women and minorities; the subliminal message: we don’t care about white males. Application essays often ask students to describe a hardship they overcame. “Hardship” is often code for “overcoming the disadvantage of being a woman or a minority.” Many white males, if only unconsciously, feel this is just one more thing discouraging them from applying.
If and when they arrive at college, young men find the anti-white-male juggernaut continues, from the very first day. At orientation, they hear of endless clubs, mentoring programs, and other opportunities for women and minorities, almost none for men, let alone for white men. In the classroom, the denigration of white men accelerates. Lysistrata often replaces Lear, The Doll House displaces Homer, with the writings of dead white European males disproportionately used as whipping boys, deconstructed in anti-male ways. More broadly, the “white male hegemony” is presented as society’s worst cancer, one which must be extirpated at all cost, with constant vigilance required to stamp out any area in which men are ‘overrepresented.” Yet, it’s ignored or even extolled when women are overrepresented. For example, women dominate the highly influential book publishing world, putting out an endless stream of pro-woman/anti-male bestsellers such as New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd’s Are Men Necessary? and Dee Dee Myers’ just-published, Why Women Should Rule the World.
So, far fewer men are going to college, and those that do, drop out at much higher rates. In the 2007 college graduation class, 58% were women, 42% men, a dramatic reversal from just two decades ago. Today, with a bachelor’s degree being the minimum requirement for most decent jobs, this is a disaster for men. And a disaster for half of our population is a disaster for us all.
When young men apply for jobs, they immediately see the anti-white-male bias continue: the want ads so frequently feature an EEOC statement encouraging women and minorities (but never white males) to apply. They see the photos on employers’ websites disproportionately highlighting women and minorities.
If a white male gets hired, he’ll likely quickly learn that women’s approaches to work– collaborative, team-oriented, exploratory of feelings–is viewed as superior to men’s competitive goal-orientedness. If a man dare says, “Enough of this processing of feelings, let’s just get on with it,” he’ll usually be viewed as Neanderthal if not fired for “not fitting in” or for not being “a team player.” White men hear of mentorship programs created for women and minorities, but not for them. And they’ll soon find out about reverse discrimination promotions that occur because of the organization’s diversity committee pressures, because the employer fears a Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton running to the media claiming the organization is racist, or because the only group not an EEOC-protected class is young white men.
And dare a white man object, even if he doesn’t get censured or fired, he will likely receive either or both of two invalid and invalidating refutations:
– Women earn 79 cents on the dollar. This statistic is terribly misleading. According to the book, Why Men Earn More, based on a decade of research using government statistics, for the same work, women earn at least as much as men do.
– Fewer women than men are in top positions. That implies that the reason is sexism, a glass ceiling. The far more frequent reason is that many more women than men care more about work/life balance and/or want to be more involved with their children. (Ironically, we genuflect to women’s rights to work less so they can raise children at the same time as we worry about global warming–and environmentalists agree that the greatest threat to the environment is overpopulation.) Getting promoted to a senior position usually requires willingness to work evenings or weekends, to spend discretionary time doing professional activities, and to move family across the country, Women may wisely not want to do all that, but cannot legitimately claim they’re not being promoted because they have two x chromosomes.
A final assault on men’s self-efficacy is that that they’re made to feel like the disposable sex. They see an endless array of pink ribbons to fight breast cancer. But where are the ribbons for prostate cancer or for early heart attack, which kills, early, many more men? Men die 5 1/2 years younger than women and live their last decade in worse health, yet only pink ribbons proliferate. And the heart disease ads I’ve seen are all about women and heart disease.
So millions of young men have become depressed, insecure, and scared. They’re rarely angry–they’ve been told so long that they’re inferior, they just blame themselves. So, they return to their parents’ sofas, sleeping late, playing video games during the day and getting wasted at night.
What’s the answer? It reduces to one word: fairness. In our attempt to lift up girls and women, we have destroyed boys and men. Just as we are assiduous to avoid unfair treatment of women and minorities, we must do the same for boys and men: in school curriculum, television and movie programming, college admissions and programming, hiring, promotion, and workplace culture, and health research funding and outreach.
Until then, guys, the advice is the same as so many Black parents have given their kids: “No use complaining. You simply gotta be twice as good to get half as far. Eventually, the pendulum will swing back into balance.” Maybe.
04/15/2008 at 4:10 PM
….so much to read!
Gender means sweet f**k all in my opinion….but learning about Marxist fems in Sociology was good for a giggle.
04/15/2008 at 9:41 AM
Stonehead:
I would think a lot of the problems economically in the US are women-related. As we all know, women like to shop. Much of the time, they shop with credit. Every guy I know who is married has been pressured by the wife to get more house than they need, and to spend lots of money on silly things that cost a lot, such as granite countertops. I know there are guys who are spendthrifts, but I think a lot more women are. I was shocked when I found out how many women have massive debt and not really any legit means of paying it off. Some get married when they no longer can handle it, and the unknowing new husband just had his credit destroyed.
04/15/2008 at 8:32 AM
There’s an interesting article on the BBC News website that reports researchers as having linked levels of testosterone and cortisol among market traders to “boom and bust” economics.
One wonders what changing from a male-dominated environment to a female one would have on economics…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7342923.stm
04/14/2008 at 9:51 PM
Beadden:
I’m too old to get drafted anyways unless they were incredibly desperate, however, it’s not limited to that. Not only can you get arrested if you don’t register, you also cannot take out student loans. So by being born with a penis, I risked getting killed, getting jailed, and being denied student loans if I didn’t register. I remember when I turned 18, girls would just say “thank God I don’t have to do that”, and It made me realize that either I’m more of a citizen, or I’m getting a really bad deal. Of course I don’t think there should be a draft, it’s a clear violation of the 13th amendment, but if there is going to be the selective service, women better be required to sign up or at least admit they don’t want the responsibilities that also comes with rights, it’s either that or tell me I’m a second class citizen.
04/14/2008 at 6:00 PM
Well in short it’s possibly quite apocalyptic for men any way…
Men useful only for sex I don’t think so. I’m sure the moving of furniture, taking the trash out and unscrewing of jars will remain in the domain of the males unless the women decide that the need to shave legs becomes redundant?
04/14/2008 at 3:53 PM
Steve, I wish I had an answer to that. You are not worth less. Things were different when they made those “rules.”
I can fully understand why you ask this question, just as I can understand why women would not want to put a a fight to be registered. I don’t think anyone would want to sign up for something where they risk coming home in a body bag.
And yes, it does seem unfair that women aren’t included. I see your point.
I for one, think that no one should have to register, no one should have to be drafted. It makes it that much easier for governments to decide to go to war.
It would be different if it was on our own soil. In our own back yard. I don’t think anyone (Canadian or American, Man or Woman) would walk away from defending their own Country and their families. You wouldn’t need a draft at all!
Even though you and I don’t always see eye to eye, I would be terribly upset if you came on here one day and said you had to go fight in Iraq or Afghanistan. It’s just not right.
Maybe the changes that should be made, shouldn’t be making women sign up. Instead, that men shouldn’t have to.
Mr. Treadmill – That’s funny you said that. I have a terrible memory, but my husband said something quite the opposite the other day. It seems to be a growing epidemic of women who are infertile. I meet so many people dealing with this, it almost seems normal. People who have to try for years….when our G-Grandparents popped them out like crazy!
He said something about population control.
If there were 100 men and one women they could limit the population to “x” amount in so many years.
On the other hand if there were 100 women and one man, the population would soar! I wish he were home right now. He knew the numbers and years. Sorry if it doesn’t make sense
04/14/2008 at 10:53 AM
Some say that women already have Mr Treadwell
04/14/2008 at 10:20 AM
Exactly the beadden. If I’m forced to register for the selective service, why aren’t women? I resent that, and I resent that women aren’t fighting to be required to register too. Why is my life worth less? How is me having to register, but women not, equality?
04/13/2008 at 11:18 PM
Well I stumbled upon some delightful trashy mid 20th century Sci-Fi the likes of which when read today would make you laugh at the inaccuracy, however every so often they get it right or close to it.
The book in question depicted a world where superwomen outnumber men 5 to 12 the books title in-fact… now a few parts of it are ridiculous like whale farming yet a few things aren’t. Including a European wide single currency and longevity shots. The idea behind this book is that due to birth control women take over the world and make men second class citizens useful only for sex.
Now that there is the technology around the corner to remove men altogether from procreation I wonder whether the end is nigh for the chromosome Y?
04/13/2008 at 7:50 PM
Steve, I found this for you:
Women and Uncle Sam
I don’t understand why, in these times, anyone would want to sign up to be cannon fodder. It would be different if it were on our own soil. But to sign up for greed and power is another thing. I can see why you are upset about having to register. I wouldn’t want to.
04/13/2008 at 6:38 PM
Emily, that was a great post. I agree with you about raising our own children too. I don’t think there is anything more meaningful or important in life than raising the next generation. I don’t even have children but I just have to look around to see that it is work, hard work!
Steve – I’ll have to look into that and get back to you.