Sinergy
Posts: 9383
Joined: 4/26/2004
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Hello A/all,
I do not consider myself a Feminist per se. After having studied it in college, and read extensively about it after college, the problem I personally have with much of it is that certain branches of Feminism imply that in a hierarchical structure like modern society, women should be in an upper bracket. The problem I have with this ideal is that hierarchical structures tend to be associated with maleness, and this changeover for women to demand ascendance over males really started during Second Wave feminism in the 1960s.
Which is not to make a blanket statement that All of Anybody felt this way, but much literature supported the utopian ideal that if women were in charge, things would somehow be much better. I studied Utopian thought in college, as well as what actually happened. While many of the ideals are laudable, they almost never work out in practice. This is primarily because the people involved are not interchangeable cogs. But I digress.
quote:
I'm a feminist in that I believe that:
"Gender equality means 'of equal value'. Gender equality does NOT mean 'the same as'."
There seems to exist a problem in most sub-cultures, particularly ones that consider themselves (true or false) ostracized by the general culture, that they fracture from within due to internecine strife over the correct way to do whatever it is the sub-culture does. Examples are rife, from Old Guard or whatever within BDSM, deaf individuals who refuse to communicate with people who can hear, feminist separatists, Presidents who fire cruise missiles at people who dress their women in burlap bags, fanatical muslims, anti-abortionists, etc. I am not saying that any of these alternatives are necessarily wrong, what I find offensive is the "my way or the highway" or "you are either with us or against us" approach they use to get their message accross.
To get back to the point I was making. I consider myself more of a humanist than a feminist. In an individual dynamic, the persons involved can organize the structure of the relationship in whatever way that fits them. I strongly support their right to do so.
There was an interesting article in Esquire several months ago, titled (if memory serves me) "I Worry About The Boy." Society underwent a dramatic change in the 1960s where women finally (as started after world war 2) stood up and demanded that their individual sexual, financial, intellectual, whatever be respected by other people. This works for me, I tend to go with the idea espoused by Samuel Adams (if memory serves) who stated "I may not agree with what you say, good Sir, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." What the article was indicating there is a problem with the idea that society was sexist, because of men, and worked to keep down women or people with different ethnicities, and was overcome by people fighting the injustice of it. This problem was that the latest generation of men in Western culture are being raised with the idea that they personally had something to do with women being put down, simply by virtue of their XY chromosome. Nobody is speaking out for the next generation of men in the same way the last generation spoke out for young girls. What seems to be being bred into the latest generation of men is the idea that they need to suppress their maleness in order to fit in to society, because maleness is somehow bad.
They are being ostracized for being who or what they are, rather than for what they do. I have issues with that.
Juxtapose that with what women have had done to them for eons, being put down for bleeding 5 days a month but not dying. Being accused of being emotional, hysterical, etc. Being forced to go be taken care of in a place seperated from the rest of their tribe during their "moon." Being burned at the stake or stoned to death by whatever church was in charge for being female. I am a humanist because I dont believe that we need one of our genders to be the "Right" gender, while the other one is viewed suspiciously and discriminated for what it is.
Clear as mud?
Sinergy
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"There is a fine line between clever and stupid"
David St. Hubbins "This Is Spinal Tap"
"Every so often you let a word or phrase out and you want to catch it and bring it back. You cant do that, it is gone, gone forever." J. Danforth Quayle
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RE: Are there any feminists out there? - 
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i very much enjoy being the smaller of the species. i very much enjoy my role as a woman in this society. 
i do think the pendulum is starting to swing more toward the single dads raising their children... however, i do see Your point. 
RE: Are there any feminists out there? - 
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