Is feminism inherently negative?

[aneeshm]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
It is making the women be dependent on a particular man.

Jon Miller

No, it doesn't.

[MJW]

This thread is emo.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


A bit off topic.

Obedience is a virtue.

But if we do not follow our own consciousness, just some principles that keep us in chains then virtue doesn't get us liberation. The need to be virtuous is our chains.

If you believe that liberty is merely the absence of restraints, then yes you will see them as contrary.

I don't exactly believe that liberty is the absence of restraints. I believe that it is the recognition of restraints and our own consciousness. Anyone who recognizes their own true consciousness will be liberated in the mind. Liberation of the mind is just as important as financial and political liberation. After you are liberated in the mind you can work toward financial and political liberation.

For me, I use the analogy of a creeping vine. The vine is given a structure in the form of the fench which allow the vine to climb and grow. Without the post, the vine will not have anything to support itself as it continues to grow, and so it will wither. The same is with obedience. Obedience to that which is right does not hinder growth, but provides the solid foundation.

But as adults we do not need to be dependent on others and so we do not need to be obedient to them if they are telling us how to live our lives. Fences for vines are very fine for children.

That being said, we are to obey that which is good. Does this mean that whatever someone says, we are called to obey? Hardly. People make wrong decisions all the time.

I don't know what this means? We decide which is good for ourselves. So why do we need authority to be free?

In the context of husbands and wives, we see that the husband has a duty to love his wife as he loves his own flesh. A husband that harms his wife is beating himself. This is how precious the wife ought to be to her husband. If the husband orders his wife to do something contrary to her own well-being he is violating his own responsibility to love and cherish his wife as he would himself.

Why does the husband decide what is best for the wife? How can someone be free as an adult when they are treated like children?

Obedience to the law is not contrary to liberty, it is essential for the exercise of liberty. There can be no freedom in a lawless society, and consequently, obedience is a prerequisite in order that one may enjoy liberty.

That doesn't mean that women need to be obedient in the family. You can have law and have families within the society where each person earns their own money and is able to decide things for themselves just like free men.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Cyclotron


Only to an extent. Liberation is not solely an internal endeavor; you can't be liberated in an unfree society. A woman with the "will" to be liberated and material wealth is still constrained by the structures of patriarchy; her actions are circumscribed by the society in which she lives.

How unfree is a society for the individual who has great wealth in that society? Sure there will be other constraints, maybe she can't dress the way she wants or something like that, but generally if you are rich you are free.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by aneeshm
Seems a lot of people have not understood what I'm saying. I'll repeat it, condensed into simple points:

DaShi took care of this and I'm not inclined to re-invent the wheel.

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
I've merely said that a woman who leaves her job for 3 years to raise her children will have, all other things being equal, less experience then the man who worked for those three years. An employer is not discriminating against women if he choses an employee who has that extra experience.

Yes, that's obvious. Obviously employers will want more experience and obviously they are not discriminating if they choose people on the basis of experience. That's why this is a strawman; you're addressing a point that nobody here (to my knowledge) has disputed.

The problem is not that there is some kind of experiential hiring gap between genders; even if it exists, it hasn't been suitably demonstrated to be significant. Your point is purely hypothetical, presupposing a situation in which two people have equal skills and equal ways of approaching tasks, and their only difference is in a few years of experience lost to child rearing. I don't find that argument from a single hypothetical to be very convincing.

The problem is rather that women are forced to make this choice and men are not. There is no reason why women should feel obligated to spend years of their lives with children while men are, quite frankly, ridiculed for being "house husbands" if they do the same.

The best way to resolve these differences is the feminist way; that is, to challenge the cultural norms and stereotypes that require women to do domestic work and raise children while normalizing men as actors in civil society, for whom the home is a castle but not a real domain.

Where have I said that women are inferior because they can have children? Men and women are different and complementary to one another without being inferior.

I suggest you read only what I say, not what you interpret that I have said.

How can I read what you say when you don't say anything? You have totally failed to define "what makes them special" or "different and complimentary" in any way whatsoever. What else am I supposed to conclude when, instead of an argument, you give me that dreck? You invite others to interpret your words liberally when you yourself won't deign to do it for us. You can't really expect much else when you heap platitutes on us.

Legal equality enables women to accomplish their goals. If a candidate does not meet with the approval of women, they will not get elected bottom line.

Legal equality is one of many things that enables them to accomplish their goals. I don't know why you suddenly brought up electoral politics, but it doesn't seem very relevant. The problems feminism attempts to address go far deeper than legal and electoral concerns, and if you understood feminism in any more than a cursory way, you would know that.

Actually I have said just the opposite. I said to Imran just because there are opinions which are considered to be distasteful does not mean they have any less right to express them.

Yay, free speech! What does this have to do with your obvious misconception that the feminist movement should be solely concerned with legal rights for women, and apparently not anything else?

Wow, how condescending. Why don't you come down off your lofty plateau and try scrumming with the rest of us plebians.

You know what, Ben? That's what happens when you jump into a discussion about feminism without a correct concept of what feminism is. I havge an expectation that when people attempt to debate something seriously, they at least understand the positions that they are criticizing. You have barraged us with inaccuracies, misinterpretations, platitutes, and other meaningless statements. It seems pretty clear what your motives here are; you tell us that women are "different" and "special" without telling us how or why. This is quite typically a way of expressing patriarchal sentiment in a PC fashion. Until you demonstrate otherwise, they are perceived best as euphamisms for something a lot less palatable; that is, sexist.

If you can't be bothered to be informed or forthright I certainly can't be bothered to treat you with kid gloves.

There are many ways in which women are different from men and not in a way in which they are inferior. Women tend to have a wider range of emotions, they love harder they hurt more and they are more likely to swing from one to the other. If the men have less range, how is that mean they are superior to the women because they feel less?

Please prove these claims. Then prove that these claims are based in biology, rather than culturally reinforced gender roles. At that point, I'll accept this as a real argument, as opposed to sophistry.

[Kuciwalker]

It seems pretty clear what your motives here are; you tell us that women are "different" and "special" without telling us how or why.

most people find it pretty self-explanatory.

[Kuciwalker]

No matter what you do, women are going to be forced to spend some time off to rear kids. Unless they don't have kids. And if all of them make that choice, we're ****ed.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by aneeshm
Why are you so hell-bent on demonising your opponents as some sort of oppressors? Can't you actually ever address the points we're trying to raise, instead of attacking and trying to label us as "Teh Patriarchists!!!!11!"

Feminism posits that patriarchy exists, and that it is oppressive to women. The opponents of feminism are oppressors. For most people, however, institutions of patriarchy act on them subconsciusly, through the way words are defined, the way expectations are formed, and so on. Thus, while we live in a patriarchist society, most people are not "patriarchist." The word best describes things like societal norms and gender roles.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Kidicious
How unfree is a society for the individual who has great wealth in that society? Sure there will be other constraints, maybe she can't dress the way she wants or something like that, but generally if you are rich you are free.

Generally, yes, though gender roles and predjudices continue to operate even at high socioeconomic levels.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
most people find it pretty self-explanatory.

Oh brilliant, you've contributed... nothing!

Most people in the 50s found the idea that a wife was lesser than and submissive to the husband to be pretty self-explanatory. Few would have been able to articulate why that was so, in a manner other than "that's the way things should be" or "that's just how women are." I'm sure slaveowners all found the "fact" that blacks were inferior to be "pretty self-explanatory."

In other words, "pretty self-explanatory" appears to mean "I can't explain it, but I believe it anyway."

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi

Ok, so your point is that social conditioning is the only reason why women have more of an emotional range then men. According to you, if we raise boys exactly the same way as girls that we should see this difference fade?

Have I understood you properly?



I'm not contesting any of your points here.

My question follows the first assertion. Is it necessarily true that the difference between men and women with regards to their emotions are entirely due to their upbringing?

If so, why then are women who are sisters, some are more emotional then others?

First of all, individual differences count for something, which is why two sisters might have a different range of emotional responses. We can note that acceptable emotional responses are socially constructed without being determinist about it.

Second, you need to expand what you mean by "raising" to go beyond the family. A boy and girl raised the same way in a North American family are still going to be exposed to vastly different understandings of gender in the larger culture. Put simply, a boy taught at home that it's okay for boys to cry when upset is going to learn a different lesson at school the first time he cries -- and gets labelled a *** and beaten up for his emotional display.

I'm open to the suggestion that the social development of different emotional registers for the different genders once served a useful purpose -- but I reject the notion that it still does, and I reject the notion that the society it served was better than our own. Further, as other have said, it seems quite obvious that the emotional differences inculcated into men and women have been used to systematically disadvantage women, especially in the public sphere; that's why male bosses can be tough as nails and retain the admiration of their subordinates, while a tough female boss gets labelled "b!tch" almost immediately.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Cyclotron


Generally, yes, though gender roles and predjudices continue to operate even at high socioeconomic levels.

Yes but these really don't constrain you, although they might be annoying and offensive.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Yes but these really don't constrain you, although they might be annoying and offensive.

Well, read what Rufus just posted:

it seems quite obvious that the emotional differences inculcated into men and women have been used to systematically disadvantage women, especially in the public sphere; that's why male bosses can be tough as nails and retain the admiration of their subordinates, while a tough female boss gets labelled "b!tch" almost immediately.

A woman with a lot of money is still going to have to put up with that same stuff. Sure, she may not have to worry about discrimination in the workplace if she's no longer in it, but these factors still exist whether you call them "constraints" or "annoyances."

[Cyclotron]

I'd just like to add that the feminist movement was founded and continues to operate on the idea that basic presuppositions we have about society are incorrect, and not just very apparent presuppositions that we all probably reject like "women are inferior and the rightful property of men." Such attitudes did exist, but they have been largely overcome in the United States; sexism now tends to be more subtle, focusing on perceived differences between men and women which are euphamized as "differences" rather than weaknesses or strengths.

This dogma of "difference," however, is also a presupposition that feminism challenges. While nobody can deny that there are such differences (notably, physical ones), the fact that differences exist has given anti-feminists and people who are simply uncomfortable with the movement license to ascribe to gender whatever they feel like, and say it's natural and innate. Women are perceived to cry more? Must be because "they're different." Oh no, but not inferior - different.

Feminism challenges gender roles on a very basic level. Modern feminists generally agree that, to varying degrees, much of what we describe as "femininity" and "masculinity" are not things innate to our biological natures, but rather gender roles that are inculcated at an early age and reinforced throughout our lives.

Of course, the pervasiveness of patriarchy and gender roles means that it's difficult to tell exactly what is biological and what is cultural. I don't believe most feminists conceive of every single difference as socially and environmentally determined; feminists often discuss the idea of "femininity," seeking to shear it of its harmful socially constructed aspects while continuing to evaluate what it would mean, in a post-patriarchy society, to be feminine.

Non-feminists, however, are often quick to ascribe such roles to nature. Kuciwalker's statement is a good example; to him, differences are "obvious." As is typical for such rebuttals, he utilizes no argument save that of "obviousness." Duh, everyone knows that women are more emotional than men, right? Right? But this takes an observation, which may or may not be true (it could well be an easy stereotype, like "Jews are just more clever than the rest of us"), and ascribes it to how women and men are, innately. Someone observes female behavior - maybe just a few instances of it - and hears society's stereotypes of female behavior, and is suddenly falling all over himself not only to confirm this behavior as true, but as natural. It is this naturalization, or "normalization" of stereotyped behavior that feminists object to and question on a basic level.

So the differences between men and women continue to be misused, like some kind of rhetorical blank check, to justify every patriarchist or anti-feminist policy. Women should be encouraged to work in the home, because gosh darnit, women are just better at raising children. Women don't make good business execs - it's not their fault, they're just too emotional to make the tough decisions. You get the idea. Such people articulate sexism but attempt to naturalize it to make it more palatable, and rephrase the resulting inequalities as "complimentary" differences.

That is why it's so frustrating to debate with people who "don't get it." In order to debate feminism, you have to understand it, and in order to understand feminism you need to understand the basic level it operates upon. When this doesn't happen, we see what's been posted over and over again in this thread - critiques of feminism that hinge upon general assumptions and norms that feminism explicitly rejects. "Women are just different" isn't a valid assumption to be made when discussing feminism, because feminism is based upon callenging that assumption. It would be like having a discussion on racial politics in which one side belived that "black people are just different," without demonstrating how or why that was the case. Such a discussion would get nowhere; civil rights proceeds from the destruction of that assumption. In the same way, feminism proceeds from the rejection of the naturalization of gender roles. If you can't grasp that then, I'm sorry to say, you really need to be doing more reading and less posting.

[Drake Tungsten]

Duh, everyone knows that women are more emotional than men, right? Right?

Right.