A friend just assumed that I was going to pay her way

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It would be sexist if red had of expressed the idea that all men have the same paranoid attitude towards feminism; and that no men understand that feminism is egalitarian and not merely a conspiracy to punish men, however, that's not something she said or even implied.

She's on to something though (if I'm interpreting this correctly), that most men with those paranoid attitudes are beyond help because they'll simply ignore any evidence that doesn't support their bias. After leading a few unwilling horses to water it's often easier to shrug and not care if they choose to die of dehydration.

yes, correct, thx.

'Evidence' in this case being little more than anecdotes and third-hand accounts, as well as presumptuous amateur diagnoses of 'paranoia' in men who are simply tired of being told that they are wrong no matter what they say -- even if they completely agree with whatever passes for the 'official' feminist platform today, they are somehow still completely wrong for no other reason than being men.

I identify as egalitarian. It's been said that egalitarians are 'ignorant bigots'.

It’s ridiculous to call Isabella a bigot!

Thank you! I'm about as open-minded and accepting as can be.

I think this may be similar to the thread that talked about advice giving, that you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink; that some people regardless of how many facts are given, continue to remain unchanged.

Incidentally, I think that may be the saddest thing if all, for an individual to remain unchanged.

egalitarianism:
1 : a belief in human equality especially with respect to social, political, and economic affairs
2 : a social philosophy advocating the removal of inequalities among people

feminism:
1 : the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes
2 : organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests

So, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the word "feminism' carries with it a focus on women's rights and interests, while "egalitarianism focuses on equal rights for all.

There's nothing closed-minded about that, unless people are trying to challenge the Merriam-Webster editors and writers to re-define the meaning of "feminism" to suit their own personal agendas.

Fnord, I was not referring to your comments or you at all. But now that you bring it up It seems to be that feminism, per your posted definition, is a subset of egalitarianism. As would Black Lives Matter. Disability Rights. and so on.

So, I unless I have misunderstood totally (which is always possible), one could be a feminist AND an egalitarian without conflict.

And, one could even devote one's life to advocating for rights of one group, without giving up your right to be an egalitarian.

Most of my time and energy go toward advocating for people with developmental disabilities. That doesn't mean I am not committed to egalitarianism also.

I am amused at your comparing the two in a desperate attempt to discredit feminism as "less than". Oh how very clever.

You attack the messenger because you cannot refute the message.
Egalitarianism IS better than feminism because egalitarianism is all-inclusive, and feminism is not.

Last edited by Fnord on 06 Jul 2019, 9:02 am, edited 1 time in total.

You deflect because you have no message or point of substance to make.
This has been a fun conversation, too bad it's now over.

Go ahead and run away. The conversation will continue without you, I'm sure.

I don't disagree, but it also means that egalitarianism is better than the black lives matter -movement, pride -movement, movements that drive forward the rights of autistic (or any other type of disabled) people etc. After all, these movements also focus on a certain group of people, not everyone. However, they aren't any more right or wrong than feminism. It's just that having different, separate movements makes it easier for people to support one specific group they feel like they can help or, in some cases, want to help. For example, even in this day and age there are people who are against homosexuality, so taking part in egalitarianism wouldn't suit them. However, all the other movements I mentioned (minus pride of course) might still fit their moral values and make them able to help people. Of course, it'd be better if they could just help everyone, but that's unfortunately not how the world works. If there were no separate movements that only focused on one thing, that would close out a lot of people who can't agree with all of the things. It would also make people less likely to donate money to charity and such since they'd have less of a chance of knowing if the money will really go towards the things they think are important. And even if someone thinks that all of those things are important, they're likely to have an order of importance.
For examble, if you were given a chance to donate 10 000 dollars to one and only one movement, the options being women's rights, sexual minority rights and rights of the disabled, would you be able to choose just one easily? I would, and others who would too are people who put certain things before others, but that doesn't (automatically) mean they don't care about the other groups, just that they see help for one group more urgent than the others.

It also makes it easier for only a few groups to get most of the funding and support while leaving other groups out in the cold. Think about it ...

When was the last time a special-interest group other than the Antifa, the Feminists or the LGBTQ crowd got free publicity from all of the major networks for having their own Pride Parade in a major metropolitan area?

I, personally, remember two women who paid for both of us when we ate. One was the girl I dated for 8 months, and the other was a girl that LJBF-ed me and our friendship lasted for a few weeks or so. But then there was a different girl, whom I dated for 2 years, and I paid for her. And then there were some others with whom we split. Although, to be fair, the reason they paid for me was probably because they view me as disableded (aka broken) so its probably a mistake I let them. But the point being is that you can't just say that all women universally suck men out of their money.

Speaking of scamming, I was scammed by a man who lied to me about buying a church. And, statistically speaking, scammers are mostly men: even the romance scams with female profiles were proven to mostly be men pretending to be women. So you can't blame the female gender for this type of thing. The most you can possibly say is "some ways of extracting money are more common among men and other ways of extracting money are more common among women". But the female ways are pretty harmless on the grand scheme of things. But once again you can't generalize, different individuals are different.

Taking that one specific incident described in OP and blaming it on the gender war is silly, since you aren't even talking about "common" things such as man paying for a woman at the restaurant. So it sounds more along the lines of her just being a bad person, and there are bad people of both genders.

As far as the notion of egalitarian, I really dislike that term for the following reason. It lumps together very different political issues and pretty much forces you to sign under every one of them. So what would you do if you are on egalitarian side when it comes to women and blacks, yet you aren't on that side when it comes to gays (since you are a Christian)? So you don't really want to call yourself egalitarian, yet its not correct to say that you are "only" feminist either: you are also sympathizing with blacks, too. So then you can say you are a feminist AND pro-black. So saying you are a feminist doesn't exclude other groups you might defend. If the conversation is about gender, you say you are femist, if the conversation is about race, you say you are pro-black. In both cases you are both, you are just "saying" only the part thats relevant.

And, incidentally, whether its more egalitarian to support blacks or whites is also a big question: some might argue that whites are being more discriminated against than blacks. Well, maybe those people are wrong, maybe blacks are more discriminated against, but this should be left up to debate -- as opposed to "forcing" the "right answer" by incorporating it in the very definition of the term "egalitarian". So you can say "egalitarian is someone who supports the discriminated groups" -- and then debate whether egalitarians would support whites or blacks; or you can say "egalitarians are the ones that support a given list of groups -- regardless of who is discriminated" and then you can list blacks without listing whites. But when you lump the two definitions together you are basically forcing the right answer into the definition and you can't do that.

But, even if we pretend that we are defending blacks, gays, and all other groups that the term "egalitarian" encompasses (which, by the way, is a huge IF), there is still nothing wrong with feminists specializing in womans issues. I mean, when lung doctor specializes in lungs and stomach doctor specializes in stomach, neither of them is saying that what the other doctor specializes in isn't important. So how come you aren't asking that question when it comes to doctors yet you are asking it when it comes to egalitarians? Incidentally, the question "why focus on women when there are other groups that need help too" reminds me of the question Ahmadanjad asked "why is holocaust about the Jews when it had non-jewish victims too". In case of Ahmadanjad his motive was that he hated Jews. So ask yourself about your own motive with the question about feminists.