The Myth of the Angry Feminist

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

in definition, feminism or a feminist, is someone asking for equal rights for women, yes, sure, i can agree to that

but the modern day definition that is a reality?

i watch out for so many feminazi's all over the place, to the point if i see one that i know is one, i literally avoid them to avoid confrontation because whether or not i hold the door for her or not i'm going to get backlash for it, so i avoid those kinds of people and situations all together, and i see those "kinds" of feminists rather than the traditional raw nice feminist of which you speak of, which i have no problem with.

for the most part, most "regular" women are feminist by default, in which thats a majority of women, but if your labeling your self an avid feminist? well then your more than likely under the category that i avoid.

 

[Shadowkire]

in definition, feminism or a feminist, is someone asking for equal rights for women, yes, sure, i can agree to that

but the modern day definition that is a reality?

i watch out for so many feminazi's all over the place, to the point if i see one that i know is one, i literally avoid them to avoid confrontation because whether or not i hold the door for her or not i'm going to get backlash for it, so i avoid those kinds of people and situations all together, and i see those "kinds" of feminists rather than the traditional raw nice feminist of which you speak of, which i have no problem with.

for the most part, most "regular" women are feminist by default, in which thats a majority of women, but if your labeling your self an avid feminist? well then your more than likely under the category that i avoid.

I would say an avid feminist can be either the mean "man hating" ones or the nice kind. Both want more than equal rights for women, they want equal treatment.

That is where your statement about "regular" women goes off track(in my opinion and experience). They want equal rights, but scoff when out on a date with a guy and he doesn't act like a perfect gentleman(I trust that we all know what that would entail). They don't blink twice when a guy knocks out another guy, but if a man slaps a woman he gets painted as a backwards, wife-beating hick regardless of whether he had a relationship with the woman or not. I know a woman who said she was all for equal treatment but didn't see what was wrong with her ex-husband paying alimony when she was capable of supporting herself and instigated the divorce.

That is the modern obstacle for the feminist movement: men AND women.

[edit]
ooh, and religion. I have the right to marry a woman, so why shouldn't a woman too?

[edit2]
I am for both equal rights and equal treatment, but against the hypocrisy of the "fair weather" feminists.

 

[La Barata]

I don't have a problem with feminists. I find them a bit silly, to be honest, as we're prettymuch as equal as we can be (with the exception of payscales, which will probably be gone by the next generation, as the old fucks who don't want women out of the kitchen because they're convinced it's 1950 will be dead/out of office). Feminazis, however, I am annoyed by. These are the ones who are always ranting about how MEN ARE EVIL and EVERYTHING WRONG WITH THE WORLD IS MEN'S FAULT. Heh, my favourite response to their "EVERYTHING WOULD BE PERFECT IF WOMEN RAN THE WORLD" argument is this:
England: Uh, hi. It's England. Why am I being invaded?
USA: Oh, you know perfectly well what you did.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

in definition, feminism or a feminist, is someone asking for equal rights for women, yes, sure, i can agree to that

but the modern day definition that is a reality?

i watch out for so many feminazi's all over the place, to the point if i see one that i know is one, i literally avoid them to avoid confrontation because whether or not i hold the door for her or not i'm going to get backlash for it, so i avoid those kinds of people and situations all together, and i see those "kinds" of feminists rather than the traditional raw nice feminist of which you speak of, which i have no problem with.

for the most part, most "regular" women are feminist by default, in which thats a majority of women, but if your labeling your self an avid feminist? well then your more than likely under the category that i avoid.

I would say an avid feminist can be either the mean "man hating" ones or the nice kind. Both want more than equal rights for women, they want equal treatment.

That is where your statement about "regular" women goes off track(in my opinion and experience). They want equal rights, but scoff when out on a date with a guy and he doesn't act like a perfect gentleman(I trust that we all know what that would entail). They don't blink twice when a guy knocks out another guy, but if a man slaps a woman he gets painted as a backwards, wife-beating hick regardless of whether he had a relationship with the woman or not. I know a woman who said she was all for equal treatment but didn't see what was wrong with her ex-husband paying alimony when she was capable of supporting herself and instigated the divorce.

That is the modern obstacle for the feminist movement: men AND women.

[edit]
ooh, and religion. I have the right to marry a woman, so why shouldn't a woman too?

true, i guess i didn't take into account that, the double standards involved on those.

 

[Gigano]

Just saying you want equality for a particular group - which you belong to - is a bit too limited in scope for my taste.

Lots of people have been saying this kind of thing, and it's just silly. Obviously any feminist is likely to also be in favour of racial equality and against any kind of discrimination. That just happens not to be the thing they specialise in campaigning about.

If they will not fight for others, I see no reason anyone else should fight for them. If they cannot empathize with the needs of others as much as their own, how on earth can they expect anyone else - in this case men - to?

I believe they should take a cue from J. S. Mill [http://www.utilitarianism.com/jsmill.htm] - not coincidently one of the first arguers for gender equality - whose The Subjection of Women was only a natural conclusion from his generally formulated utilitarian liberalism, dealing with the happiness of all individuals, and a beautiful baseline [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harm_principle] against which to judge all involuntary societal regulation. No cause ever failed for being too right.

I think feminism does have a specific issue which makes it different from these other campaigns, though: most other civil liberties issues are to do with the treatment of minorities. Sexism isn't about that, and this gives it a slightly different flavour. It's also built into the culture more deeply and insidiously than racism - and I know that people from the US might disagree, but this little bit of simple satire (that I've linked to before) might give you pause for thought on that score.

[link]http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html[/link]

South Africa certainly proved that racism as well can be levied against vast majorities of a population.

As for the chairman vs. chairperson thing, that's one struggle I for one find it hard to take too seriously - based on how I'd (not) feel if the term was chairwoman. Everyone already recognize it describes a position rather than a gender, and don't associate it with such.

And with the entirety of school systems favouring quieter, more structured forms of learning, and consequential increasing dominance of women in universities and other places of higher education (around here at least, though I suspect it's a development the first world in general is experiencing or will soon see as well), it's only a matter of time - the rise of this generation I'd think - before society's high posts will be overflowing with young, independent, and highly educated women; there simply won't be enough men to even match them, as so many of them can't - and/or from an early immature age won't - adapt to the bookish requirements of today's society, nor can they even find a decent job with manual labour being outsourced. As I see it (from a Scandinavian perspective), it's somewhat of a fight against an image with feet of clay already.

...damn, took forever to retype. Less time for Rapelay obviously AC: Brotherhood I suppose.

 

[GotMalkAvian]

First of all, I understand that feminism isn't about female supremacy. Then again, Christianity isn't supposed to be about hating gay people, but vocal zealous minorities are an unpleasant thing that tend to blemish their group for everyone.

Of all the women I've known or even met, few if any who work for genuine equality call themselves "feminists." For the most part, they understand the stigma attached to the term and also understand that "feminist" could easily be a gender-reversed equivalent to "chauvanist." The only women I've ever known who readily identify themselves as feminists actuall are the crazy, militant, propaganda-spewing lunatics that many people associate with the movement.

Unfortunately, a lot of minorities end up losing sight of their fight for equality, get greedy, and begin seeing it as their right to try and swing the pendulum of oppression completely in their favor. It's an understandable reaction, if not a reasonable one.

 

[Ledan]

There is still the problem of the wording. Femminism, though promoting Equality, has ingrained in it's wording a focus on women....... They should change it to equalism.

 

[Rafael Dera]

*advocatus diaboli mode on
Equality ? Are men and women equal? a simple visual inspection would indicate otherwise. Men cannot bear children, women are physically more frail and (quite literally) equipped to raise children (the whole 'mammal' thing). Men are generally less emotional; women are typically more verbal. Men typically have better developed spatial insight, women generally have more social feeling. Neither can be labelled superior; that being said they are clearly different.
Should one treat two things as equal, when they are quite clearly not?
Perhaps we should speak of equivalence, rather then equality?

OT:
But yes, lesbi... i mean feminists are generally quite loud in my experience; I usually ignore them since women and men are generally treated the same in our/my society (with some 'positive dicrimination' measures in place; which i think is BS but there you go).

 

[Iwana Humpalot]

I've had too many bad experiences whit feminists, usually it's not that they want more rights, i think they just hate men. And they are really annoying when talking to them.. and AGGRESSIVE, so i usually just state my business and leave before she starts to ***** me about something. No offence, just my experiences.

 

[Ericb]

There was a very recent TED Talk precisely about modern definition of feminism, I'll post the link as soon as I find it.

 

[Colour Scientist]

for the most part, most "regular" women are feminist by default, in which thats a majority of women, but if your labeling your self an avid feminist? well then your more than likely under the category that i avoid.

Actually that's probably wrong, from what I've seen a good proportion of women won't class themselves as feminists, at least not publicly anyway.

 

[Adam28]

I dislike the term "feminist" because I find it sexist and demeaning. I stand for equality for all, but I absolutely will not call myself the f-word.

This.

Why is there so many topics on feminism now?

 

[Simulated Eon]

snip
[edit]
ooh, and religion. I have the right to marry a woman, so why shouldn't a woman too?
snip

Sorry I just have to ask but are you advocating gay-marriage here?
Nothing against it but I fail to see what it has to do with feminism?
Or is it about something I have failed to notice?
If so then please tell me about it.

(sorry if this seems sarcastic it's not meant to be.)

 

[BRex21]

So like I said: Cute anecdotes you heard about, none of which amounted to anything.
Talk about taking the question literally: "I haz named a radical feminist I heard about once! Thus I am right, all feminists are man-haters because an unrecorded number of feminists no doubt agreed with this woman!" What are you hoping this adds?

is any sexist story not technically an anecdote? or do you have to find it offensive before it looses that title, this post is titled "the myth of the angry feminist" ive been saying "the angry femenist is alive and well" i've also pointed out the hostile womens groups like the "SCUM initiative" that operate out of our university center, yes thats the Society for Cutting Up Men. if the angry feminist was a myth, then "amusing anecdotes" like this wouldnt exist. its also a perfect example of what you said femenism wasnt about, and thats the double standard. face it, if you were to say these things about women or any minority it would likely be classified as hate speech.
And just for the record you never preveously said it was just an anecdote you accused it of being false twice.

2) Violence against women occurs much more frequently than violence against men (done by women). Not only that, for a good while most of society never had a problem with it. A woman would be seen with a black eye and it was just assumed that she deserved it. That wasn't right. And in many cultures that is still seen as justified and perfectly acceptable.

This looks to be the opposite of reality in first world countries, which is still largely where feminists live work and fight for change. women are rarely ignored when they are faced with violence and billions of dollars are spent across the western world to protect them. Men on the other hand are often seen as deserving it with people actually cheering for a woman beating a man in this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlFAd4YdQks&feature=player_embedded
and recent studies, like this one from harvard http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/42/15/31.2.full , have shown men are more frequently victims of domestic violence. Womens groups still largely want to stop "men from abusing women" its much less common to see stop domestic violence, without gender being brought into it.

If this is really about equality we should try taking the gender pronouns out of these things and see what happens, you might just win over support of more men and make them feel less like they are being attacked. Disowning angry femenists when you see them would also go a further than denying their existence.