Feminism

[STM]

So there's an interesting debate on feminism going on on another forum I'm a member of and I thought that actually it's not something I remember being discussed - at least recently - over here (don't call me up on that). Not to mention this place could do with a little invigoration.

The premise of the argument was actually made by a feminist who suggested that the protagonist in the upcoming Star Wars film should be a female to raise awareness of the lack of important women roles in cinematography.

Eventually the argument evolved into one about feminism in general and whether or not it is relevant to the west in the 21st century.

I personally feel feminism is ultimately redundant and seems to be 'we want equality plus this and this and this.'

A few of my responses from the other forum to get the topic going are as follows:

In response to the initial point made that females need more representation in film:

It is vital that there is equality between gender, races, creeds, ethnicities and religious or lack or religious beliefs. As a race, humanity would advance so much quicker because of it. I am a firm believer in equality of all people, however I do not refer to myself as a feminist because fundamentally I think feminism is flawed in that it has no clear and solid definition of its objective. One might suggest that ultimately it is to bring gender equality and that is fair enough obviously, but it ends up going beyond that I think.

I don't follow super heroes or popular film culture really, I couldn't tell you the plot of The Avengers or the fleshed out story of Star Wars, however I think that it would be vital to your cause, at least initially to promote strong females in real life in lieu of fantasy heroes. Furthermore, focusing on your point specifically, you can't just miss out three films in the series because you don't like them, nor can you ignore the rest of the franchise for the same reason. I find it bizarre that you would miss out all the female heroes in later film and works when our values on equality have shifted positively in recent times just because you don't like the films. What does that say about your approach to the matter?

Not to sound rude but I think your argument needs some reworking.

Moreover, can you tell me a little bit on your opinion of a real-life female hero, Indira Gandhi? I'd be interested if you can give me a valid response on her role in actual world politics as opposed to Leia's role in a fictitious world?

In response to this article: http://feminist.com/...om/cgwomen.html

I can't put my finger on it, but there's something I don't like about that article, the voice and the message just don't seem quite right. The over-arcing goal of equality between genders and the advancement of an empathetic human race is fine and I support that, but why do it under the guise of feminism when Humanists are already trying to do this sort of thing without the negative extremist stigma attached to them. You never meet an extremist Humanist because it's simply impossible according to Humanist doctrine.

There should be a movement to improve the rights and equality of women, but it' something that must occur in so many different ways across different cultures. In Islamic countries such as Iran for instance, the fundamental beginnings of this movement would come with a rejection of Sharia law and the advancement of secularism within law and order circles. There would have to be an overhaul in academic and scholastic circles so that not only can women acquire jobs and think for themselves, but they are given the tools with which to make their collective voices heard. A crowd of people cannot go ignored, it's another simple impossibility. Most importantly perhaps, such a movement would have to be conducted from within such a country with no external influence or impact. If women in that country want liberation from the strict moral and religious values imposed upon them by the mistranslation of an ancient patriarchal text then they must commit to that revolution themselves. To have someone cast the shackles of oppression off your wrists is not the same as doing it for yourself and fundamentally it breeds resentment. You can look towards Iraq and Libya for a governmental example of this.

In a western society, there is not the threat of having to walk ten steps behind your husband for fear of Sharia repercussions certainly anyone who tried to do this would be ridiculed and scorned by the wider society. If this problem was a primary problem, getting the vote was secondary and now women face tertiary problems, I imagine these include: the want for equal wages, the want for a removal of negative stigmas and etcetera. However these advances could be made amongst others for an international embrace of equality covering gender, religion or lack of religion, ethnicity, sex and creed. Instead of focusing on one single demographic, they could pool their resources into one body for the advancement of humanity and I think this is fundamentally what is wrong with feminism because it is a narrow viewpoint.

The dictionary defines feminism as follows:

That very sub-clause 'to men', in my opinion, nullifies the whole statement. Why compare women to men? Why not just advance women's rights full stop? And then with it, everyone else's until we are at a paradigm of equality?

Over to you folks.

[Varrok]

I don't mind woman being on the top. If that's feminism

EDIT: Check if your links are not broken

[Bullet Magnet]

That the focus is narrow doesn't seem to me to be a valid criticism. It's fine to have a specific focus, but actively working towards a particular goal doesn't mean you don't care about others. Societies as a whole can simultaneously progress in a lot of issues at once, but the individuals active in that process usually focus on one issue each. Which is fine, it takes a lot of work. It's okay to have one fight at a time. Nor do we have focus all of our efforts on one issue at a time and process through them one by one according to someone's hierarchy of necessity. Society can do more than one thing.

As it happens though, I hardly think that focusing on the issues endemic to exactly half of the human race can be deemed to be "narrow" in any way. When men discuss feminism from both sides we have an peculiar habit of treating women like some kind of minority group.

[Wings of Fire]

I think making sure every film with two women who meet passes the Bechdel test is quite enough for Hollywood at the moment. We can work on real gender equality after we have the basics down.

[Vyrien]

Ugh feminists. I'm all for equal rights but feminism seems to have evolved into a point scoring game of how pretentious they can be. I've told feminists that I am not one, they told me that I should believe women should be in charge and that I'm letting all other women down.

I've also been told that I obviously want women to be subservient to men and that I'm permanently damaged by male propaganda, so I asked them how they were any better than the misogynists they hate so much and was met with a mouthful of abuse. It's like a cult.

Obviously I have met some perfectly nice and reasonable people who identify as feminists but to me it seems like they merely want equal rights as opposed to female power, hence why I draw the distinction.

Feminism may have been necessary in the past but it's become something entirely distasteful now, in my experience anyway.

[Wings of Fire]

My favourite is the feminist literary movement that believes that women have been taught how to write like men for hundreds of years and need to cast away the shackles of literary oppression and learn how to write like women.

They don't seem to realize that saying men and women have distinct writing styles is sexist in itself.

Also The Tale of Genji, the world's first novel, was written by a woman.

So yeah.

[Vyrien]

Oh yes, and do you know that a few Universities/Colleges offer courses in Herstory as opposed to History due to pressure from feminists? What a joke.

[Wings of Fire]

I'm going to take that with a grain of salt. It sounds like the kind of rumors about Christmas being politically incorrect that the Daily Mail tries to spread every year.

Plus you'd think higher education institutions would be informed enough to know that 'history' looking like 'his story' is just a etymological fluke.

[Phylum]

I have no problem with the idea behind feminism. Just like any other group they have incredibly vocal idiots, however a higher percent of feminists seem to be like that than in most other groups.

I have a friend who is a feminist and we have some fantastic discussions. Once she brought up the topic of comedians making jokes at the expense of females. I told her to lighten up and asked her how equality would work if females were exempt from humor. After that she brought up the portrayal of females in comic books, which is outside of my area of expertise. I started to explain it as selling to your target audience, but she was getting frustrated with me for disagreeing so I stopped. I'm glad I did because I'm not entirely sure it was a good point to make.

[Vyrien]

Fair enough, I got the information from my English tutor in a debate about feminism so whether it's true or not is something I need to ascertain with her.

[Wings of Fire]

After that she brought up the portrayal of females in comic books, which is outside of my area of expertise. I started to explain it as selling to your target audience, but she was getting frustrated with me for disagreeing so I stopped. I'm glad I did because I'm not entirely sure it was a good point to make.

There is actually a very large manga market for females, so yeah.

[Phylum]

She was strictly focusing on western comics.

[Steamer_KING]

Oh yes, and do you know that a few Universities/Colleges offer courses in Herstory as opposed to History due to pressure from feminists? What a joke.

I hope this isn't true...

[Wings of Fire]

She was strictly focusing on western comics.

And western comics are pretty much explicitly written for male teenagers and nerds.

[Bullet Magnet]

We're kinda lumping together several different ideologies under a single term. Talking about it under those conditions is not going to get us anywhere.

[Daxter King]

Die cis scum.

[Nate]

I agree with Phylum's to some degree. I think that Feminism is a good thing, but that people tend to get hung up on the vocal minority. And it really is a minority, especially if you include the people who are Feminists but avoid using that label.

I think making sure every film with two women who meet passes the Bechdel test is quite enough for Hollywood at the moment. We can work on real gender equality after we have the basics down.

The Bechdel test is stupid and arbitrary, though. Why is a conversation between two women proof that a film is pro-women? There are a fair few films with women who are equal - if not superior - to the male characters and not treated in any sort of sexual way, but they just don't have any girly-bonding scenes. They will fail the Bechdel test, but are arguably more pro-women than any chick-flick you care to name.

[Havoc]

Feminism is basically a call for positive discrimination, which is why I don't really support the 'cause'. Not saying women shouldn't be equal to men, but there should never be a situation where women get more attention or privileges simply for political correctness.

Just like that action on Twitter a while ago about female game developers and such. People were calling for more female lead characters in games purely for the purpose of having a female lead character, regardless if it would fit the game setting, story or audience.

When it comes to basic human rights and needs, women should be equal. They should receive the same salary for doing the same job as a man and shouldn't be excluded from certain things just because they are female.
BUT, they also need to understand that certain things in life are predominantly male, just like some things in life are predominantly female.

Both the game and the movie industry are predominantly male. Why? Because males have a larger affiliation with technology and are often stronger than women. The riggers, camera operators, light operators, sound operators directors and stage hands are 90% male staff. During some jobs I deal with female staff doing 'male jobs' and they simply need help with certain things any of the strong guys around there could do alone. Be it picking up a heavy crate or having a camera on their shoulder for 4 hours. Some of the females I worked with try to push it, try to prove that they can be one of the guys. At the end of the day it becomes apparent that there is a difference, people just have to accept that.

As for movies, the lead character in many movies is based on the targeted audience. In chick flicks the lead character is often female. In action movies the lead character is often a guy. Just because action movies do better in theaters than chick flicks does not mean we should just throw a female in there. Female actors have just as much coverage as male actors, the movies just don't become as successful.

But hang on, what happens if we DO put a female in a guy targeted action movie? Then she's suddenly being objectified by all the guys staring at her prominently displayed boobies and surely we can't have that! However if some hot guy has a secondary role in a chick flick as the school stud or the pool cleaner in Sex and the City, isn't he being objectified by the female audience as he is cleaning a pool being all bare chested and muscular? There's a very obvious double standard there.

At the end of the day employers should be hiring the person best suited for the job. If that person is male or female is no deciding factor. The deciding factor lies in different things that eliminate certain candidates far before gender comes into play. For certain professions those deciding factors are in favor of males. For other professions they are in favor of females. If females want a traditionally male job they should prove they have what it takes to do that job. Just like when a guy wants a traditional female job, he will have to prove he has what it takes to do that job.

[Nate]

Can people please stop defining what Feminism is? Or at least stop defining it so badly!

Feminism is not a call for positive discrimination. Yes, some Feminists call for it, but not all. And most of the basic tenents of Feminism are about equality, not superiority. The average Feminist is not saying that women should get jobs over men, but that a woman who is equally qualified and putting in an equal effort should be paid the same amount.

[Havoc]

Surely there is a lot more to it than just salary?

[T-nex]

Ugh feminists. I'm all for equal rights but feminism seems to have evolved into a point scoring game of how pretentious they can be. I've told feminists that I am not one, they told me that I should believe women should be in charge and that I'm letting all other women down.

I've also been told that I obviously want women to be subservient to men and that I'm permanently damaged by male propaganda, so I asked them how they were any better than the misogynists they hate so much and was met with a mouthful of abuse. It's like a cult.

Those are the feminists I hate.... Feminists are supposed to be all for female's freedom, but instead they are just another group telling us how to live.
It's not secret that I'm a submissive masochist(:3)... I want to be able to live this way because any other way would make me unhappy.


I do like the people who are all for female's true freedom and equality ^^ Such as equal salaries and whatnot. I don't care much for sexism though... I don't really think it's something that can truly be corrected, and I firmly believe that the two genders in most instances ARE different. And not just because of nurture. Whoop.

[Jordan]

I respect anyone who fights for a cause they believe in, even more so for making a difference. The only person I've met who identified themselves as a feminist was my old english teacher, but she hardly expressed her views on the matter.

I reckon everyone should be treated as gender neutral.

[Nate]

Surely there is a lot more to it than just salary?

That was an example.

[Bullet Magnet]

A lot of the discrimination women face is entirely unconscious and unintentional. Very often all it takes is for someone to point it out for it to be rectified. Other times it's more difficult. While some of the solutions proposed now are inelegant, within a generation or two when people are used to seeing women in the same capacity as men, such measures won't even be needed. It is, I believe, what most of us want. It's just the hurdles in the way that get people squabbling.

[STM]

Oh yes, and do you know that a few Universities/Colleges offer courses in Herstory as opposed to History due to pressure from feminists? What a joke.

When I searched for university courses last year I didn't find any 'herstory' courses at all, thankfully I think that's just an urban myth, as it were.

-

I guess, feminism, like many other organisations, is split into different sects depending on your interpretation of the core beliefs and how hard line your are in your approach. Perhaps there's a similarity to the media's view of Muslims. The thing is, I know a few Muslims and none of them are extremist (obviously). They just assimilated to English values when their parents or grandparents came to the country.

I've never met a feminist who wanted pure equality and nothing else, unfortunately.

[Bullet Magnet]

I've only met feminists who want pure equality. I don't even count the others as feminists.

[Crashpunk]

I've never met a feminist. However I do think any discrimination towards women rights is just extremely old fashioned.

[Vyrien]

When I searched for university courses last year I didn't find any 'herstory' courses at all, thankfully I think that's just an urban myth, as it were.

I really hope so, my Tutor sounded pretty convinced about it but like you said, a search doesn't yield very much. It is an actual term used by feminists though, apparently emerging in the 1960s.

[STM]

It seems to me herstory might be history resigned specifically to women: Boadicea, Indira Gandha and etcetera. I don't really see the point though. It's like 'black history month' in the US. Why do that? It just segregates them as separate from the rest of history.

[Wings of Fire]

I really hope so, my Tutor sounded pretty convinced about it but like you said, a search doesn't yield very much. It is an actual term used by feminists though, apparently emerging in the 1960s.

To be fair, it's entirely possible she meant modules within a course, and it's perfectly acceptable for a history course module to focus on important women throughout history.

It's still a fucking stupid name.