General "Feminism" Debate.

[helluva]

Mod edit: Split topic - Brenden

Also: I am completely removing myself from any moderator capacities just in case there's some sort of subjectivity on my behalf, so the other mods can take this one :3

we're certainly on the brink of a huge social mind-shift regarding female promiscuity, to the extent that it's now considered feminist by many for a girl to have multiple sexual partners. Also consider there are many people who just don't care about what girls do with their own bodies, so basically things are looking up for those who want unimpeded sexual freedom. Even just looking around some atarnotes threads, any posts that suggest it's wrong (or even just personally unappealing) for girls to be promiscuous get slammed pretty hard by the community

Feminism is the modern academic sense is a dead movement aside from a minority of students at universities who live in a fairytale. It's not taken seriously by the majority of women in the public sphere, largely because it's untrue.

The fundamental problem with modern feminism is that it attempts to gain equality for women with men by reasoning that men and women are the same. It's always going to fail, because this is simply untrue. Women and men share a lot in common but we are vastly different creatures in certain aspects of our being. I am all for equality between the sexes, I just think it's a folly to believe we are the same. This shouldn't be such a foreign concept to most people: Are your parents the same and do you love them both equally?

Sexual intimacy is a thing most people want as opposed to strictly biologically satisfying sex, and through experience, I find it unreasonable to suggest that this is easily achieved to the point where people can be achieving it with multiple people at the same time. Love is an incredibly intoxicating thing, the smallest dose can pollute the most resolute of minds and render all other ambitions impossible, and I just find it stupid to equate it with all forms of physical sex. Women, in general, need to be loved, and this has been the case for thousands of years and I find it quite unlikely this will be changing any time soon.

Universities are funny places, but in the public sphere, sexual liberation probably peaked around about the 60s and has been declining ever since, now we're heading more and more back to the traditional boyfriend-girlfriend model, at least I find this through social observance.

I am all for women being allowed to choose their sexual partners and for us to develop a more non-judgemental approach to the diversity of women's sexual interests, but I think it's self-satisfying and narcissism from progressive-types to suggest that there will be a massive sexual liberation where women start sleeping with many many more partners. For what it's worth, women who eschew from obligations to their partner, assuming that there was trust that suggested that they wouldn't cheat on each other, will always be brutally vilified and rightly so, as should men who are in serious relationship.  There is nothing more unnerving to me than giving someone you say you care deeply for your word that they can trust you, and you not respecting them enough to honour this. I could never possibly trust a person in this situation, not an inch.

Besides, committed relationship brings many benefits, you are sharing your life with someone you love, who loves you. Women aren't so foolish to think, 'OK, but because the boys go around and fuck whoever they want with no social repercussions, I want to do that too now'.  Ironically, this would actually be the gender construct because it'd just be females conforming to males.

Just a disclaimer, I am neither progressive nor conservative, I find both labels and sets of people equally stupid in the modern political realms.

[Chazef]

'Women, in general, need to be loved'
they can choose whether or not they are going to prioritise that, and I don't think you can make that statement anyway. There's clearly evolutionary routes for women wanting love but in no way does should that prohibit them from sexual freedom if that's what they choose. And btw love isn't voluntary so you could wait around for a few years, sexually frustrated as hell, for the right person or you can just go and have sex with people because it's what you want. Either way it's a personal choice
Also popular feminism acknowledged differences between males and females but strives for equality in areas like wages etc that have shit-all to do with biological differences

[brenden]

yeah I'm using anxiety in the non-scientific sense (I think, I've never actually gone and tested for it)

Oh god sorry! I was talking about the orgasm example! I'm on my phone. Didn't even realise you'd posted what I quoted.

Feminism is the modern academic sense is a dead movement aside from a minority of students at universities who live in a fairytale. It's not taken seriously by the majority of women in the public sphere, largely because it's untrue.

The fundamental problem with modern feminism is that it attempts to gain equality for women with men by reasoning that men and women are the same. It's always going to fail, because this is simply untrue. Women and men share a lot in common but we are vastly different creatures in certain aspects of our being. I am all for equality between the sexes, I just think it's a folly to believe we are the same. This shouldn't be such a foreign concept to most people: Are your parents the same and do you love them both equally?

Sexual intimacy is a thing most people want as opposed to strictly biologically satisfying sex, and through experience, I find it unreasonable to suggest that this is easily achieved to the point where people can be achieving it with multiple people at the same time. Love is an incredibly intoxicating thing, the smallest dose can pollute the most resolute of minds and render all other ambitions impossible, and I just find it stupid to equate it with all forms of physical sex. Women, in general, need to be loved, and this has been the case for thousands of years and I find it quite unlikely this will be changing any time soon.

Universities are funny places, but in the public sphere, sexual liberation probably peaked around about the 60s and has been declining ever since, now we're heading more and more back to the traditional boyfriend-girlfriend model, at least I find this through social observance.

I am all for women being allowed to choose their sexual partners and for us to develop a more non-judgemental approach to the diversity of women's sexual interests, but I think it's self-satisfying and narcissism from progressive-types to suggest that there will be a massive sexual liberation where women start sleeping with many many more partners. For what it's worth, women who eschew from obligations to their partner, assuming that there was trust that suggested that they wouldn't cheat on each other, will always be brutally vilified and rightly so, as should men who are in serious relationship.  There is nothing more unnerving to me than giving someone you say you care deeply for your word that they can trust you, and you not respecting them enough to honour this. I could never possibly trust a person in this situation, not an inch.

Besides, committed relationship brings many benefits, you are sharing your life with someone you love, who loves you. Women aren't so foolish to think, 'OK, but because the boys go around and fuck whoever they want with no social repercussions, I want to do that too now'.  Ironically, this would actually be the gender construct because it'd just be females conforming to males.

Just a disclaimer, I am neither progressive nor conservative, I find both labels and sets of people equally stupid in the modern political realms.

Lol

[Chazef]

oh my bad haha, I'll go hunting for the study and hopefully it's scientific and not some pop-psych crap

[helluva]

'Women, in general, need to be loved'
they can choose whether or not they are going to prioritise that, and I don't think you can make that statement anyway. There's clearly evolutionary routes for women wanting love but in no way does should that prohibit them from sexual freedom if that's what they choose. And btw love isn't voluntary so you could wait around for a few years, sexually frustrated as hell, for the right person or you can just go and have sex with people because it's what you want. Either way it's a personal choice
Also popular feminism acknowledged differences between males and females but strives for equality in areas like wages etc that have shit-all to do with biological differences

Of course they can choose, I'm merely commenting the way nature has ordained that many of them will end up choosing. I am not commenting on liberties afforded to women, I am all for choice, I just think it's folly to believe that simply affording someone social liberty will shift the sexual attitudes of women by that massive a magnitude.

You cannot achieve sexual intimacy in such a 'when I want it' manner as you have suggested there either. Human psychology suggests we have an equal desire for sexual intimacy as for basic sexual need.

Please provide a link for that final feminism quip, I have widely read up on feminsm in journals, wikipedia and through countless facebook posts and not once have I seen such a school of thought.

[helluva]

Lol

28% of Americans consider themselves feminists in any sense of the word, jog on.

[spectroscopy]

I was researching this topic a while ago actually before i changed my mind for my research topic ! the title was "is monogamy natural"

evolutionarily, girls usually hold a child for 9 months then give birth and look after and nuture that child whereas the man makes her able to have the baby (im too prude to use other words )
biologically, a woman wants one man who will give her a good child, and will look after her and the kid, by providing food, what they want etc. and the fact that a child takes like 9 months  and you have to look after it makes the woman mainly just want the one stable sorta guy. dudes on the other hand want to have as many kids as they can so they go around trying to have sex with as many women as they can, but eventually they get over the hunt and they get more emotional gratitude from having a partner and a child so they become monogamous too, unless theyve impregnated a few women then they have a couple of partners (LOL)
that, coupled with the fact we are naturally jealous people means that yeah we dont want our partners to be with anyone else !
 like eventually you and your partner share bank accounts, CHILDREN, might jointly own properties or companies, give them power to cut off your life support etc. you need to trust this person, otherwise you are setting yourself up for shit down the road. if they're so whimsical as to have an affair  just because, then how can you trust them with big things? if theyre so deceitful that they have an affair as some attempt as revenge or out of spite, then they might have malicious intentions later on. when you enter a monogamous relationship, you are sorta saying "i want to be doing things in my life with you as my partner"
there was other evidence monogamy is natural too, i found one study (i cant remember where, sorry guys!!) saying that around a good friend/bros partner, men have lower testosterone levels ! apparently this helped when early tribes were forming to keep trust and relationships going and maintain societal structure !!

i found a whole bunch of other shit but i lost it when i handed in my laptop back to the school,
but ya monogamy is natural and mutually beneficial ! even if you go past the utility of it, its nice to have one other special person to exclusively share things with and become a part of each others lives, and if you dont believe all of this, go fall in love and see what happens!!

EDIT: forgot half a sentence 

[helluva]

Whilst your findings on monogamy are interesting and fine. I recommend a book called, 'Godel, Escher Bach.' It explains how increase in precision that is achieved by 'zooming in' or going into finer detail can actually result in loss of accuracy in certain parts. Just because evolution has given the thumbs up to something doesn't mean that it's going to work the best for us right now.

I like to examine not through thought, but through experience, I find it to be the greatest teacher. My friend, get a girlfriend that loves you, cheat on her, and you'll never want to make another female enemy in your life after that experience. I double dare you to try it. You can give her all the logic and reason you want and see how far it gets you. Academia on matters between women and men, it's a lot like hearing a symphony in your dream, only you wake up (or go into the real world) and realise what you were hearing was a piercing fire-alarm.

[Notes4me123]

Feminism is the modern academic sense is a dead movement aside from a minority of students at universities who live in a fairytale. It's not taken seriously by the majority of women in the public sphere, largely because it's untrue.

First of all that is bullshit when you look first at how contentious womens rights are as a political issue. You only have to look at the whole Tony Abbott Cabinet and misogynist debate as well as issues such as paid maternity leave that have deep feminist roots and were very contentious amongst the public as evidence of there still being a strong feminist movement.
It has never been an academic movement like you say and the very practical nature of its targeting, the real changes is societal attitudes, are taken seriously and respected by most of the public today.

The way you speak of thinking it's 'folly to think we are the same' is quite ignorant if you'll pardon me saying so as it is to reject the freedoms for women that the feminist movement strove for. The idea that the sexes are not the defining feature of each human being and that people should be judged on their own merits and such. For you to continue and use generalizing statements such as of women needing to be loved, even if you try and justify it using biological 'science', simple neglects the individual differences inherent to each of us and the freedoms that women have a right to pursue.

I actually agree with your last statement that using the 'feminist' movement is no excuse to justify cheating or breaking agreed terms of a relationship but people also want the choice not to partake in such agreements if they so choose to, but i just strongly disagree with your grouping of all feminists and the movement as completely radical and and how you insist on judging women from above.

[brenden]

Please provide a link for that final feminism quip, I have widely read up on feminsm in journals, wikipedia and through countless facebook posts and not once have I seen such a school of thought.

I'm beginning to doubt your definition of widely read. Anyone with half a brain recognises that men and women aren't equal. Feminism couldn't give a fuck if men, on average, are more biologically prone toward muscular strength than women, on average. How can feminism fight for such equality? That's absurd. Feminism fights for the equal consideration of interests between men and women.

28% of Americans consider themselves feminists in any sense of the word, jog on.

I have no idea what you're supposed to be reinforcing, I was just laughing at your post in general.

[helluva]

First of all that is bullshit when you look first at how contentious womens rights are as a political issue. You only have to look at the whole Tony Abbott Cabinet and misogynist debate as well as issues such as paid maternity leave that have deep feminist roots and were very contentious amongst the public as evidence of there still being a strong feminist movement.

You've misrepresented me here. I am not saying that there is no need for feminism nor am I saying that the principle that women haven't got equality with men just isn't still socially relevant. I am saying that the feminist movement as it exists currently at universities, in this form, it is largely rejected by society. As I said, 'femimism in the modern academic sense

It has never been an academic movement like you say and the very practical nature of its targeting, the real changes is societal attitudes, are taken seriously and respected by most of the public today.

Categorical falsehood. Go up and read on separatist feminism and tell me that feminism does not have roots that are terribly academic.

The way you speak of thinking it's 'folly to think we are the same' is quite ignorant if you'll pardon me saying so as it is to reject the freedoms for women that the feminist movement strove for. The idea that the sexes are not the defining feature of each human being and that people should be judged on their own merits and such. For you to continue and use generalizing statements such as of women needing to be loved, even if you try and justify it using biological 'science', simple neglects the individual differences inherent to each of us and the freedoms that women have a right to pursue.

Freedom in the sense that each can do whatever they want, yes of course I agree. I was never impeding on this, and I never suggested that women must act consistently with any expectation or something that I perceive to be a truth. I was simply describing what I feel to be female nature as a pointer as to what we can expect when there is absolute social liberty for a woman's sexual desires. The very point I was rebutting to was that someone suggested that increased sexual liberty will result in increased promiscuity. So, then, if there is no increased promiscuity, one can reason that sexual liberty has not been achieved. I am all for sexual liberty, I just don't believe that it will follow that women become over and all more promiscuous, and so I used this to show that nature does not ordain that promiscuity necessarily follows liberty. If I don't prove this, and it is still held that from sexual liberty follows promiscuity, then until we have promiscuity we can never say that there is liberty, and I don't believe this to be true.

[achre]

I like to examine not through thought, but through experience, I find it to be the greatest teacher. My friend, get a girlfriend that loves you, cheat on her, and you'll never want to make another female enemy in your life after that experience. I double dare you to try it. You can give her all the logic and reason you want and see how far it gets you.

Was that directed at genji? I thought he was agreeing with you.

First of all that is bullshit when you look first at how contentious womens rights are as a political issue. You only have to look at the whole Tony Abbott Cabinet and misogynist debate as well as issues such as paid maternity leave that have deep feminist roots and were very contentious amongst the public as evidence of there still being a strong feminist movement.
It has never been an academic movement like you say and the very practical nature of its targeting, the real changes is societal attitudes, are taken seriously and respected by most of the public today.

The way you speak of thinking it's 'folly to think we are the same' is quite ignorant if you'll pardon me saying so as it is to reject the freedoms for women that the feminist movement strove for. The idea that the sexes are not the defining feature of each human being and that people should be judged on their own merits and such. For you to continue and use generalizing statements such as of women needing to be loved, even if you try and justify it using biological 'science', simple neglects the individual differences inherent to each of us and the freedoms that women have a right to pursue.

I actually agree with your last statement that using the 'feminist' movement is no excuse to justify cheating or breaking agreed terms of a relationship but people also want the choice not to partake in such agreements if they so choose to, but i just strongly disagree with your grouping of all feminists and the movement as completely radical and and how you insist on judging women from above.

Men and women are deeply, deeply different animals. From our major physical differences which feed our everyday experiences (do you know how many more nerve endings women have than men? Because I don't but I'm told the female experience of being lightly brushed past is quite an experience) to our different emotional perceptions of the world that inform perspectives and relationships. These differences might explain why 93% of all workplace deaths are men - men are simply more physically capable of doing the most dangerous jobs (fishing, mining, construction, forestry, etc. are examples of industries which employ far more men than women). While women have every right to pursue these careers, they generally choose not to. And don't give me any bullshit about the inability of feminization to occur in male dominated industries - there are plenty of examples of traditionally masculine white collar jobs that women have comfortably been able to emerge successfully from in the past few decades.
We are different, and these differences do have tangible effects on things like wages and employment rates, but these effects and differences are not the product of some invisible greater force like the patriarchy or rape culture or whatever it's just nature doing its thing. And that's why feminism is dead or at least not particularly useful or some such idk i got a bit carried away there i have more feelings than sense about this topic
What I'm saying is that if you're going to fight for equality, fight for equal oppourtunity, because no two people and certainly no two groups are ever equal. And we already have those equal oppourtunities. so yeah
how about those social expectations surrounding relationships, huh guys

[helluva]

I'm beginning to doubt your definition of widely read. Anyone with half a brain recognises that men and women aren't equal. Feminism couldn't give a fuck if men, on average, are more biologically prone toward muscular strength than women, on average. How can feminism fight for such equality? That's absurd. Feminism fights for the equal consideration of interests between men and women.
I have no idea what you're supposed to be reinforcing, I was just laughing at your post in general.

No-one was disputing our physical difference, how boring and un-interesting. What about if one of us is better at maths and now because of the capitalist society that we have chosen, the other gender cannot possibly ever hope to make as much money in the workplace?

[brenden]

Feminism is the modern academic sense is a dead movement aside from a minority of students at universities who live in a fairytale. It's not taken seriously by the majority of women in the public sphere, largely because it's untrue.

[Insert source here]. Moreover, saying that feminism is 'untrue' seems like a bit of a non sequitur; it isn't as if feminism is making any sort of definitive, factual statement other than "women and men should have their interests considered equally". How can feminism as a movement be untrue? Please explain.

The fundamental problem with modern feminism is that it attempts to gain equality for women with men by reasoning that men and women are the same.

This is just blatantly wrong. What does 'same' mean? Is feminism trying to say that men and women both have penises, thus they are the same? What "modern feminism" does is attempt to gain a society more conducive to living enjoyable lives for both women and men through a deconstruction of patriarchal societal norms, reasoning that patriarchal norms can be damaging for men and women.

Sexual intimacy is a thing most people want as opposed to strictly biologically satisfying sex

How do you know? And why couldn't someone get 'sexual intimacy' from 'biologically satisfying sex' with someone they weren't previously emotionally involved with?

Women, in general, need to be loved,

Define need, please? Will women die if they are not loved? Women, in general, need to be loved, or else what? Surely you're taking a more general definition of need, but then wouldn't you just say that everyone needs to be loved to some degree?

at least I find this through social observance.

You should find a more reliable and valid source for your findings.

I am all for women being allowed to choose their sexual partners and for us to develop a more non-judgemental approach to the diversity of women's sexual interests, but I think it's self-satisfying and narcissism from progressive-types to suggest that there will be a massive sexual liberation where women start sleeping with many many more partners. For what it's worth, women who eschew from obligations to their partner, assuming that there was trust that suggested that they wouldn't cheat on each other, will always be brutally vilified and rightly so, as should men who are in serious relationship.  There is nothing more unnerving to me than giving someone you say you care deeply for your word that they can trust you, and you not respecting them enough to honour this. I could never possibly trust a person in this situation, not an inch.

I agree.

Women aren't so foolish to think, 'OK, but because the boys go around and fuck whoever they want with no social repercussions, I want to do that too now'.

Just lol.

Ironically, this would actually be the gender construct because it'd just be females conforming to males.

I don't know what you're saying.

Just a disclaimer, I am neither progressive nor conservative, I find both labels and sets of people equally stupid in the modern political realms.

Lol.

No-one was disputing our physical difference, how boring and un-interesting. What about if one of us is better at maths and now because of the capitalist society that we have chosen, the other gender cannot possibly ever hope to make as much money in the workplace?

Define maths.
If this were the case, and men were somehow biologically better at math, then... ok? Seems like it'd fall into the same category as "biologically stronger". Good luck finding enough empirical evidence that's managed to remove 'society' as an extraneous variable to support that theory.

[Chazef]

women are better at mathematical calculation and men are better at mathematical problem solving, so I believe it's understandable that men succeed in this area as we've got computers for calculation, but I don't think feminism wants us to just accept more women even though they're less competent; feminism wants the same pay for the same quality of work and apparently society isn't achieving that right now. Although I do agree that often women simply aren't interested in something (e.g. engineering) so they don't go into that occupation and it gets labelled as an injustice by society, but occupations like psychology which have far more women don't raise as much of a fuss, so in that respect I understand that there are double-standards and over-reactions to some things
btw this debate about gender capabilities is great and it features steven pinker who is a boss (also gives evidence for a few things I've mentioned)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJClNSkFPwE