[offtopic split] Egalitariansm + feminism + related topics

[thushan]

If you want to talk about feminism, do so constructively please. There is absolutely no need for personal attacks such as "medicine rejections are coming out...". Constructive conversation and debate is helpful and benefits everyone, mudslinging is beneath us and is best left to Federal Parliament.

[vox nihili]

Just going to pop in and distance myself from any comments that have tried to imply that sexism isn't that bad or that it's just as bad for men.

For the most part, sexism is far more pressing for women. No doubt there are cases of sexism directed against men—and often by feminist authors—but I think we need to appreciate the fact that sexism is an issue that has had an institutional effect on women, not just an emotional one. It has translated into real disadvantage, not just emotional abuse.

Which is very much why I oppose the creation of institutions that favour women over men as a means of combatting sexism. I.e. affirmative action, women's rooms etc etc. I just don't see it as a way of really addressing sexism; it's more of a bandaid solution than anything else.

[ninwa]

I'm all for feminism, but let's face it, the majority of 'feminists' want superiority not equality. They face NO legal inequality, the pay gap can be easily explained by surveys and statistics that show they don't pursue higher paying jobs and money is lower on their priorities when it comes to career choices at a younger age. They still complain whilst men actually face legal inequality such as not being able to see their children and being charged with sexual related crimes with absolutely no evidence. Yes, they face inequality in society, I realise that there are dick heads who shout at them from their car and use their gender as a way to attack them, but 99% of people face the same thing in someway, whether it be for weight, sexuality, race, mental state etc.

The whole feminism movement has pretty much made it okay to attack men in every way to compensate for their 'inequality'. I don't know if many people here watch the morning shows, but when they have the shitty embarrassing 'girls on the grill' segments AKA 10 minutes to complain about how unfair being a woman is by giving as much shit to men as possible, and they literally just degrade men and pretty much label them as selfish, violent, sexual deviants. If they singled out a certain race or any other type of group and did this to them, it would be labeled as hate and they would make the front of the newspaper and be the assholes for the week.

I just think you're way too narrow minded and unaware if you have to sprout around how much of a feminist you are, why not just call it equality or gender equality?

/rantover

Woah, I sounded a bit aggressive reading that back to myself, I just can't stand people who're fighting for equality and only causing more inequality and doing nothing else. Again, I'm 100% for women's rights and equality, I just don't agree with the majority of feminists, and I also do understand that there are reasonable, rational thinking 'feminists' out there.

PS. I know this isn't really on topic with the conversation, the word feminism in the title just annoyed me.

Firstly, I put feminism in the title when I split the thread from UoM chat; it wasn't part of the original post.

Secondly, you really need to study what feminism actually is, you sound incredibly ignorant and, worse, proud of it.

Thirdly,

but 99% of people face the same thing in someway, whether it be for weight, sexuality, race, mental state etc.

1) citation needed
2) lol this is the same reasoning as the people who say "you're clinically depressed? yeah well there are people starving in Africa so how dare you complain" i.e. a non-argument

Fourthly, your post is the equivalent of me saying "The majority of white people want superiority not equality" because for some reason I think the KKK represents the entire Caucasian race, or "The majority of Christians just want to kill all homosexuals" because I think Westboro Baptist Church is representative of the Christian movement. I really hope you realise just how ridiculous you sound, but judging by the rest of your post, I don't hold much hope for that.

Fifthly,

They still complain whilst men actually face legal inequality such as not being able to see their children and being charged with sexual related crimes with absolutely no evidence.

Citation please? As a law student who is currently studying to be a criminal lawyer, I would love to see evidence for this. Otherwise, I would have to assume you're making up bullshit to support your sexist views, which would be unfortunate.

[ninwa]

I agree with this 100%

An unsurprising opinion from someone who once gave us this gem:

I see what you're saying, but if each of the 5 rapes occurred on the same occasion, that would be less traumatising for the victim than if she got raped once a night for 5 nights.

[Ballerina]

I'm unsurprised that I was corrected for personal remarks (which are accurate as I know certain individuals personally), while Sense's long paragraphs weren't despite the fact I am a female and that is directly derogatory. It's the same as pi calling me aggressive because I make sarcastic remarks, when the thread started with Travis' mocking and demeaning statements. But he's male, so he's probably just being assertive.

I think it's pretty obvious the females are discriminated against equally, but avoid my citations and go for your anecdotal data. Very few people would know of the room without knowing what happens it. I very quickly explained the support groups after Travis' first mocking interjection. People will either pass it on University of Melbourne campus and see all the pamphlets and activities, or will know from word of mouth. And yes, they do plan activities that are carried outside, from fundraising awareness that I've already mentioned, to support to speak to domestic partners, which I've already said. And no, it's not behind sealed doors. We do fundraising booths, but you've inferred incorrect without knowing because you don't even attend our university.

Already refuted Travis' same repetitive points, all good~

Ugh, I tend to avoid debates because it really is just repeating the same things to the same individuals in new ways to help them understand. It's so boring.

[brenden]

PS. I know this isn't really on topic with the conversation, the word feminism in the title just annoyed me.

This is pretty disgusting. How can you say "I'm all for women's equality.. I'm just against the things trying to bring it about!"

Feminism is a critical philosophy, not whatever demented thing you've personally decided it is.

You did sound aggressive, but you sounded way more naive. Is legal equality the only type of inequality? Yeah, maybe it is. I forgot that racism doesn't exist anymore.

The reason for not calling it "equality" or labelling yourself an "equalist" is because that's just a timid as fuck term that literally does nothing. Near anyone with half a brain would happily call themselves an "equalist" but what does that say? What philosophical claims does that make other than "people should be basically equal"... which essentially everything makes in some form or another anyway? Feminism has very specific philosophies attached to it that benefits gays/lesbians, women, men, and everyone else under the sun lol.

[Sense]

This is pretty disgusting. How can you say "I'm all for women's equality.. I'm just against the things trying to bring it about!"

Feminism is a critical philosophy, not whatever demented thing you've personally decided it is.

You did sound aggressive, but you sounded way more naive. Is legal equality the only type of inequality? Yeah, maybe it is. I forgot that racism doesn't exist anymore.

The reason for not calling it "equality" or labelling yourself an "equalist" is because that's just a timid as fuck term that literally does nothing. Near anyone with half a brain would happily call themselves an "equalist" but what does that say? What philosophical claims does that make other than "people should be basically equal"... which essentially everything makes in some form or another anyway? Feminism has very specific philosophies attached to it that benefits gays/lesbians, women, men, and everyone else under the sun lol.

I will respond fully to all of these when I get home.

Obviously no one understood what I was trying to say, I'm not bashing feminism in general, I totally agree with it, I'm bashing the way feminists go about things. It's pushing this mentality that you shouldn't do something to women and women only, 'never hit a girl, never ever hit a girl', how about you don't fucking hit anyone - that type of thing. I clearly said that I understand there are reasonable feminists, I'm not aiming this at them.

Call it gender equality then. *ACTIVE* feminists are just pushing a problem and making it only about themselves. If I were to start a campaign about racism, I wouldn't pick one race, I would just make it about racism in general.

By the way, I've had no direct personal experiences with these things, I don't have built up hatred towards feminism for any particular reason like I'm guessing people think I do. It's just my observations and common sense. I'm not trying to piss anyone off either, if I did I'm sorry I wrote that first post out in about 3 or 4 minutes. I'm happy to have a constructive debate about it using real sources and having time to write something and actually think about it.

[brenden]

I'm bashing the way feminists go about things. It's pushing this mentality that you shouldn't do something to women and women only, 'never hit a girl, never ever hit a girl', how about you don't fucking hit anyone - that type of thing. I clearly said that I understand there are reasonable feminists, I'm not aiming this at them.

Again that's just a big generalisation. This reminds me of my bogan Dad that will say something like "I don't like the way muslims go about things" because he sees Today Tonight report the most extreme views they can find. He has never actually engaged with Islam on any level.
Firstly, I think -literally- all feminists that I've spoken to even in passing at the end of a tutorial or something would maintain that you just shouldn't hit anyone. Funnily, feminism has actually forced me to to have less violent attitudes towards males for the sake of logical consistency. But that kind of ignores the fact that women are the overwhelming recipients of regular violence. I very clearly see where you're coming from as far as "violence against anyone - Australia says no" might go, but that's just not target enough, for reasons that I'll come to next...

Call it gender equality then. *ACTIVE* feminists are just pushing a problem and making it only about themselves. If I were to start a campaign about racism, I wouldn't pick one race, I would just make it about racism in general.

If your society featured  two races, and one of them were the socially powerful race, and you decided to make the campaign about racism in general... it would probably be ridiculous ineffective. Lol. No offence to your campaign or anything but it'd just be a shitty idea. Martin Luther King Jr didn't writer a letter from Birmingham Jail to tell people that "racism against everyone is bad, even if you're white!"
He didn't say people should  "pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day" so that both white and black people wouldn't face discrimination. And white people did face discrimination! Those crazy Malcom X people who wanted freedom sure did hate the white folk.
Ghandi didn't protest for the health of the British. Nelson Mandela didn't organise protests so that white South African children didn't have to work on the farms instead of getting an education. How fucking dare them for making it about themselves! lol
Perhaps I'm going a bit far, but my point is made. You don't address inequality with egalitarianism. You address inequality by finding the group with less, and bringing them up.

And of course, all of the great people aforementioned surely had general social equality firmly in their beliefs, as do most feminists, and all legitimate feminists that anyone pays attention to or gives a shit about.
Also, not that it matters, I doubt that many feminists (or many anyone) would maintain that you should "never" hit a girl.

I'm happy to have a constructive debate about it using real sources and having time to write something and actually think about it.

Well, this is positive.

[Russ]

I'm not against feminism (N.B. have done about 10 minutes reading on this in my life) but I don't think these initiatives are necessary.

And what about the support for male victims of domestic violence and sexual assault? Or should men have to keep quiet about these experiences?

While we do experience some discrimination still today, many forget that men also face real issues and are often pressured by society to not share with anyone.

To be fair, there is an obvious stigma against those groups of people. You still hear people at uni say "lol that's so g*y" as an insult, and mature age students get bagged as a stereotype. I understand why they may want their own space, that's obvious, that's fine.

I honestly don't understand how the same can be applied to women at uni.

Also, I'm not upset, just utterly confused at this waste of resources. And if there was a room for men I'd feel the same way (loljks there is, it's called the Engineering department).

I'm never going to say there isn't discrimination against females (there's discrimination against /everyone/), but in relation to the post I quoted, I don't think it's to the same extent as mature age students

I'm all for feminism, but let's face it, the majority of 'feminists' want superiority not equality. They face NO legal inequality, the pay gap can be easily explained by surveys and statistics that show they don't pursue higher paying jobs and money is lower on their priorities when it comes to career choices at a younger age. They still complain whilst men actually face legal inequality such as not being able to see their children and being charged with sexual related crimes with absolutely no evidence. Yes, they face inequality in society, I realise that there are dick heads who shout at them from their car and use their gender as a way to attack them, but 99% of people face the same thing in someway, whether it be for weight, sexuality, race, mental state etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

(It doesn't perfectly apply, but it's extremely accurate and apt)

It's really disappointing to see so much implicit sexism this easily uncovered among left-wing university students in Australia, by a little room in Union House. It's a great example of why it's there.

This is the best post in this terrible thread.

[ninwa]

Call it gender equality then. *ACTIVE* feminists are just pushing a problem and making it only about themselves.

Please do everyone a favour and stop posting your rubbish until you actually learn what feminism stands for, cheers

[Thu Thu Train]

I'm all for feminism, but let's face it, the majority of 'feminists' want superiority not equality. They face NO legal inequality, the pay gap can be easily explained by surveys and statistics that show they don't pursue higher paying jobs and money is lower on their priorities when it comes to career choices at a younger age. They still complain whilst men actually face legal inequality such as not being able to see their children and being charged with sexual related crimes with absolutely no evidence. Yes, they face inequality in society, I realise that there are dick heads who shout at them from their car and use their gender as a way to attack them, but 99% of people face the same thing in someway, whether it be for weight, sexuality, race, mental state etc.

The whole feminism movement has pretty much made it okay to attack men in every way to compensate for their 'inequality'. I don't know if many people here watch the morning shows, but when they have the shitty embarrassing 'girls on the grill' segments AKA 10 minutes to complain about how unfair being a woman is by giving as much shit to men as possible, and they literally just degrade men and pretty much label them as selfish, violent, sexual deviants. If they singled out a certain race or any other type of group and did this to them, it would be labeled as hate and they would make the front of the newspaper and be the assholes for the week.

I just think you're way too narrow minded and unaware if you have to sprout around how much of a feminist you are, why not just call it equality or gender equality?

I don't think you know what the majority of feminists want... I think you think you know what the majority of feminists want by reading tumblr and only listening to the most vocal hate filled feminists. There are heaps of feminists who you wouldn't know are feminists because they never fucking talk about it. I've never seen a, for lack of a better term, "normal" feminist attack a man for being a man. I've seen an "I'm not a sexist but-" man attack a woman for being a feminist though... I don't think you have any idea what the fuck you're talking about.

By the way, I've had no direct personal experiences with these things, I don't have built up hatred towards feminism for any particular reason like I'm guessing people think I do. It's just my observations and common sense.

Now I know you have no idea what you're talking about.

[Sense]

Please do everyone a favour and stop posting your rubbish until you actually learn what feminism stands for, cheers

Do I have to say it again? I agree with and understand what feminism stands for. If you're so adamant that I don't understand, why don't you explain it to me?

I apologised and stated again that I'm pointing out the feminists that aren't productive with what they do, NOT the decent ones.

I'm not going to respond again, clearly no one here wants to be reasonable about anything (yes, I realise my first post wasn't). People who combat everything with useless stabs like 'you have no fucking idea what you're talking about' when I've tried to apologise and haven't even had time to fully respond to everybody are being less constructive than my first post.

[brenden]

Do I have to say it again? I agree with and understand what feminism stands for. If you're so adamant that I don't understand, why don't you explain it to me?

I apologised and stated again that I'm pointing out the feminists that aren't productive with what they do, NOT the decent ones.

I'm not going to respond again, clearly no one here wants to be reasonable about anything (yes, I realise my first post wasn't). People who combat everything with useless stabs like 'you have no fucking idea what you're talking about' when I've tried to apologise and haven't even had time to fully respond to everybody are being less constructive than my first post.

You've pretty consistently demonstrated that you don't understand feminism lol.

[Sense]

You've pretty consistently demonstrated that you don't understand feminism lol.

Why don't you explain it to me then?

Ever thought that people might just have different opinions to other people on certain issues that they fully understand?

[Special At Specialist]

An unsurprising opinion from someone who once gave us this gem:

You've taken that completely out of context. I was saying that the punishment for a crime - any crime - should be more severe when the victim suffers from multiple attacks, as opposed to a single attack. In that example I gave, I was trying to explain how, when a victim is attacked or treated horribly on several occassions, they start to affiliate their day-to-day life with these sorts of incidents. It is harder for them to understand that this behaviour isn't normal when it happens more frequently, and it becomes harder for them to recover psychologically. People affiliate high frequency with normality, and that is very dangerous when someone is attacked on several occassions, because their view of the world becomes much more bleak. But thanks for bringing up a quote I made almost 2 years ago and not explaining the context of it to anyone.

Also, you seem to interpret "I'm all for feminism", as "I am a horrible person who believes that women are inferior to men". Maybe you should re-read what Sense said and stop interpreting everything we say as an attack.

Would you be this upset about a room if it was queer students?

As it is, I fully support having a room for queer students only.
But if 51% of the population was queer AND queer people had exactly the same legal rights as straight people (ie. gay marriage), then I would probably consider it an unnecessary use of limited resources.