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Modern Feminism-Good for Society?
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Leg End Reject wrote: »The last thing I would like to be described as is "masculine", appearance or behaviourwise. :eek:
Very manly of you to admit this.0 -
Feminism is the Accepted Truth in the vast majority of politics, thought and media in the West. Here in Ireland it's a cast iron given. You will not see any men's issue being publicly debated unless it is framed within "feminist" thought and the again the reasons will almost certainly be blamed on the patriarchy. You won't even hear measured critique of "feminism". There are no other voices. In order to be proactive it would butt up against that tide. It's doable, but most people men and women couldn't be arsed and just go along with it, leaving the field open to cranks on twitter.
The Feminists of the past won their fight (and that's a great thing!). Their ideological daughters are dangerous idiots and society needs to figure out how to stand up to them.0 -
Smee_Again wrote: »Anything that promotes equality is good for society.
slogans never lie , everyone knows that0 -
EmmetSpiceland wrote: »Men: the real victim.
It’s okay, I feel you. It’s not easy being a cis, whyte, heterosexual male aged 18-49 these days. Not easy at all. Cant even look at, let alone talk to, a woman.
you spelt the word White incorrectly.0 -
ThewhiteJesus wrote: »Eoghan Mcdermott is a feminist, what does that tell you ?
It tells you nothing, other than the fact that claiming to be a feminist doesn't mean that you aren't a misogynistic arsehole beneath the facade.0 -
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When people ask me am I a feminist I reply 'what do you mean when you say feminism?'
Because as one of the 21st century's dominant meta-theories, there is a lot of kooky stuff being bandied about by people proclaiming to be feminists apart from the legal equalities that 99% of men are already on board with.
Feminism is a political movement concerned with power, and it should be viewed and scrutinized as such. There are also a lot of bad actors that take up the flag for the wrong reasons, people seeking to feather their own nests, and those simply using feminism as a convenient cloak to avoid scrutiny and to help themselves to power and unaccountability.0 -
Put it another way; among average everyday people, which gender is more likely to die younger, be killed at work, be physically assaulted, be homeless, be addicts, be more suicidal and carry that to its unfortunate end, be unemployed, have lower educational outcomes, fewer social and financial resources, be treated less favourably in law, including in the event of divorce? I'll give ye a hint, it's not women. The only metric where women figure higher in the stats is in sexual assault.
You are not wrong in any of the above - the only issue I have is that I'm not sure you can blame women for any of this.
Its not the same thing.
If you look at politics for example, we've never had a female president in the US or Taoiseach in Ireland. And while we easily could have today - nonetheless the history of politics is one where the starting point was that women couldnt vote and that politicis was a male only bastion that women had to break into. Women could directly point the finger at men in that case and say - this isnt fair.
In all of the things you've listed out above - if women are better educated than men - can women be blamed for this? We know that men are better networked in the workplace than women (look at company boards for concrete and undeniable evidence of this). As such, there is less pressure on men to be well educated.
Be physically assaulted? Women dont randomly attack men on the street. Men do.
Weaker access to custody? The legal system was largely devised by men, and goes back to a starting point where women were not allowed work when they got married.
The second point is: Instead of giving out about Feminism, why not use it as an inspiration for how you can pursue better rights, better living conditions for men.
That is, if you really care that much about the valid points that you have raised.0 -
I'm not even sure what could be defined as Feminism anymore as it appears to be a splintered force at war with itself. Only need to look at all at terf stuff, JK Rowling, etc. Even a split between social and individual feminism. It all seems as if there are multiple competing forms of intersectional feminism.
All Eyes On Rafah
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It's good for manufacturers of blue hair dye and nose rings.0
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The majority of women on a day to day basis haven't a clue or interest in first wave, second wave or whatever other label is put on women.
Im sure the majority of men do either.
I dont understand any of this, nor would I waste any time reading up on it.
What I do know though, is, there are these constant threads about women here which usually end with people being demeaned as blue haired lesbians. Case in point, post above. Not to mention the juvenile references to boobs, burming bras etc.
Its pretty clear that these people are threatened by women so try to demean them as a cliched generalised stereotype.0 -
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Up until 3rd wave it kinda made sense, although there were some extreme views. 4th wave feminism holds beliefs that 3rd wave would find abhorrent and anti female0
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EmmetSpiceland wrote: »Men: the real victim.
It’s okay, I feel you. It’s not easy being a cis, whyte, heterosexual male aged 18-49 these days. Not easy at all.
Hard to know if parody. Well done on not misquoting there though. You may have forgotten your persona.0 -
It's a movement rooted in dishonesty, this wave that is, whatever wave we are on now!
And it's everywhere today, work, media, education.
It's a movement driven by emotion, not reason.
It's a movement devoid of accountability for the dishonesty.
It's a movement devoid of logical consistency.
It is a simple persons movement really, you don't have to think too hard about it or question it too deeply, just a nice twitter handle and a cheap and easy way to feel good about oneself.0 -
The majority of women on a day to day basis haven't a clue or interest in first wave, second wave or whatever other label is put on women.
Im sure the majority of men do either.
I dont understand any of this, nor would I waste any time reading up on it.
What I do know though, is, there are these constant threads about women here which usually end with people being demeaned as blue haired lesbians. Case in point, post above. Not to mention the juvenile references to noobs, bras etc.
Its pretty clear that these people are threatened by women so try to demean them as a cliched generalised stereotype.
anewbuzzkill0 -
Feminism isn't about promoting equality. The clue is in the name.
Op, to answer your question - no; modern feminism is a vile, hate-filled, almost religious-like view that causes tremendous harm to men, women and society as a whole.
But you are not allowed to proffer anything against it. Otherwise you are a misogynistic sexist pig.
TrueEmmetSpiceland wrote: »Men: the real victim.
It’s okay, I feel you. It’s not easy being a cis, whyte, heterosexual male aged 18-49 these days. Not easy at all. Cant even look at, let alone talk to, a woman.
As can be seen by this sarcastic response that isn't based on anything at all in this thread.0 -
women in places like Saudi Arabia who take great risk in order to try and achieve even the most basic of equalities , those are feminists who anyone can admire , they are battling real systematic unfairness and battling a genuinely male dominate society , i salute those feminists, if they identify as feminists that is , maybe they just identify as women seeking equality ? , some women who take no crap also dont like the baggage which comes with that label
in the likes of Ireland , feminists are often just careerists in the grievance industry or social media attention seekers who form part of the broader WOKE movement0 -
Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,161 Mod ✭✭✭✭Join Date:Posts: 59089
You are not wrong in any of the above - the only issue I have is that I'm not sure you can blame women for any of this.If you look at politics for example, we've never had a female president in the US or Taoiseach in Ireland. And while we easily could have today - nonetheless the history of politics is one where the starting point was that women couldnt vote and that politicis was a male only bastion that women had to break into. Women could directly point the finger at men in that case and say - this isnt fair.
The plain fact is this; for most of human history the average man was a bullet and spear stopper expected to fight, work and die for the powerful, the average woman was the babymaker of bullets and spear stoppers expected to fight, work and die for the powerful and a babymaker to more babymakers. Men were the expendable gender, women were the "valuable" gender, so long as they were fertile. Rinse and repeat. The "gender war" was far more a class and power war than a gender one.
It remains somewhat similar today. If you regard modern western feminism it is overwhelmingly concerned with the issues of White, middle class, university educated women. Anything beyond that tends to be tokenism and often dismissed as cultural equivalence. The average self identifying western "feminist" is usually more concerned about things like being "slut shamed" and "more women in STEM!!" than the plight of Brown women living in actual patriarchal societies. The joke is that it's often the case that in quite a few patriarchal societies you find more women in STEM fields and in senior management than in more "feminist" societies. EG there are more senior management women in no gender quotas Russia than there are in gender quotas Sweden or Norway.In all of the things you've listed out above - if women are better educated than men - can women be blamed for this? We know that men are better networked in the workplace than women (look at company boards for concrete and undeniable evidence of this). As such, there is less pressure on men to be well educated.Me. In 2015. wrote:The latest figures from the EU Commission show that the Gender Pay Gap in Ireland is 13.9% - in other words women in Ireland are paid almost 14% less than men. The Gender Pay Gap exists even though women do better at school and university than men. In the Irish context, what is perhaps most disturbing is the high cost of motherhood. Figures from the OECD show that in Ireland the Gender Pay Gap for women with no children is -17% but this increases significantly to 14% for women with at least one child – a jump of 31 percentage points. The gender pay gap exists across the sectors.
For the bottom 10% of earners, the Gender Pay Gap in Ireland is 4% but this rises to 24.6% for the top 10% of income earners, suggesting the continued presence of a glass ceiling and indirect discrimination.
Emphasis mine. Note how they don't come out straight and say that childless women earn 17% more on average. Blink and you'd miss it kinda thing. You'll also note that they mention women do better in education than men, yet little focus is given by society to why men are failing in that area.Be physically assaulted? Women dont randomly attack men on the street. Men do.Weaker access to custody? The legal system was largely devised by men, and goes back to a starting point where women were not allowed work when they got married.The second point is: Instead of giving out about Feminism, why not use it as an inspiration for how you can pursue better rights, better living conditions for men.
That is, if you really care that much about the valid points that you have raised.Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
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It remains somewhat similar today. If you regard modern western feminism it is overwhelmingly concerned with the issues of White, middle class, university educated women.
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All very good points, and I would agree with a lot of it, disagree with some of it - particularly the networking piece, its strongly male oriented. As an example, corporate entertainment - heavily focussed on sports that are principally followed be men. Where do large banks or legal firms have corporate boxes? In Croke Park. The Aviva. Who does that suit better? Men or women? Men, clearly.
On the above, I read the Reni Eddo Lodge book and she made that point strongly, that the feminism agenda didnt encompass the black female experience.
What it boils down to though - and noone should be particularly shocked by this - people care first and foremost about their own rights. Thats what they agitate for.
I dont see the people who marched for gay marriage also supporting better living conditions for travellers. Or the 'Repeal the 8th' activists campaigning about direct provision. (By and large, I'm sure some do).
Why would it surprise you that white middle class women are principally concerned with the welfare of white middle class women. Why would you blame them for that.
You have to fight your own battles.0 -
Leg End Reject wrote: »I'd agree with Wibbs. There was a time when feminism was relevant, but it's jumped the shark now.
I'm all for gender equality, but it should come from the honest starting point of acknowledging that there are differences between the 2 genders, and those differences influence behaviours, outlook and social interactions.
The last thing I would like to be described as is "masculine", appearance or behaviourwise. :eek:
Liberal feminism, yes. I find so much of that ridiculous. It leans into victimhood far too much.
Old school feminism, however, has seen a resurgence because the rights that that wave fought for are now under threat due to the erosion of spaces women carved out in society to protect themselves from the small number of men who will harm them.* I had thought feminism was beginning to seem a bit outdated. That would have been my view a few years ago. But not now. In a country where in the last year, public health literature did not feature the word ‘woman’ once in relation to a female-specific condition (corresponding literature was peppered with the word ‘men’) and violent male-bodied inmates are being incarcerated in a women’s prison, feminism is still sorely needed. Self-ID was legal three years before abortion was.
*the kind of spaces I am talking about are those which were created to protect women, rather than say something like a men-only golf club being questioned. Now I actually don’t object to men-only clubs personally. I just want to make that distinction as I’ve seen this false equivalency posited a few times. The debate about whether men-only and women-only establishments should exist is a valid one. But I’m just talking about privacy and safety related places here.0 -
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whisky_galore wrote: »anewbuzzkill
The gargle dims the brain apparently.
Not the most articulate.
Predictible too.
They all must be blue haired with nose rings.
Change the record...:rolleyes:0 -
You are not wrong in any of the above - the only issue I have is that I'm not sure you can blame women for any of this.0
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As has probably been said, it depends on what one means by "feminism".
But generally, in a broad sense, yes Feminism is good for society and it always has been. There are still some issues to be tackled, I spose, and that especially goes for outside of western society. However there are certainly some actors within modern feminism that would be more intent on using it to further their own interests rather than the "ism" itself.
But there are voices worth listening to. If I want a feminist opinion on something, I'd go the likes of Germaine Greer, who's still as relevant today as she was in the 70's. But the same cannot be said for some others that I've read or heard. People like Anita Sarkeesian for example I wouldn't have any real time for and consider such types as rather fraudulent to be honest and I have more time for the honest feminist who understands a certain struggle and can articulate it clearly than the "it's a man's fault" kind.
So, yeh, Feminism is good for society, but some feminists (and the ships they wish to go down on) are not so good.0 -
Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,161 Mod ✭✭✭✭Join Date:Posts: 59089
All very good points, and I would agree with a lot of it, disagree with some of it - particularly the networking piece, its strongly male oriented. As an example, corporate entertainment - heavily focussed on sports that are principally followed be men. Where do large banks or legal firms have corporate boxes? In Croke Park. The Aviva. Who does that suit better? Men or women? Men, clearly.
I've also noted that men's friendships tend to last longer and are more about shared interests and activities, rather than more overt emotional connections. The latter tend to be more sensitive to change. So the boxes in Croker kind of thing would be more a "male thing" anyway. Men also are more likely to discuss things rather than people.
There's been some research into these average differences.
Some research has looked at similarities and differences between male-male and female-female friendships. While the similarities tend to outweigh the differences, there are some interesting ways that men’s friendships differ from women’s.
The most common finding is that men’s friendships tend to be more “instrumental” and less emotional, while women are much more likely than men to share emotions and feelings. Men’s friendships are often based on shared activities (e.g., poker or golfing buddies), and are more “transactional” — reciprocating favors and working together on projects. In other words, men share activities, women share feelings.
For the most part, men’s friendships tend to be less intimate and less supportive than friendships between women. However, there is some evidence that women’s friendships tend to be more fragile than men’s.
While as the author points out there are as many similarities those differences are likely more advantageous in business settings. Which makes sense as men pretty much "invented" business and tailored it to how they operate. If women were always the business people no doubt there would be subtle differences in how that might play out too.On the above, I read the Reni Eddo Lodge book and she made that point strongly, that the feminism agenda didnt encompass the black female experience.What it boils down to though - and noone should be particularly shocked by this - people care first and foremost about their own rights. Thats what they agitate for.
I dont see the people who marched for gay marriage also supporting better living conditions for travellers. Or the 'Repeal the 8th' activists campaigning about direct provision. (By and large, I'm sure some do).Why would it surprise you that white middle class women are principally concerned with the welfare of white middle class women. Why would you blame them for that.
You have to fight your own battles.Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
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There are so many myths propagated by it, the gender wage gap being the main one. if companies were paying their female employees less than men for the same job with the same experience they would be sued out the eyeballs every day. Not to mention, the fact that women choose different jobs(i.e lack of representation of women firefighters/bin men)
You're confusing the gender pay gap with equal pay for equal work - they're two different issues.
The gender pay gap is very real. Whether you think it's worth solving is a different issue, but yes, it definitely exists.
They're bringing legislation in to oblige certain companies to report their gender pay gap, but this practice already exists in the UK. Some companies here choose to report their gap, particularly where they have a strong policy around it and want the good PR.
Here's a link to the Central Bank's report, which they produce on a voluntary basis (they're doing incredibly well with a gap of only 2.2%): https://www.centralbank.ie/docs/default-source/careers/policies/gender-pay-gap-report-2020.pdf0 -
Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,161 Mod ✭✭✭✭Join Date:Posts: 59089
true-or-false wrote: »You're confusing the gender pay gap with equal pay for equal work - they're two different issues.
The gender pay gap is very real. Whether you think it's worth solving is a different issue, but yes, it definitely exists.
And as I noted earlier the Women's council of Ireland showed that before children came into it Irish women were on average better educated and better paid to the tune of 17 percent compared to men. The pay gap went the other way to the narrative.Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
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I think modern day feminists are just lazy, victim hood syndrome, men haters. I've been around a lot of normal woman in my life , be it in work , a couple of girlfriends , friends, college , aunt's and cousins and I've never heard any of them spout rubbish you hear out of modern day feminists. Most people just want to work and raise their families, if the man earns more than the female in the relationship, so what , it's just goes towards paying the mortgage and bills anyway . Feminists that come straight out of gender studies class in college use flawed studies to push their agenda.
My accountant is a female , my doctor is a female ,my mam has a decent job with the health board, when I worked in a shop most of the managers were female. We've had female presidents , leaders of political parties etc.
While I do think men earn more money in general it's because there's more money in jobs that men dominate like construction or business compared to childcare or nursing. Although when I worked in a shop I got paid about 4 euro less an hour than my female colleagues , so the gender pay gap is real ?? Or is it that they've been there years longer than me and have better contracts .0 -
The average male works 40.1 hours per week and the average female 32.3 hours. Now some of that could be due to childcare responsibilities (which I'd guess would peak for a few years in the late 20s / early 30s), but extrapolated out across an economy and across entire careers with a couple of million workers, that's a lot of man(and women) hours difference. Perhaps it's unsurprising that men get paid more given that they on average work 20% more hours than females?
https://www.cso.ie/en/csolatestnews/pressreleases/2020pressreleases/pressstatementwomenandmeninireland2019/0 -
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One problem and question I have with this gender gap is this; if women get paid less for working the same job and hours, why hire men? It would make sound financial sense to proactively hire more women. More work for less pay. Ker-ching!
And as I noted earlier the Women's council of Ireland showed that before children came into it Irish women were on average better educated and better paid to the tune of 17 percent compared to men. The pay gap went the other way to the narrative.
This is exactly how you know that women are not paid less for the same work. Apart from the fact it's illegal, companies would just hire men.
Women take time off for children. Women choose different careers. Is that sexism or is that women choices?
Men tend to go unto higher paid, more dangerous or stressful careers. Is that because of society or because they are genetically more predisposed?
The gender pay gap is a huge oversimplification of the world and just makes me roll my eyes.
I still call myself a feminist though. I have a lot of problems with some feminists though and the issues they focus on.0
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