Modern Feminism-Good for Society?

Tony EH

Tombo2001 wrote: »

If you look at the very first page of this thread, the 7th post down is one word - Boobs.

It hasnt been deleted.

It was thanked by 7 people, including yourself.

Not blaming you for this, you are entitled to thank what you want.

I would love however to hear from a Mod as to why it was allowed stand.

What is the thinking behind the moderatorship that makes this acceptable.

It was a joke in After Hours, where this thread started.

You've been here long enough to know how After Hours works. Someone makes a thread and you can pretty much write off the first 5 or so posts as people having a cheap laugh. It certainly isn't something to be clinging onto 10+ pages into the discussion.

Tombo2001

Tony EH wrote: »

It was a joke in After Hours, where this thread started.

You've been here long enough to know how After Hours works. Someone makes a thread and you can pretty much write off the first 5 or so posts as people having a cheap laugh. It certainly isn't something to be clinging onto 10+ pages into the discussion.

Ah yeah.... edgy humour.

Not misogyny.

Mod endorsed.

Keep going as ye are lads, but just in a different forum.

Mad_maxx

EmmetSpiceland wrote: »

Well, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if boards.ie reflected “real life” Peter Casey would be president.

The anti-traveller sentiment, that is prevalent on this site, does not transfer to “real life”. If it did Peter Casey would be president today.

Only if you use a poll on a site for anonymous users as an absolute guide

Doctor Roast

Tony EH wrote: »

It was a joke in After Hours, where this thread started.

You've been here long enough to know how After Hours works. Someone makes a thread and you can pretty much write off the first 5 or so posts as people having a cheap laugh. It certainly isn't something to be clinging onto 10+ pages into the discussion.

A while ago it wouldn't have even been an issue....

hatrickpatrick

Tombo2001 wrote: »

Ah yeah.... edgy humour.

Not misogyny.

How exactly was it misogyny?

Mod endorsed.

How is it in any way mod endorsed?

Keep going as ye are lads, but just in a different forum.

That's sort of the whole point of moving a thread, yes.

Mad_maxx

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Why shouldn't it be allowed stand? This is After Hours. The entire modus operandi of this forum is taking the piss, being irreverent, pushing the envelope. If someone wanted a discussion on this subject which didn't have edgy humour, they should have posted it on the Politics forum which is curated.

The modern WOKE leftists are every bit as priggish as the Conservatives they railed against in the past

WrenBoy

Mad_maxx wrote: »

The modern WOKE leftists are every bit as priggish as the Conservatives they railed against in the past

What a great word :pac:

TomTomTim

Tombo2001 wrote: »

I really at this point dont want to participate in the conversation - its not going anywhere.

I'd simply like to hear from the Mods on why the Boobs comment is deemed acceptable.

Is it 'edgy humour'; is it 'misogyny'? The answer is pretty clearcut in my view. But its ok from a MOD pov. Why is that?

Because if thats 'ok', then it sets a tone for the rest of the conversation - and that tone is fairly entrenched.

Bring back the Christian puritans, because they seem moderate compared to supposedly liberal people like yourself.

meeeeh

I'm starting to think that this sort of threads are a therapy for certain posters with women issues...

And I have nothing of substance to add.

Tombo2001

echo

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thank

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thank

Tony EH

Tombo2001 wrote: »

Ah yeah.... edgy humour.

Not misogyny.

Mod endorsed.

Keep going as ye are lads, but just in a different forum.

No, it wasn't "edgy" and it wasn't "misogyny" either. It was just a typical, silly, After Hours page one joke. The type of thing that's been going on on Boards.ie since After Hours was created years ago.

You've been here the guts of a decade. You know this.

hatrickpatrick

Mad_maxx wrote: »

The modern WOKE leftists are every bit as priggish as the Conservatives they railed against in the past

I've been saying this for years. It's extremely sad how left-authoritarian has completely consumed the left-libertarian movement of the 2000s.

randd1

Tony EH wrote: »

No, it wasn't "edgy" and it wasn't "misogyny" either. It was just a typical, silly, After Hours page one joke. The type of thing that's been going on on Boards.ie since After Hours was created years ago.

You've been here the guts of a decade. You know this.

Why let facts get in the way of a good session of outrage?


What is it the man said, "sticks and stones may break your bones but you'll always find something to offend a feminist".

anewme

Mr Pyke wrote: »

How did it reach the stage where feminists get offended by the word 'boobs'?

Because context is everything.

in a thread to discuss feminism (supposedly serious), reducing a persons worth to a pair of boobs reads disrespectful.

Not sure why you cant see that.

There are so many poison and toxic comments about women, that it is almost impossible to see what is a joke and who is serious.

hatrickpatrick

anewme wrote: »

Because context is everything.

in a thread to discuss feminism (supposedly serious), reducing a persons worth to a pair of boobs reads disrespectful.

Not sure why you cant see that.

There are so many poison and toxic comments about women, that it is almost impossible to see what is a joke and who is serious.

It's After Hours. Nothing is serious. Everything should be taken as a joke. That's the context you're either failing or refusing to see.

If the thread was "supposedly serious", it would have been posted on the Politics forum. AH and CA are for goofing off (CA for political discussions with AH's goofing off culture embedded). That's why it's such a moronic argument. It's like expecting a serious, non-irreverent analysis of a social issue on South Park or Monty Python.

Tony EH

anewme wrote: »

Because context is everything.

in a thread to discuss feminism (supposedly serious), reducing a persons worth to a pair of boobs reads disrespectful.

Not sure why you cant see that.

There are so many poison and toxic comments about women, that it is almost impossible to see what is a joke and who is serious.

Look, you need to let this go. You're letting your irritation over a silly After Hours joke overshadow everything else you might have to add to the discussion.

Is that really what you want your contribution to be?

anewme

anewme wrote: »

Because context is everything.

in a thread to discuss feminism (supposedly serious), reducing a persons worth to a pair of boobs reads disrespectful.

Not sure why you cant see that.

There are so many poison and toxic comments about women, that it is almost impossible to see what is a joke and who is serious.

It was an obvious joke and I'd wager that most women reading this thread are not so fragile as to have had it ruin their life.

Some might even have found it funny.

TomTomTim

Deleted User wrote: »

It was an obvious joke and I'd wager that most women reading this thread are not so fragile as to have had it ruin their life.

Some might even have found it funny.

It's the heart of inconsistency of modern feminism. "We are strong and brave, yet also weak and fragile".

I remember seeing a thread on Reddit where a female cyclist was asking why don't men wave back at them. Many feminist men replied stating that they thought it would make a woman feel scared/insecure, so they didn't do it. Thankfully some people pointed out the obvious hypocrisy, that by treating women as fragile beings they were betraying the values of equality.

growleaves

It's designed to look at differences between average earnings based on gender at a company wide, sector wide, country wide or global level. This doesn't mean a secretary should be paid the same as a CEO, it just asks questions like 'why aren't women becoming CEOs?'. While some of this is choice, there are barriers for women. Some of these barriers are even what leads to the choice.

That seems to ignore the fact that anyone can become a CEO. Anyone at all. By starting a business.

And of course women have no trouble getting money from investors in our feminist society, and in fact there are many successful women entrepreneurs - both big and small.

It's only when you regard large corporations as systems of patronage that must dole out well-paid positions to all-comers and ask the question 'Where is my slice of the pie?' that the question of barriers becomes relevant.

There are not really any barriers as such except risk. Success is not guaranteed for women or for anyone.

Deemed as Normal

the beer revolu wrote: »

I see it here, where any negative experience with a man is labelled as misogyny.

And it's so not fair the way there is no equivalent word for misogynist!

A point of note: Women getting custody more often is nothing to do with "patriarchy" assuming that women should be the childcarers, as someone suggested earlier in this thread. It was more often men that used to get custody since they were considered to have more resources for raising their children. Tender years doctrine, campaigned for by British feminist Caroline Norton, introduced in the late 19th century in the UK and adopted across much of Europe and the US by the early 20th century, is what changed things so that women, usually by default, got custody of children after divorce.

Granadino

Anything promoting equality is good.
Look here at the Vox politician in Spain who refused to stand in solidarity with other political parties against violence against women.
I mean, no matter your politics, why wouldn't you stand in solidarity with this?
https://www.huffingtonpost.es/entry/ortega-smith-minuto-silencio-violencia-machista_es_60410076c5b682971505d1d6

Granadino

Granadino wrote: »

Anything promoting equality is good.
Look here at the Vox politician in Spain who refused to stand in solidarity with other political parties against violence against women.
I mean, no matter your politics, why wouldn't you stand in solidarity with this?
https://www.huffingtonpost.es/entry/ortega-smith-minuto-silencio-violencia-machista_es_60410076c5b682971505d1d6

I don't know much about it. Had to look for an English language article. It seems his party are trying to repeal a set of laws that seek to address domestic violence by setting up policies and services that serve explicitly female victims of domestic violence and approach domestic violence through a specifically gendered female victim, male perpetrator paradigm. They also seem to have concerns about a degradation of the presumption of innocence in such cases.

I don't know much about Vox and I'm sure no political party is above using a convenient issue for their own gain, but on the face of it his argument seems to be based in equality, no?

hatrickpatrick

Granadino wrote: »

Anything promoting equality is good.
Look here at the Vox politician in Spain who refused to stand in solidarity with other political parties against violence against women.
I mean, no matter your politics, why wouldn't you stand in solidarity with this?
https://www.huffingtonpost.es/entry/ortega-smith-minuto-silencio-violencia-machista_es_60410076c5b682971505d1d6

Because violence is violence. The gender of the victim shouldn't have any bearing whatsoever on how society views the crime.

joe40

What exactly is modern feminism. It seems to me reading through the forum that there are different opinions on what modern feminism is.

I'll admit I haven't a clue as to what defines modern feminism.
I have seen articles etc where things related to sexism are highlighted. Some seem to make others less so.

So a definition of modern feminism please. I'll see if I support it or not.

mohawk

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Because violence is violence. The gender of the victim shouldn't have any bearing whatsoever on how society views the crime.

I can see your point to a certain degree.
However, I grew up in a house with physical violence. More specifically my mother getting the ****e beaten out of her by her loser ex. I also have very close friends who grew up in similar homes. So from my perspective violence against women from men can be worse simply because of the huge strength advantage a man has over a woman. Then I think of a friend of mine who was raped and the way she described the feeling of being so overpowered and helpless. I think of my own encounters with creeps when I was younger and the fear I felt when I was grabbed and I couldn’t break free from their grip all because I dared say no to them.

All violence is wrong but when the violence is directed at someone who is much physically weaker then the perpetrator I think it’s worse.

mohawk

joe40 wrote: »

What exactly is modern feminism. It seems to me reading through the forum that there are different opinions on what modern feminism is.

I'll admit I haven't a clue as to what defines modern feminism.
I have seen articles etc where things related to sexism are highlighted. Some seem to make others less so.

So a definition of modern feminism please. I'll see if I support it or not.

I don’t think there is one type of modern feminism. Most common type I see people supporting is intersectional feminism which if your into identity politics will be your thing.

Sleepy

The feminist approach to the gender earnings gap is quite a perfect example of what's wrong with the modern version of the movement / ideology imo: when simplified to a sound-bite it portrays women as being treated unfairly on the basis of their gender. Yet when examined in any nuance, reality says otherwise.

Let's have a look at it in detail: every analysis of the data points to the fact that there is no statistically relevant male/female divide in earnings when all other factors are accounted for. There certainly is a Mothers/Everyone else divide however and that tends to be explained rather easily by the fact that, as a group, mothers choose to work less hours in less demanding careers than fathers or those without children.

This isn't something we can address with legislation imo but for the thought experiment lets look at a couple of ways in which we could get the earnings gap to 0:

Restrict the working week to a maximum of 32 hours? (the average worked by women in paid employment according to the CSO, I can't find a figure for mothers in particular). No-one being allowed to work more hours than the average woman would certainly shift the scale. It'd likely result in an exodus of multi-nationals, crashing our economy, tramples on everyone's right to self-determination not to mention being utterly unenforceable outside of the public sector but surely the holy grail of having an earnings gap of 0 is more important?

Mandate that employers must pay a wage premium to mothers? Uhm, I can't see this one working out - you're creating an environment where it's in any employer's interest to discriminate against mothers (and women of child-bearing age) in the hiring process and while discrimination on those grounds is already illegal, it can easily be worked around ("not a good fit" etc) and would ultimately be more likely to be counter-productive. Let's scratch this one too.

Maybe we could look at encouraging employers into preferring female job applicants over male ones? Well, this has already been achieved in many industries tbh (Plenty of research showing this in the STEM field) but most employers still struggle to meet their quotas for female hires in these industries due to a lack of interested female applicants. Not to mention the fact that it's a sexist, discriminatory practice.

Maybe we as a society should re-evaluate the way we value certain careers? Outside of a communist system where everyone is paid equally for their work regardless of it's value, this is next to impossible to achieve: a Soc & Pol graduate with a specialisation in gender studies simply isn't as valuable a resource to an employer, an economy or society in general as a newly qualified plumber, teacher, computer science graduate or nurse. I could certainly get on board with a maximum ratio allowed between the difference in salary paid to a company's highest and lowest paid employees but no matter how well crafted the legislation I'm sure the legal and finance guys would find a way around it in minutes through share options or the like.

As the biggest contributor to the gender income gap is the status of motherhood, maybe that's where we should be looking. The data already shows us that women who choose not to have children have no problem in matching (or bettering) the salary levels of their male counterparts.

Maybe those women who want to pursue the higher echelons of the income brackets while having a family need to do the same thing that men doing so have always done: pursue romantic partners who are amenable to being the primary care giver to the couples offspring.

Sadly, this doesn't quite fit the "having it all" narrative of the feminism of the 80's that so many of the modern cohort were raised on. Whether biology, socialisation or a mix of the two, women don't currently choose partners with lower incomes or lower ambitions in statistically significant numbers. No matter whether male or female, you can either play an active role in family life or you can maximise your earning potential, you don't really get to do both and if you want a family but don't want to sacrifice your earning potential, you're going to need a partner (or staff if your earnings are truly that high) who can pick up the slack.

I'd see a focus on educating young people on this reality as more valuable to our society than attempting to achieve a perfect 1:1 earnings ratio between the genders tbh. Does it truly matter if men and women make different choices about their role in family life if that's what they're happy with those choices?

There are certainly those who were deprived of making those choices in our society's past: women who experienced crisis pregnancies who were physically (or financially) prevented from taking the boat to England for a termination etc. But conversely you still see men whose partners quit work the second they're pregnant and expect him to be a sole provider when they'd have preferred to share the burdens of providing for and rearing a family etc. I'm unaware of any sexism left in our legal system that prevents a woman from having the freedom to choose her future however? Our tax system even discriminates against sole-income families in an attempt to encourage balance!

Feminism in the seventies and eighties (and even arguably up until the 2010's if one considers the repeal of the 8th a feminist issue) was about women having the same rights of self-determination as men. This has been achieved in most western nations and categorically so in Ireland.

Modern feminists want more: they want supremacy. They may present their demands through a lens of the victim (and boy, do they know how to glorify victimhood) but ultimately they're want to be in charge in an authoritarian society.

anewme

Mr Pyke wrote: »

This is what happens when you take the feminism meme too seriously, you genuinely believe you get to decide what others can say.

Since when do you get to tell people what they genuinely believe in?

joe40

mohawk wrote: »

I don’t think there is one type of modern feminism. Most common type I see people supporting is intersectional feminism which if your into identity politics will be your thing.

That's the problem in discussions like this. One person is railing one aspect of feminism, another is defending a different aspect.

In a term like feminism there is a spectrum of opinion. It is too broad to be labelled good or bad.