Modern Feminism-Good for Society?

mohawk

mohawk wrote: »

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.

It's definitely the case that women are disproportionately affected by male-perpetrated violence because of pure biological reality, but I think the point is more that after the fact, when the violence has occurred and the legal proceedings are ongoing, there should not be any disparity in the way that male victims and female victims are treated.

anewme

Sleepy wrote: »

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.

So that is what modern feminism is?

Where did that come from.

Reads a bit like scaremongering tinfoil hat stuff to be honest.

Tombo2001

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

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.

A handy get out for saying whatever you want.....

It cant be misogyny....its After Hours. It cant be racism..... its After Hours.

Tombo2001

joe40 wrote: »

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.

Thats very fair, though I'm not sure if I would agree with the last sentence entirely - it can have bad aspects and still be positive on the whole.

hatrickpatrick

Tombo2001 wrote: »

A handy get out for saying whatever you want.....

It cant be misogyny....its After Hours. It cant be racism..... its After Hours.

I never said it couldn't be racism or misogyny because it's After Hours, I said that it couldn't be considered a serious thread because it was posted in After Hours.

joe40

Tombo2001 wrote: »

Thats very fair, though I'm not sure if I would agree with the last sentence entirely - it can have bad aspects and still be positive on the whole.

Yeah fair point. Overall feminism has had a positive effect on our society over the past 100 years or so. I fully accept that.
I can't point to any time in the past and say things were better then.

kildare lad

[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.

Most woman can take a joke , feminists not so much ....

Silentcorner

JoChervil wrote: »

So do you feel good about yourself now?

I always feel good about myself...you?

anewme

kildare lad wrote: »

Most woman can take a joke , feminists not so much ....

Ahh stop trying to put labels on people.

Interesting that you can speak for people and label them according to your definition of feminist, which you still havent confirmed as yet?

What is modern feminism?

One person here said it was supremacy, no one else has explained it.

hatrickpatrick

anewme wrote: »

Ahh stop trying to put labels on people.

Interesting that you can speak for people and label them according to your definition of feminist, which you still havent confirmed as yet?

What is modern feminism?

One person here said it was supremacy, no one else has explained it.

I'll bite. Traditional feminism is about equality. Modern feminism is about equality, plus a whole pile of additional social engineering sh!te.

This image puts it fairly well:

Sleepy

anewme wrote: »

So that is what modern feminism is?

Where did that come from.

Reads a bit like scaremongering tinfoil hat stuff to be honest.

Nice cherry-picking of a single sentence from a post containing multiple paragraphs. Quite typical of the level of discourse I've come to expect from feminists tbh.

Feminism is certainly a broad ideology but the one thing that unites all strands of it is the advocation for the rights of women. In a country where women have equal rights and protections under the law of the land what else can one call the advocation for additional rights but the seeking of superior status?

Irish women get better outcomes from our education system, out-earn their male counterpoints (until - or rather unless - they choose to become mothers), live longer, receive a higher percentage of health spending, receive more lenient treatment by the courts, serve shorter custodial sentences, have lower suicide rates, have a state-funded body (the NWCI) to advocate for their interests... tbh it's arguable that Irish women already enjoy a superior position in our society to men.

It's easy to cherry pick statistics like lack of representation at board level or in politics but until more women choose to pursue those careers it's a disingenuous argument (particularly when there are already state-funded initiatives to encourage them to do so).

It's almost 50 years since the end of the marriage bar in the civil service. Historical prejudices may well account for some of the lack of women at the top of state bodies but the accumulated career choices of the women working in those bodies over that timeframe is almost certainly a larger factor and more importantly will be the main factor in determining what the composition of those boards will look like in another 50 years (unless, of course, the feminist lobby gets it's way).

When women have the same rights as men, what's left to campaign for?

To me, the focus seems to have shifted away from the (admirable) pursuit of the right to freedom of choice to that of a desire to have women not be held accountable for the choices they make.

The cynic in me would also look at the fact that many of the loudest mouthpieces of the movement have made it an (often lucrative) career and it's in their financial interest to persuade young women that they're victims of the bogey men of "patriarchy" and "toxic masculinity" that it is to celebrate their victory and find a new career.

anewme

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I'll bite. Traditional feminism is about equality. Modern feminism is about equality, plus a whole pile of additional social engineering sh!te.

This image puts it fairly well:

Thats different than the other guy said.

Is there a definition of what it is?

Or is it that everyone has their own definition.

Tell me how

Wibbs wrote: »

It is. However - and this is part of the problem in much of discourse today - the wider content is ignored in favour of the content that winds people up. One guy posted "boobs", which has since been deleted, another took the piss out of your username, he's gone too, the pink hair post has also been actioned. Never mind other posters calling BS on the posts.

So out of currently as of typing this a 167 posts on the topic, 3 or 4 are the ones you highlight as representations of misogyny on Boards.ie. Let's double, even triple that figure and it would still be a minority, yet they're the posts and posters you feel defines the environment of the thread and site. See the problem with that?

See this

Wibbs wrote: »

Modern Feminism: Women are always agentless victims and it's always men's/the patriarchy's fault.

I asked for a link for the above, and got this.

Wibbs wrote: »

Any part of the modern "feminist" credo will suffice for example.

Hardly a definitive proof.
And then this.

Wibbs wrote: »

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.

And again we have the dichotomy of Boards and its representation of Ireland. If feminism is an accepted truth in Ireland, why are there so many threads/posters which possess a dominance of those railing against the ideal of it and displaying if not an outward misogynistic view then a sort of patronising dismissal of those who would continue to try to advocate for themselves and others?

So is it one side of this latest debate can make sweeping generalisations while the other most work out the percentage of posts before expressing a view?

anewme

Sleepy wrote: »

Nice cherry-picking of a single sentence from a post containing multiple paragraphs. Quite typical of the level of discourse I've come to expect from feminists tbh.

I shortened your quote so not to reply to a wall of text.

The last paragraph was the first mention of modern feminism.

So according to you, it's about Supremacy.

Reads like " they are all out to get me" persecution complex stuff.

The other poster has something different, again nothing official, a random clip from the internet.

Is there no one who can give a definition..

I can tell you 100% that no one I know would have one bit of a clue about any of that stuff. Or any interest in it.

randd1

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'll give this a go, in as best terms I can. Imagine if you will, you want to make a simple ham and cheese sandwich. The slices of bread represents society. The ham represents men and cheese represents women.


The way ham sandwiches used to be made was that they were almost completely ham with a tiny amount of cheese.
Then along came feminism who demanded and campaigned for an equal portion of cheese to ham in a sandwich.
And they were right, ham and cheese being evenly portioned in what they add to society, and makes a hell of a sandwich. So feminism and the equality they pushed for was a very good thing.


Modern feminism wants to take the already good sandwich, take out the ham, sh*ts on the ham, put the ham back in the sandwich, then blames the ham for the sandwich tasting like sh*t, and says that the sandwich no longer needs the ham to be a proper ham and cheese sandwich.


Basically, modern feminism does nothing but add sh*t onto the actual success of real feminism while blaming men for it.

hatrickpatrick

Ok, to simplify: Feminism that is about equal rights, I and I'm fairly sure most decent people absolutely support.

Feminism that is about anything beyond that, not so much. That's where the authoritarian social engineering aspects come in.

Again I would say the other issue is that there are two ways to skin a cat - you can be either a libertarian feminist or an authoritarian feminist, and it's the latter who are generally under discussion in these online discussions.

For example, in relation to misogyny:

Authoritarian feminist: Misogynistic content such as "women are b!tches" and misandristic content such as "men are bastards" should be banned from the forum.
Libertarian feminist: It should be equally acceptable to post misandristic content such as "men are bastards" as it is to post mysoginistic content sch as "women are b!tches".

Both could equally be argued to count as feminist. The former I would vehemently oppose, the latter I would very vocally support.

Of course, where it gets really f*cked up is with a certain subset of "intersectional" feminists, whose thinking goes something like this:

Misogynistic content such as "women are b!tches" should be banned from the forum - however, misandristic content such as "men are bastards" is ok, because structural privilege issues make it ok for us to sh!t on men for being men, but not ok for them to sh!t on us for being women.

That third and final form of feminism is that which has inspired so much anger during the 2010s on both sides. Those who support that are, in my view, a bunch of out and out assholes, through and through.

Leg End Reject

I'm going to try a different approach - can anyone explain exactly how women are discriminated against in Ireland?

What barriers are there to deny us equal access to education, employment and the right to make our own life choices? I'm talking about now, not in the past.

Tell me how

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Ok, to simplify: Feminism that is about equal rights, I and I'm fairly sure most decent people absolutely support.

Feminism that is about anything beyond that, not so much. That's where the authoritarian social engineering aspects come in.

See this is where the lines have been blurred. Feminism with a capital F has been identified as a bogey man of sexism that needs to be pushed back on. And it's easy to point to some extreme examples of individuals who identify as being feminists and their causes and to say 'look at how bad this is'.

But where that becomes an issue is that the words feminism or feminist and the most negative interpretations of each of them are ascribed to anyone advocating for rights of a female and so the right to do so or the reasonableness of the argument is lost in the shouts of 'Feminism' (akin to the 'She's a witch, burn her' from Monty Python).

I've already said how I am confused why people don't look to resolve the issues experienced by large numbers of their own gender as opposed to putting their efforts in to getting bothered about those who do so of an opposite gender but it is also curious as to why this accusation of feminism has become something so abhorrent.

Has it taken over so that now many men are subservient under its influence? Or maybe it is similar to the cries of 'socialism/communism' used by conservatives in some circles to demean any cause which is advocating for the poor. It is easily heard and understood by their supporters and is usually enough to ensure there is no real discussion on the merits of a program and so the status quo can continue which I think is the desired goal of strong voices arguing against whatever it is that might be proposed.

Tell me how

Leg End Reject wrote: »

I'm going to try a different approach - can anyone explain exactly how women are discriminated against in Ireland?

What barriers are there to deny us equal access to education, employment and the right to make our own life choices? I'm talking about now, not in the past.

First off, your use of the words 'discriminated against' are trying to mislead the argument. Is it only in the case of outright discrimination that someone can advocate for their situation to be better? It's more of the 'things have improved, what more could you want' mindset.

Someone yesterday used the anecdotal evidence of their sister being an engineer whereas previously, their mother couldn't even work in the 60's. They are correct. That is progress.
On a similar vein, I can talk about 2 of my sisters, one a Phd qualified scientist, the other a chartered engineer. The former was introduced in a formal meeting by her boss as a great little lady while her colleague was introduced in the same conversation with reference to his qualifications. She is the lead scientist for the company in their operations in that country.
The chartered engineer, in one performance review, was told she had done great work 'for a lady'.

None of these are very serious, but both evidence of how they are not viewed equally as male people in their roles/industries and both evidence of an environment where they both feel they are often viewed and assessed in the context of being female above the focus being on their contribution and performance.

The FAI is no great organisation for anyone involved but we had the story recently of how the womens senior team had to change out of their tracksuits in the toilet of Dublin airport to give them to the under 17 girls who were flying out for a competition. The womens team attended an international competition and were given 20 footballs by the organisers. Those footballs were appropriated by the FAI, and given to the mens team.
Indeed sport in general is an area where any conversation about improving the quality, participation and image of the womens game is shot down as being a nonsense 'feminist driven' approach. If women want better sports, they should fund it themselves, watch it themselves and improve it themselves is the tone while ignoring how long male sports have been in existence by comparison, how much support and financial contributions they received to gradually improve their game and facilities and how many women contribute to that both in roles within and in paying money at the gate which then is used to improve the game. Top levels mens sports didn't start at the level it is at now, nor did the change happen overnight, but suggestions for efforts to grow them female version is often slapped away as a politically correct PR exercise and unfortunately is often little more than a token gesture.

Please don't take the above as the extent and limit in which women have it tougher than men. I'm not saying that, I'm not saying that as rule they definitively do in all cases. What I am saying is that those who continue to advocate for improving their lot are largely entitled to do so and shouldn't be dismissed because of one individual who is hoping for the day when women can have babies without men.

Anyway, it's morning here and I have work to do so going to step away from this for now.

joe40

randd1 wrote: »

I'll give this a go, in as best terms I can. Imagine if you will, you want to make a simple ham and cheese sandwich. The slices of bread represents society. The ham represents men and cheese represents women.


The way ham sandwiches used to be made was that they were almost completely ham with a tiny amount of cheese.
Then along came feminism who demanded and campaigned for an equal portion of cheese to ham in a sandwich.
And they were right, ham and cheese being evenly portioned in what they add to society, and makes a hell of a sandwich. So feminism and the equality they pushed for was a very good thing.


Modern feminism wants to take the already good sandwich, take out the ham, sh*ts on the ham, put the ham back in the sandwich, then blames the ham for the sandwich tasting like sh*t, and says that the sandwich no longer needs the ham to be a proper ham and cheese sandwich.


Basically, modern feminism does nothing but add sh*t onto the actual success of real feminism while blaming men for it.

So does modern feminism have much support?If it is such a "**** sandwich" to use your analogy then why would anyone male or female support it.

I have read nonsense purporting to be feminism but in the real world these opinions are less common. In my experience most people, men and women, have fairly balanced views.

Feminism, modern or otherwise is not about to destroy or harm society.

Tell me how

joe40 wrote: »

So does modern feminism have much support?If it is such a "**** sandwich" to use your analogy then why would anyone male or female support it.

I have read nonsense purporting to be feminism but in the real world these opinions are less common. In my experience most people, men and women, have fairly balanced views.

Feminism, modern or otherwise is not about to destroy or harm society.

Agreed. Feminism is a bogeyman used frequently to deflect, shoot down undermine even a fledgling idea or concept before it goes too far.
Rinse and repeat for use of 'socialism' and 'politically correct' to classify and dismiss topics at their inception and to remind others to bring their pitchforks to the conversation.

Silentcorner

joe40 wrote: »

Feminism, modern or otherwise is not about to destroy or harm society.

But how are you aggregating that?

If you enforce gender quotas in more and more professions or industries, then you may very well destroy or harm those professions or industries.

If you enforce quotas of any kind on a wide scale basis across industries or professions, you are playing with fire.

anewme

joe40 wrote: »

So does modern feminism have much support?If it is such a "**** sandwich" to use your analogy then why would anyone male or female support it.

I have read nonsense purporting to be feminism but in the real world these opinions are less common. In my experience most people, men and women, have fairly balanced views.

Feminism, modern or otherwise is not about to destroy or harm society.

That was my question.

Are there any people in the real world who would even know anything about this in reality.

There are certainly people here who believe that there is a supremacy angle, but has anyone ever come across a thread pushing the supremacy angle for example. Maybe it's on political page or something.

The majority of men or women in real life are not that contrived,

Leg End Reject

Tell me how wrote: »

First off, your use of the words 'discriminated against' are trying to mislead the argument. Is it only in the case of outright discrimination that someone can advocate for their situation to be better? It's more of the 'things have improved, what more could you want' mindset.

Someone yesterday used the anecdotal evidence of their sister being an engineer whereas previously, their mother couldn't even work in the 60's. They are correct. That is progress.
On a similar vein, I can talk about 2 of my sisters, one a Phd qualified scientist, the other a chartered engineer. The former was introduced in a formal meeting by her boss as a great little lady while her colleague was introduced in the same conversation with reference to his qualifications. She is the lead scientist for the company in their operations in that country.
The chartered engineer, in one performance review, was told she had done great work 'for a lady'.

None of these are very serious, but both evidence of how they are not viewed equally as male people in their roles/industries and both evidence of an environment where they both feel they are often viewed and assessed in the context of being female above the focus being on their contribution and performance.

The FAI is no great organisation for anyone involved but we had the story recently of how the womens senior team had to change out of their tracksuits in the toilet of Dublin airport to give them to the under 17 girls who were flying out for a competition. The womens team attended an international competition and were given 20 footballs by the organisers. Those footballs were appropriated by the FAI, and given to the mens team.
Indeed sport in general is an area where any conversation about improving the quality, participation and image of the womens game is shot down as being a nonsense 'feminist driven' approach. If women want better sports, they should fund it themselves, watch it themselves and improve it themselves is the tone while ignoring how long male sports have been in existence by comparison, how much support and financial contributions they received to gradually improve their game and facilities and how many women contribute to that both in roles within and in paying money at the gate which then is used to improve the game. Top levels mens sports didn't start at the level it is at now, nor did the change happen overnight, but suggestions for efforts to grow them female version is often slapped away as a politically correct PR exercise and unfortunately is often little more than a token gesture.

Please don't take the above as the extent and limit in which women have it tougher than men. I'm not saying that, I'm not saying that as rule they definitively do in all cases. What I am saying is that those who continue to advocate for improving their lot are largely entitled to do so and shouldn't be dismissed because of one individual who is hoping for the day when women can have babies without men.

Anyway, it's morning here and I have work to do so going to step away from this for now.

Replace discrimination with disadvantaged then.

Your sisters should have spoken up, listed their qualifications and experience and then asked if others were uncomfortable with the fact that they're women. It's not really an issue that needs to be addressed publicly.

Women's GAA is not as popular with spectators and money talks, so that explains the discrepancy there. A lot of people have no interest in GAA, or sport in general.

Neither of these examples outline a need for advocating for women's rights, nor do they explain the issues we apparently encounter today.

Wibbs

Tell me how wrote: »

I asked for a link for the above, and got this.
Hardly a definitive proof.

Please in your own time point out any part of the current feminist credo that doesn't paint the patriarchy/toxic masculinity as the reasons for inequality/the oppressor/the boogeyman? It's the very foundation of the politic.

And again we have the dichotomy of Boards and its representation of Ireland. If feminism is an accepted truth in Ireland, why are there so many threads/posters which possess a dominance of those railing against the ideal of it and displaying if not an outward misogynistic view then a sort of patronising dismissal of those who would continue to try to advocate for themselves and others?

No dichotomy required. Where in mainstream Irish politics or media when anything to do with gender is discussed do you hear other voices that aren't filtered through the prism of feminism? It's vanishingly rare. I remember reading an interview with actress Emma Watson where she was saying how can we change the world where only half of the world are invited to the conversation. As usual irony bypass. When do we not hear from self declaring feminists about all the wrongs in the world blamed on patriarchy/toxic masculinity in media and politics when the matter comes up? When do we hear any opposing viewpoints? Again vanishingly rarely. Such viewpoints are very much in the fringes, which is never a good sign. Put it another way; picture any mainstream Irish politician from a mainstream Irish political party coming out with; I'm not a feminist, because I think the politic raises points that require scrutiny and questions and can be divisive in trying to seek true gender equality for all. Would that be political suicide or no?

So is it one side of this latest debate can make sweeping generalisations while the other most work out the percentage of posts before expressing a view?

I've given plenty of examples of point for point reasons why I think modern feminism is a busted flush that doesn't bear the weight of much scrutiny in a few regards. About your only rebuttal has been to say then why aren't men banding together and fighting their corner.

Tony EH

Tell me how wrote: »

See this is where the lines have been blurred. Feminism with a capital F has been identified as a bogey man of sexism that needs to be pushed back on. And it's easy to point to some extreme examples of individuals who identify as being feminists and their causes and to say 'look at how bad this is'.

But where that becomes an issue is that the words feminism or feminist and the most negative interpretations of each of them are ascribed to anyone advocating for rights of a female and so the right to do so or the reasonableness of the argument is lost in the shouts of 'Feminism' (akin to the 'She's a witch, burn her' from Monty Python).

I've already said how I am confused why people don't look to resolve the issues experienced by large numbers of their own gender as opposed to putting their efforts in to getting bothered about those who do so of an opposite gender but it is also curious as to why this accusation of feminism has become something so abhorrent.

Has it taken over so that now many men are subservient under its influence? Or maybe it is similar to the cries of 'socialism/communism' used by conservatives in some circles to demean any cause which is advocating for the poor. It is easily heard and understood by their supporters and is usually enough to ensure there is no real discussion on the merits of a program and so the status quo can continue which I think is the desired goal of strong voices arguing against whatever it is that might be proposed.

This is correct.

The problem in such discussions is that the "...ism" gets railed against, in total, because of the outrageous and unreasonable actions/utterances of a few of the "...ists".

Feminism has always been about fighting for the rights of women and raising women's issues. But certain Feminists can take things to absurd levels, leading some to tar the entirety of Feminism because it's convenient for them to do so.

anewme

Mr Pyke wrote: »

Just read about an Irish woman in Gran Canaria who was gang raped after trying to help a bunch of North African migrants.

Modern feminism has made western women incredibly naive about immigration.

Ahhh would you stop!!!

A woman being raped by has nothing to do with feminism.

Talk about twisting stuff. That's some stretch.

How dare you make judgement on a woman you dont know.

Nasty.

Wibbs

Tell me how wrote: »

I've already said how I am confused why people don't look to resolve the issues experienced by large numbers of their own gender as opposed to putting their efforts in to getting bothered about those who do so of an opposite gender but it is also curious as to why this accusation of feminism has become something so abhorrent.

It's the fundamental hypocrisy of the movement that gets me. As you note it's all about women and their issues and that's fine, but very few feminist mouthpieces are honest about that. Instead it's framed as an gender equality movement that includes men. It is not. It is for women and in opposition to men, unless men conform to a particular type that they approve of. A type that tends to shift over time. You'll even see examples of feminist thinking along the lines of "I'm not racist(sexist)some of my best friends are Black(men)". Oh sorry I forgot in the oppressed/oppressor narrative women by definition can't be sexist against men. Sexism can only ever go in one direction. That's more BS from the philosophy.

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts

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.

I’m scratching my head at the pearl-clutching over that comment. It’s just a silly throwaway comment. And I’m a woman who has been handed a death sentence by my left boob. And I still just smiled at the comment, being a fan of silly humour. What is your problem with it exactly? Do you flinch when somebody calls somebody a dick or a bellend? Or a mod mentions the “Don’t be a dick” rule? And those examples are actual insults.

Leg End Reject

Mr Pyke wrote: »

Just read about an Irish woman in Gran Canaria who was gang raped after trying to help a bunch of North African migrants.

Modern feminism has made western women incredibly naive about immigration.

That's some leap and an incredibly petty way to hold a woman accountable for being raped.