I hate men!

[catalina_francisco]

Well it also comes down to women taking responsibility and stopping the practice of playing the victim role. I agree, exploitation where women are not paid accordingly, or are forced are not on, but women also have a choice about that in many circumstances. As to women in adverts not getting paid, I'm not sure the supermodels of the world got to where they are by doing it all for someone else's pocket.

Men and women are different, and I for one am proud to be a woman and in no way want to be looked at lor treated like a man. If a man appreciates me for what I wear or curves I have, great, but I do not have to allow every male to use me because of it, nor put me down for it. I have a say in whether I accept that treatment and take it on board. Men and women will put down women in less than reputable industries for a long time to come, but it is fuelled and kept going by organisations like NOW who promote these women are exploited and being used by men. Next they will be advocating they not be paid at all to show respect....stuff that!!

I can never understand where the notion came that women should apologise for their beauty or attractiveness and try to hide it so as not to appear to be catering to men. Then again I do know the historical aspects of where this beame a promoted option for all women. Is the same as most women now look down on a woman who chooses to stay at home and raise her children and keep house, telling her she needs to get out and work. nd yet if a woman cleans someone else's house and minds their children for a wage, they are respected....same action, differnt circumstance.

The difference is not in it being a lesser role for a woman to be a stay at home mum and homemaker, but in the industrialised world's desire for reducing everything to the all mighty capitalist dollar. A woman who cleans for a living is worth more than one who does it as a service to her own children and maybe partner. Well that is BS and another product of a largely still male dominated capitalist society, not feminist concern for our fellow women. And on top of expecting a woman to go to work, she is then questioned as to her responsibility to her role of mother, and her children's welfare, and has to pay someone else to do what she might have preferred to do herself, and which may have been safer for the children. Then if her children are harmed in some way, the working mother is at fault, no one asks where the father was or suggests it was his responsibility. It is reducing women to a commodity, far more than prostitution or modelling anyday.

Catalina

 

[sweetnpetite]

I agree with most of what you said here as well. Except that I feel that you have buillt a straw man argument against NOW, at least that is not the way that I see them at all.

I don't think that women should try to be less attractive, simply that attractive girls shouldnt' stop trying to be anything else. (as in, I'm pretty, why do I need to be smart?)

And I totally agree with your statements about capitalist reasons for not valuing a non-wage earner woman- however, I don't blame this on NOW. IF you will look at there site you will see that they are also advocates for wefare services and for women being better able than the government to make good and proper choices for her family (such as weather she works when her children are young and weather (and who) she marries.) Welfare mothers are also highly abused and undervalued in a world where earning value is seen as the same as personal value.

http://www.now.org/issues/economic/welfare/index.html

 

[catalina_francisco]

Have no problem with NOW, but do not agree with all they promote..is a matter of thinkiing first and not eating up all that is thrown out there in the name of women's rights. Actually most of what I say comes from my own head or other sources as I have had litte to do with NOW, but what I have seen is not always balanced for all women, as with most sources.

 

[sweetnpetite]

I would say that most of what I say also comes from my own head. I only tend to quote now when they support and agree (at least for the most part) with my own beliefs. I am very happy about there stance on welfare rights becuase I have found it dificult to find many welfare advocates out there.

 

[catalina_francisco]

I don't blame this on NOW. IF you will look at there site you will see that they are also advocates for wefare services and for women being better able than the government to make good and proper choices for her family (such as weather she works when her children are young and weather (and who) she marries.) Welfare mothers are also highly abused and undervalued in a world where earning value is seen as the same as personal value.

http://www.now.org/issues/economic/welfare/index.html

I don't blame NOW for anything, but I do think it is unwise to believe everything you read without challenging it, even if you still agree with it, and especially if the sources are few. Most of mine comes from life experience, which gave me the knowledge to know what I was talking about where a lot of feminists had no idea as they had not lived that life, but felt it their right to tell average women what their life was like and how they should live it.

For most it was a whilte, middle to upper class, christian viewpoint which spoke little to women who really needed less oppression and instead then had their so called sisters also telling them they were worthless unless they got out and worked and proved they were someone and as good as any man. Those same sisters did not want to know about the difficulties of working, finding babysitters, and coming home dog tired to another full day's work while children needed your time and patience. That was not their problem.

I did raise 2 children single handed for 16 years while living below the poverty line and going back to high school then on to university to earn my degree, so I have facts to deal with more so than stats on paper. I did not find much to be applicable from women who were travelling the world and staying in 5 star hotels promoting the need to stop the oppression of women. As a famous quote I once read said, though I have probable go the wording but not the meaning wrong this long after, 'It is difficult to appreciate oppression and discrimination from a position of priviledge and safety.'

Catalina

 

[catalina_francisco]

I would say that most of what I say also comes from my own head. I only tend to quote now when they support and agree (at least for the most part) with my own beliefs. I am very happy about there stance on welfare rights becuase I have found it dificult to find many welfare advocates out there.

There are lots, at least where I come from...one of the best and most respected is the brother of our Treasurer, who happens to be an upperclass snob to say the least...always think their family get togethers must be interesting to say the least. LOL

 

[Seattle Zack]

I've been reading this thread, with a mixture of incredulity and bemusement, over the last few days. As Johnny M pointed out, it's difficult to engage in any rational debate when much that's posted consists of a screed. In the hopes of embarking on some sort of intelligent discourse, let me offer a few thoughts.

On of my favorite authors is social critic Wendy Kaminer; a self-described secular humanist and ACLU lawyer; her two books True Love Waits and A Fearful Freedom: Women's Flight From Equality are witty, insightful looks at today's teminist movement. Her views are anathma to many "traditional" NOW feminists, however, because she espouses personal responsibility and assertiveness through reason; she rejects the cult of victimization and abdication of social responsibility that's so popular among the feminist movement today. Other well-respected authors that have dared to criticize the current crop of feminists are Karen Lehrman, Anne Roiphe, and Naomi Wolf.

When men show up, they always try to take over. They think that just because they are men, they should be in charge.

Sometimes it’s very effective, because women don’t like being called names. We want people to like us. It’s a no-win situation and most of us know it. But we are afraid to say so.

Men do have a knack for turning everything around on us. Even what they do wrong is always our fault.

These types of remarks are symptomatic of difference feminism, which emphasizes the unique identity of women as a group, stressing and usually celebrating essential female characteristics which it believes make women different from (or even opposite to) men. Victim feminism also assumes that women have a unique identity, but the focus of that identity is women's victimization on the basis of sex, typically at the hands of men.

In defining difference feminism, Wendy Kaminer has stated that, by suggesting that women differ from men in a myriad of ways, it identifies "feminism with femininity." In what is perhaps the most influential version of this ideology, popularized in the work of Carol Gilligan, difference feminism emphasizes that women share "a different voice, different moral sensibilities - an ethic of care." According to Kaminer, difference feminism appeals to some feminists because it revalues previously devalued characteristics such as emotionality and social connectedness which women are thought to embody. In declaring female traits superior to those such as aggression and rationality which characterize men, difference feminism seems to reject sexism by turning it on its head. It thus provides a clear group identity for women which stresses the way they are special.

According to Kaminer, difference feminism is also attractive to feminists in another manner: it allows feminists to be angry at men and challenge their hegemony without worrying that they are giving up their femininity. Because they are socialized to fear the loss of femininity, the advocacy of radical change in gender roles is deeply threatening to many women, including feminists. Difference feminism's reassertion of the value of femininity helps to assuage these fears and thus seems to make feminism more acceptable. Even some non-feminists are drawn to difference feminism because it legitimates a belief in immutable sex differences, a central tenet of conservative support for the status quo.

What Naomi Wolf has called victim feminism also reinforces identity politics, for victim feminism also assumes women's diametrical difference from men as a central component of its view. According to victim feminism, however, what is unique about women's difference is that they are powerless to affect the victim status by which they are primarily defined. Wolf argues that victim feminism "turns suffering and persecution into a kind of glamour." The attractiveness of this model is partially due to the fact that feminists understand all too well the reality that women have been and continue to be victims of sexism, male violence, and discrimination. On the other hand, victim feminism is attractive to others primarily because it absolves individuals of the political responsibility to act to change their own condition -- the emphasis on personal victimization includes a refusal to hold women in any way responsible for their problems. The implication is that, as a group, women are helpless in the face of the overwhelming factors which force them to accept - however unhappily - the circumstances in which they find themselves.

For more from Wendy Kaminer, here's an article about feminist ideology from the Atlantic Monthly.

 

[Netzach]

Isn't it Katie Roiphe?

you'd probably enjoy Camilla Paglia too, the godmother of this kind of postfeminism.

I think the truth lies somewhere between the poles of polemic.

It's interesting to me how many people pass though simply to decry bullshit. As though this idea of an uneven playing pitch is somehow blasphemous and new.

It's alive and well.

So what the hell am I going to *do* about it? This is where I embrace the postfeminist kvetches like Paglia.

 

[Johnny Mayberry]

Hmmmmm...you chicks should have a TV show, and debate this stuff in skimpy lingerie!

 

[Netzach]

Prefer latex.

 

[Johnny Mayberry]

Prefer latex.

Whatever, sweetcheeks...

 

[Seattle Zack]

Isn't it Katie Roiphe?

you'd probably enjoy Camilla Paglia too, the godmother of this kind of postfeminism.

You're right, it is Katie, got my Jews mixed up again.

I have read Paglia, kind of hard for me to take sometimes without that core of rationalism. She's quite compelling, though.

What annoys me is this particular brand of pop feminism that's arisen lately. It stems in a large part from the recovery movement that was so fashionable in the 90's, which encouraged this embracing of victimization and absolution of blame. I've listened to the earnest proclaimations of "hard" feminists, "do-me" feminists, "bimbo" feminists, "lite" feminists ... like it's a Vegas buffet and you just pick and choose the particular snippets that happen to appeal to you.

Want to find out about female oppression? Read some of the accounts of women under the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, women being stoned to death in Nigeria for adultery, young women forced to undergo clitoridectomies in fundementalist Muslim dictatorships -- that's real social injustice, and worthy of outrage.

The idea that rich white girls sitting at a $2000 computer are being oppressed is ludicrous. So they're vaguely dissatisfied with their lives -- aren't we all? It can't be because of the choices they made (because that would imply some measure of personal responsibility), it must be the evil male-dominated media conglomerate repressing them, not allowing them to reach their full unbridled potential.

Give me a break.

 

[catalina_francisco]

Well after a quick skim which is all I have time for right now, I do agree with most of what you say SZ, and am forever grateful my favourite lecturer, who is internationally respected for her work, is in a group of feminists who fight oppression on a global scale putting their money where their mouths are by actively working with and for women in third world countries, and actually putting a percentage (huge) of their earnings toward helping these women and their communities as they recognise women also need their communities. They go into these communities and work alongside women to improve their life in the ways the women want, not the feminists.

I do not like the victim stance for any woman, though empathy in initial stages of grief over situations is only human. To play the victim cripples a woman just as it does any human, and is a great form of denial. That being said, there is a difference in women's reality to men's, biologically, emotionally, and politically, which many of the younger generation do not always realise.

The vote was not won by waiting for men to see the error of their ways, just as equal wages were not suggested as fair by men, and is still an area which is far from equal in many areas, those areas still being dominated by men who make the rules to prevent women being in a position to make it equal. That is not victim talk, but reality....one such area is law in Australia. While men maintain control in that area, women continue to be placed on a lower scale in many financial areas, which in truth in an economy based society, is the ultimate oppression.

Similarly, medical science has been another area which has until recently, oppressed women by negating their value in research. It is not very intelligent to experiment with the effects of medical options on female breast cancer patients, by testing them on men and then accepting the findings as how they would react in a female body. The same goes for testing hormonal treatments on males to see if they will have adverse side effects in female biology....but both these practices have been the accepted norm.

The same happened the first decade or so of the AIDS epidemic. Doctors and health facilities were issued a list of conditions in patients which may alert the presence of HIV for investigation into the patient's illness. This list was based on male symptoms and conditions, the women's left off the list as it was not considered important. It is now being highlighted medical bodies are doing the same with heart attack warnings....the symptoms vary from men to women and yet colleges, hospitals, and awareness campaigns concentrate on male symptomology exclusively.

Now people may minimise the importance of this by crying victim behaviour for the issue being highlighted, but the reality is it was women who brought this to the attention of all through lots of activism and promotion, which takes it out of the victim realm and into the proactive camp. Acknowledging the historical evidence of women's oppression as in the denial of voting rights and income for centuries is not victim behaviour, just reality. It is also unfair to write it off as their own fault because they allowed it and demonstrates a naivity of any political, economical, or sociological understanding of history and community at all on the part of those who judge it this way. The reality is, there are very few oppressions which have been lifted from women's lives without the efforts and at times cost of lives of women.....not men who for most were happy to continue to enjoy their priviledged monopoly.

Catalina

 

[Netzach]

What annoys me is this particular brand of pop feminism that's arisen lately. It stems in a large part from the recovery movement that was so fashionable in the 90's, which encouraged this embracing of victimization and absolution of blame. I've listened to the earnest proclaimations of "hard" feminists, "do-me" feminists, "bimbo" feminists, "lite" feminists ... like it's a Vegas buffet and you just pick and choose the particular snippets that happen to appeal to you.

You must hate reform Judaism too. I'm not a fan of dilletantism either, but it seems to me that evaluating a system, doing what works and disposing with what doesn't...seems pretty logical.

"Victim" status doesn't work so well for me, "equal pay for equal work" seems like a fine idea. Do I have to dispense with B because of A? If you think this is a given, I invite you to work in the commodoties trading industry.

Want to find out about female oppression? Read some of the accounts of women under the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, women being stoned to death in Nigeria for adultery, young women forced to undergo clitoridectomies in fundementalist Muslim dictatorships -- that's real social injustice, and worthy of outrage.

Then, I think every expression of male/general/status related/political angst in this culture should also be entertained with the offer of a free trip to Lagos or Beijing. It can't be that bad, you can criticize your government and drink lite beer, after all. There's no social ill worthy of comment in the biggest industrail superpower because everywhere else it is worse.

The idea that rich white girls sitting at a $2000 computer are being oppressed is ludicrous. So they're vaguely dissatisfied with their lives -- aren't we all? It can't be because of the choices they made (because that would imply some measure of personal responsibility), it must be the evil male-dominated media conglomerate repressing them, not allowing them to reach their full unbridled potential.

Image-blaming is always bullshit, to me anyway. Porn, prom queens, thin girls and blondes are, in my opinion, straw men. The focus placed on them, is diluting the real issues.

Lack of self-reflection in the media? Don't see yourself as an icon? Go make some f-ing media yourself then. It's not so hard. Poor self image? Grab the world by the balls and get over it.

Images are much less interesting to me as a problem than things like hard economic truths, the ones catalina alluded to...in this age of "personal responsibility"... Where does the child care come from? Health care for the family? Why are women practically the only voters panicked about that? Is the glass ceiling smashed or is it just a few women who got through it telling us that? These are the things that keep me up at night, not beer commercials, and that's why I've always had issues with NOW.





Give me a break. [/B][/QUOTE]

 

[Johnny Mayberry]

Crying about how the media portrays women is complete bullshit, as far as I'm concerned. The media protrays EVERYONE as stereotypes, after all. I'd concentrate on equal pay first.

 

[sweetnpetite]

Images are much less interesting to me as a problem than things like hard economic truths, the ones catalina alluded to...in this age of "personal responsibility"... Where does the child care come from? Health care for the family? Why are women practically the only voters panicked about that? Is the glass ceiling smashed or is it just a few women who got through it telling us that? These are the things that keep me up at night, not beer commercials, and that's why I've always had issues with NOW.





Give me a break.

[/B][/QUOTE]

Images in media do effect how we think. When "A Different World" aired, black enrollment in colleges went up. Why? Bill Cosby states that he got letters from students who where inpired by the show's positive portrayals of African-Americans in a college setting.

All in the Family and The Jeferesons changed and challenged the way Americans thought about blacks and other minorities- calling into question long standing and accepted bigotries.

Media doesn't control, but it does influence. It is the populare art of the day. IN ancient empires, art was commisioned by the government and strictly controlled, because leaders knew that art has the power to move people. I would say Madonna has had more effect on our additudes about sexuality and how we talk and think about it, than all the politicians and activists combined. When "Like a Virgin" came out, even the word 'virgin' was shocking to hear- now we have news people talking about 'The Vagina Monologues' (also media/art)

As long as beer comercials continue to perpetuate attitudes that "real men" treat women as sex objects only, ignore them when they speak, and in general don't take them seriously- women speaking up about economic issues will continue to be ignored. As long as daycare, equal pay, and health care, are seen as 'women's issues' -not to be taken as seriously as the 'weighty issues' of national defence, forieng affairs and tax codes- they are not going to be properly redressed.

As a young women, I thought that "everybody knew" that men and women where equal. At least everybody under the age of 30. But I heard guys younger than me, seriously stating that they wouldn't *Let* their wifes work, and other attidudes I had thought were out with the sixties. Attitudes do matter, in our personal, political and professional lives.

here is but one example:

"There are constant examples all over the TV, radio, movies and the Internet that reinforce this gender specific programming. Recently we heard this during a „TV news‰ program: A panel of 3 males and 1 female were discussing what the proposed tax cut would mean "to the average JOE". One panelist said: "Take a guy that earns say 40 thousand, no, wait. Most guys‚ wives work, so say he makes 60 or 70 thousand."

Surely we should expect anyone in this day and age to declare that if Joe's wife worked, the family income would be 60 -70 thousand? Actually, we shouldn't. Not when men control information. However, we should realize, when we constantly hear things of this sort that the majority opinion is that men still do own their wives, her income and her body. Clearly that is why women's reproductive functions are STILL under the control of the government." *1

Now actually- I am pro-life, but I am apposed to things like abstenance only sex education, denying funding for health workers who also provide abortions- while giving the funding to religous bases organizations instead, and taking over the personal desion of when and to whom poor women marry.

Plenty of people will probably say that 'too much' is made of a simple mistatement- but I have seen too frequently that this *is* an attitude that too many men still hold. Attidude matters.



*1- http://www.awakenedwoman.com/pillars.htm

 

[sweetnpetite]

Women who "talk to much"

Sociologist Dale Spender has shown that when women take up ten percent of the time in conversation with men, they're considered verbal; when they take up twenty percent (leaving only eighty percent to their male companion), they're judged as very talkative; and when they dare to take up one-third of the conversational time, men terminate the conversation and leave, feeling threatened and beleaguered.

 

[Johnny Mayberry]

Re: Women who "talk to much"

Sociologist Dale Spender has shown that when women take up ten percent of the time in conversation with men, they're considered verbal; when they take up twenty percent (leaving only eighty percent to their male companion), they're judged as very talkative; and when they dare to take up one-third of the conversational time, men terminate the conversation and leave, feeling threatened and beleaguered.

Blah blah blah...quit yakking and fetch me some nachos, wench!

 

[Netzach]

It could also be argued that art doesn't spring out of a vacuum to come and shape us.

The Jeffersons aired during the 70's. The Cosby show during the 80's.

There was a rising tide of civil rights legislation, a monumental black power movement, and the fact that TV producers had no choice but to sit up and say "hey, we might have a demographic."

I think Masters and Johnson, Freud, and Magnus Hirschfield *may* have done a little more for human sexuality than Madonna, call it a wild theory out of nowhere.

I don't trust the media's manipulation of minority images. I don't trust Will and Grace or Madonna with my sexuality, I don't look to have myself reflected there because I won't be. I don't expect to be.

Nothing airs on TV that isn't safe to air. Nothing. When it happens there are problems. WNET (NYC public TV) almost had the whole plug pulled for airing Marlon Rigg's "Tongues Untied" That's the price for being "too" black, "too" gay "too" political.

Sex in the City represents the ultimate commodification of the sexually savvy postefeminist chick. It was bound to show up sooner or later.

It's not beer commercials that are causing the guys in your age bracket to not want their wives to work. It's the fact that they are completely adrift without purpose. Feminism is great, but when it dismantled the idea of a "real man" it neglected to put anything at all back up on the pedestal. They are expressing a desire to have a reason to exist and to work.

What does an egalitarian, rational, and encouraging man look like? Why is he such a milquetoast? Why do I only want to beat him and spank him? Why does no one want to have sex with him? Will he ever get laid? Is it even ok to say "get laid?"

Stay tuned.

 

[Johnny Mayberry]

Heck, I don't want a woman I am with to work, just on the off-chance that I can avoid doing dishes!

 

[Netzach]

Same here, actually. We all need wives.

 

[Johnny Mayberry]

Same here, actually. We all need wives.

Absolutely...or submissive slaves, anyways...

I notice that our little princess chooses a screen name that objectifies herself, uses a very thin woman's pic for her AV(Fiona Apple?!?), and then complains about everyone else. I'd take her much more seriously if her screen name was "smartnsassy", for instance.

 

[sweetnpetite]

I've been reading this thread, with a mixture of incredulity and bemusement, over the last few days. As Johnny M pointed out, it's difficult to engage in any rational debate when much that's posted consists of a screed. In the hopes of embarking on some sort of intelligent discourse, let me offer a few thoughts.

On of my favorite authors is social critic Wendy Kaminer; a self-described secular humanist and ACLU lawyer; her two books True Love Waits and A Fearful Freedom: Women's Flight From Equality are witty, insightful looks at today's teminist movement. Her views are anathma to many "traditional" NOW feminists, however, because she espouses personal responsibility and assertiveness through reason; she rejects the cult of victimization and abdication of social responsibility that's so popular among the feminist movement today. Other well-respected authors that have dared to criticize the current crop of feminists are Karen Lehrman, Anne Roiphe, and Naomi Wolf.

When men show up, they always try to take over. They think that just because they are men, they should be in charge.

Sometimes it’s very effective, because women don’t like being called names. We want people to like us. It’s a no-win situation and most of us know it. But we are afraid to say so.

Men do have a knack for turning everything around on us. Even what they do wrong is always our fault.

These types of remarks are symptomatic of difference feminism, which emphasizes the unique identity of women as a group, stressing and usually celebrating essential female characteristics which it believes make women different from (or even opposite to) men. Victim feminism also assumes that women have a unique identity, but the focus of that identity is women's victimization on the basis of sex, typically at the hands of men.

//you say 'symptimatic' as though 'difference feminism' is a disease. Women *are* different from men. We have different symptoms to the same diseases, different response to treatment and certainly different experiences. I do not embrace the idea that women are mearly victims for men to abuse or rescue and prizes to claim afterword. But I will not deny the reality of abuse that is RAMPANT against women and girls. I will not excuse men who beat their wifes and rape there children- and I am angry becuase thiis is far more commen than people want to believe.

One in three girls are sexually abused before their twelfth birthday.

http://pages.sssnet.com/ohiobar/women-june-tp1.html


Somewhere in America, a woman is raped every 2 minutes, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

One of every four rapes take place in a public area or in a parking garage.

75% of female rape victims require medical care after the attack.

In 1995, local child protective service agencies identified 126,000 children who were victims of either substantiated or indicated sexual abuse; of these, 75% were girls. Nearly 30% of child victims were between the ages of 4 and 7. [Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Child Maltreatment, 1995.]

Approximately one-third of all juvenile victims of sexual abuse cases are children younger than 6 years of age. [Violence and the Family. Report of the American Psychological Association Presidential Task Force on Violence and the Family, 1996.]

According to the Justice Department, one in two rape victims is under age 18; one in six is under age 12. [Child Rape Victims, 1992. U.S. Department of Justice.]

9 out of 10 rape victims are women.

http://www.feminist.com/rainn.htm

Sexual assault happens to 1 in 4 Canadian women at some point in their lives.

49% of all sexual assaults and 18% of sexual assaults involving forced sexual intercourse occur in broad daylight.

Survivors of sexual assault involving forced sexual intercourse have ranged in age from four months to 92 years.

1 out of 2 women have experienced physical or sexual violence.

Almost 1 out of every 2 women in British Colombia have been sexually assaulted (47%).

86% of all violent incidents were not reported to police.

One in three women in BC is assaulted by her husband or partner


1 in 3 females and 1 in 6 males in Canada experience some form of sexual abuse before the age of 18.

à Sexual abuse is defined here as all unwanted sexual acts including threats, exposure, sexual touching, and attempted or actual sexual assaults.

98% of assailants are male, and most are heterosexual

80% of all child abusers are the father, foster father, stepfather or another relative or close family friend of the victim.

Incestuous relationships last 7 years on average

http://www.uvss.uvic.ca/oursac/sexual_abuse.htm

Pleases explain to me what personal responsibility has to do with a two year old being mollested by a family member that she is supposed to be able to rely on to protect her. Tell me what did that 92 year old women do wrong- was her skirt too short?

Sex abuse is real, sex victims are real. It is a real problem that needs to be adressed. It is not isolated from society at general, or some feminist cry for special treatment. It is a demand for equal protection under the law. And an unwillingness to turn a blind eye. It does *not* mean that women are powerless or that it "absolves individuals of the political responsibility to act to change their own condition." This is a total straw man argument to discount the realities of violence against women. ON the contrary, speaking out against and about the abuse is taking back power- and demanding change- the vary essence of political responsibility. //



In defining difference feminism, Wendy Kaminer has stated that, by suggesting that women differ from men in a myriad of ways, it identifies "feminism with femininity." In what is perhaps the most influential version of this ideology, popularized in the work of Carol Gilligan, difference feminism emphasizes that women share "a different voice, different moral sensibilities - an ethic of care." According to Kaminer, difference feminism appeals to some feminists because it revalues previously devalued characteristics such as emotionality and social connectedness which women are thought to embody. In declaring female traits superior to those such as aggression and rationality which characterize men, difference feminism seems to reject sexism by turning it on its head. It thus provides a clear group identity for women which stresses the way they are special.

According to Kaminer, difference feminism is also attractive to feminists in another manner: it allows feminists to be angry at men and challenge their hegemony without worrying that they are giving up their femininity. Because they are socialized to fear the loss of femininity, the advocacy of radical change in gender roles is deeply threatening to many women, including feminists. Difference feminism's reassertion of the value of femininity helps to assuage these fears and thus seems to make feminism more acceptable. Even some non-feminists are drawn to difference feminism because it legitimates a belief in immutable sex differences, a central tenet of conservative support for the status quo.

//This is utter nonsence. I am not in the least bit afraid of changing gender rolls or of 'loss of femininty.' I have no need to prove my femininity to myself or anyone else. I am a woman- whether I wear heals or hightops. I don't accept traditional gender rolls and never have. I have rebelled against them more often than not- even refusing to learn how to cook as a teenager or accept that the way to wealth is to marry a rich man.

IF NOW embraces this so called diference feminism, this makes even less sence, as they advocate for 'radical change in gender rolls.' right now they are encouraging women to throw out there bathroom scales, diet books and high healed shoes. For most women this is increadably radical. This is just bable that seems to make sence, but doesnt' stand up next to any real feminist movement.//

The implication is that, as a group, women are helpless in the face of the overwhelming factors which force them to accept - however unhappily - the circumstances in which they find themselves.

//So by lobying and pushing for laws and enforcement of laws- we are claiming ourselves helpless? I have never heard any feminist 'differential' or otherwise advocating accepting the circumstances that women find themselves in- that would not be feminism. It wouldn't be activism of any kind.

For more from Wendy Kaminer, here's an article about feminist ideology from the Atlantic Monthly.

 

[Johnny Mayberry]

Am I on ignore here? And is it because of my giant 'staff of dominance'?

 

[sweetnpetite]

It's not beer commercials that are causing the guys in your age bracket to not want their wives to work. It's the fact that they are completely adrift without purpose. Feminism is great, but when it dismantled the idea of a "real man" it neglected to put anything at all back up on the pedestal. They are expressing a desire to have a reason to exist and to work.

//No it's the fact that they have the same sexist ownership of women attitudes as there predicessors.

A desire to have a reason to exist and to work? Single men have reason to work and exist. They're own dreams desires and ambitions. Are you telling me that a married man's only ambition is to take care of a woman financially?//

What does an egalitarian, rational, and encouraging man look like? Why is he such a milquetoast? Why do I only want to beat him and spank him? Why does no one want to have sex with him? Will he ever get laid? Is it even ok to say "get laid?"


//How about a man who sees people and not body parts? Is that so sissy? How about a man who can listen and hold a conversation, take a woman seriously and not treat her as if she is a child who needs taking care of? A man with interests and passions beyond beer and boobs. A lot of 'nice guys' don't get laid, because they don't have anything else to offer. Ya can't just be *nice* ya gotta be interesting. You know, have a life.//
Stay tuned.