On Feminism

Post Reply New Topic

I found this video on YouTube today and I am curious about what you guys think of it. I've never heard anything like it before and I'm not sure what to make of it yet, but right now it seems to make a lot of sense. And don't be put-off by the title, she is not as crazy as a lot of MRA (I'm not sure if you could really call her that, she doesn't say the same things as most of them).

BTW, I have no idea if this is in the right section or not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w__PJ8ym ... ure=relmfu

girlwriteswhat is a dumbass that endorses domestic violence. So yes, she is as crazy as all MRAs http://manboobz.com/2012/08/16/girlwrit ... stionable/

Eeeyeahhh, she's a shill for the patriarchy.

I don't get this feminism thing, females already have equal human rights? right?

L O f*****g L.

nope. Discrimination on the basis of sex is still a-ok, at least in the USA. Google 'Equal Rights Amendment.'

I looked at the quote you posted, and it does look kind of gnarly, but I don't think it is fair to say that she endorses domestic violence. I can see why you might think that she does when reading the quote, but someone posts afterwards in an attempt to clarify:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but a good summary of what you're saying is, "Violence isn't right but a slap here and there is
better than the guy taking all of her nagging and exploding in such a way that he beats her within an inch of her life."'

Her response is:

"That's pretty much it ... "

And then she does on to say that it would be good for women to learn karate.

So it looks to me like it is false to say that she endorses domestic violence. Her views are a little controversial, and I understand if you have an issue with them, but what she said was very different from endorsement of violence. If you have an issue with what she says, then say what you have an issue with, and don't pretend like she thinks horrific things that she doesn't.

Ordinarily I get kind of angry when people misrepresent what other people say, but I think you were being sincere.

I still don't think that's right. While the article in question, by that I mean the article GWW commented on, not the Manboobz article, starts off looking like it's talking about domestic abuse against the male partner, what it's actually endorsing is for men retaliate with disproportionate force which is in itself an endorsement of domestic violence. Nagging also has nothing to do with abuse. If a guy can explode over his wife nagging him then he really needs to control his temper. The only time I would endorse violence is in self-defense from violence against yourself.

P.S. Notice that the article mentions an aspie woman talking about physical abuse by her husband and some MRA commenters on that article are defending the husband (aspies by the way, are among those groups more prone to being abused than other people).

what kind of discrimination is it?

I think the guy who posted the original article (I just read it) is one of those guys who is really bitter about his past relationships and blames it on all women. However he does say that you shouldn't hit girls unless you want to go to jail (this makes it sound like he wants you not to do it so that you won't get in trouble and not because it's wrong). Still it does not seem really awful to me. Women say worse things about men on national television and get applause. I don't really think that stupid things that individual people say are that big a deal.


(This is not in response to Jono specifically) I was really more interested in what people thought about the article I originally posted. When other MRA say that feminism will cause a societal collapse without saying why, it sounds like they think that giving women the right to vote and own property is the cause just because women are so f*****g awful. Obviously that's just mindless women-hating. But this woman actually gave clear reasons which didn't have much to do with what women were (like most MRA arguments), but instead about how poor social policies give women incentives to make bad reproductive decisions, and give men less incentive to work hard than they otherwise would.

It makes sense to me that if you remove all consequences for a woman's reproductive choices (giving her free and unlimited access to birth-control, child-support, complete control over her children, etc) that she will make bad decisions, and that if you force men to take care of children they don't want, or don't let them participate in the lives of children that they do want, then they are disincentivized to work for those children. I'm not really convinced that this will cause the collapse of civilization (I think there are bigger issues), but I think she makes a good case that it is bad policy. Also the sustainability of our civilization is a serious issue and I think it is interesting to approach it from this angle.

What I am most impressed with is her explanation for how what we call sexism today developed in society. She doesn't endorse it, but just explains how she thinks it came to be.

I am more inclined towards her explanation of gender roles than the feminist or typical MRA version because those people make it sound like one gender is bad and is in a giant conspiracy to oppress the other gender. Although she does seem to take the MRA side (it seems like it is near impossible for anyone to just discuss issues without taking some sort of side), her explanation isn't that women are bad and oppress men, but that it was beneficial in our barbaric past to place different values in the genders, and cultural and instinctual left-overs from this period perpetuate these out-dated ideas. The idea is basically that because women are the limiting factor in reproduction, that they have inherent value, whereas men have to earn their value. So calling a guy a girl to insult him isn't a sign that people hate women, but that they are calling a guy a woman without a womb, so somebody who has no value at all. The flip side of this is that men are considered disposable (especially if they aren't productive), and nobody cares about their feelings or well-being as much as a woman's.

I think these are very interesting ideas and I was looking for legitimate criticism or agreement, not just reading the title and automatically assuming that it is bad/stupid because it is MRA.

any kind an individual wants. Denial of service, denial of employment, denial of housing, etc... There have been recent legislative moves to mandate fair pay (the Lilly Ledbetter fair pay act), but it remains to be seen how much of an effect they will have. Note that it doesn't mean that this discrimination is rampant - just that it's legal if someone wants to engage in it.

I want the discussion to be primarily about the ideas in the video I posted, but I don't suppose it hurts to post my own ideas. I never really thought about feminism until recently, so I have not entirely made up my mind that my opinions are the best possible ones.

Please don't accuse me of being a woman hater or something like that. Every time I post a controversial topic, people accuse me of saying a bunch of things I didn't say and I have to clarify. Once I was called a feminazi online because I was trying to tell some MRA that there isn't a matriarchy. I will explain my actual views below. I will not respond to comments that accuse me of holding views that I did not state here.

Before finding this woman online (I still hold these views), I thought that the idea that one gender oppresses the other in the modern world kind of absurd. I think that there are only well intentioned people who make bad policies that other individuals exploit. I have personally never felt “oppressed” because I was male, and I figured it couldn't be that bad for women either if they make 95% of what men do (which they do when they have the same education and work experience).

As for her ideas about historical sexism, I had thought of and read many of the same things, but I have never put all the ideas together with such clarity. I am inclined to agree with them.

When I was in Boy Scouts and I got to be an older boy, I found that the best way to get the younger boys to behave was not to baby them and try to control them, but to give them responsibility over their own well-being. People in general act how you expect them to act, so if you give them only the responsibilities of a child, then they will act like children. Instead of trying to force them to do what they needed to do, I explained to them once why it was in their best interest to do a thing, and then I left them in charge of getting it done, offering help if they wanted it. The way to get them to do what they need to do when it is for the benefit of the group and not themselves is to let all the other boys know that that person is in charge of this thing, and they will make sure that they punish that boy if he does not get it done. I think all people should should be treated this way. I think obviously it was good to give women the vote and property rights, and the government should punish overt sexism/racism (like white-only signs). However I do not believe that affirmative action of any kind is good policy because it treats people as groups rather than individuals, and it babys them, which I know in the case of Boy Scouts, leads to bad behavior. I think giving job quotas for minorities is as absurd as giving minority quotas for Eagle Scout. It is something you earn, and it's not racism if you don't get it.

This is off topic, but I think if you had really good public education (I don't think it is very good) and treated everyone exactly the same, then racial discrepancies would be fixed in one generation, and if they didn't, then that would be their own fault.

Also I think it is sensible to give women lots of access to birth control. Obviously being able to control when you have kids is very important. But I don't think that men should be forced into relationships, and I am thinking now that it might be a bad idea to give child support. If, ideally, a woman has many chances to get an abortion, or even preempt a pregnancy, then it is her own damn fault if she gets a child that she can't take care of. Of course, if you're a republican and you don't like abortions at all, then it is inconsistent to expect women to give birth to children they don't want and then not help them take care of them. I heard a suggestion from a different YouTuber that custody of the children could be decided by the father before the child was born. If the father chose to share custody of the child, then custody would be split between the parents for ever and the father could be made to pay alimony if there were a divorce, but if the father chose not to have custody of the child, then he could leave the relationship with no penalty, but would never get any legal say in what happened to the child. I think that suggestion sounds sensible as well. It does not seem fair that a single ejaculation can put obligations on a man for life, but that the woman can get rid of her obligations at will and never owes anything to the man.

That is the entirety of my current opinion on the subject. I have no other opinions.

and where can these discrimination's be found? how many cases have there been where someone has been discriminated against because of their sex?

also, I'm not up to date with the fair pay act; though I'd probably agree with it, so long as it means equal pay for equal work.

Google "Civil Rights Act Title VII" and "Equal Pay Act 1963". Even though the ERA didn't pass, sex discrimination against women is grounds for having your socks sued off. Ever since Clinton took office, women in the US are regarded as a protected class and there have been thousands of successful lawsuits, some of them unjustified, filed by women against companies and individual men. In fact, despite all this whining about the "pay gap", the unemployment rate for women is lower than it is for men!

Because women are paid less. It's cheaper to employ them.