Feminism vs. Equality
26 Mar 2011, 10:25 am
How big is this group? Can you make examples of feminists that act like this?
Here in Sweden the feminist party manifesto called for men to pay higher taxes than women to ofset all the years that women have been oppressed by men.
Some activists want to see an extension to the rape laws and what constitutes consent. They want it to be that if the expectations of the woman when she gave consent are not met, then there was in fact no consent and therefore a rape has occured. So for example a woman consensually sleeps with a guy who she thinks really likes her and she expects to have a relationship with. The following day, he's no longer interested, he got what he wanted, end of. They want this to be classed as rape because the woman would not have consented if she knew then what she knows now.
26 Mar 2011, 10:27 am
How big is this group? Can you make examples of feminists that act like this?
Here in Sweden the feminist party manifesto called for men to pay higher taxes than women to ofset all the years that women have been oppressed by men.
Some activists want to see an extension to the rape laws and what constitutes consent. They want it to be that if the expectations of the woman when she gave consent are not met, then there was in fact no consent and therefore a rape has occured. So for example a woman consensually sleeps with a guy who she thinks really likes her and she expects to have a relationship with. The following day, he's no longer interested, he got what he wanted, end of. They want this to be classed as rape because the woman would not have consented if she knew then what she knows now.
That could also be interpreted to mean if she is not satisfied in bed. aren't your rape trials held behind closed doors?
26 Mar 2011, 10:36 am
How big is this group? Can you make examples of feminists that act like this?
Here in Sweden the feminist party manifesto called for men to pay higher taxes than women to ofset all the years that women have been oppressed by men.
Some activists want to see an extension to the rape laws and what constitutes consent. They want it to be that if the expectations of the woman when she gave consent are not met, then there was in fact no consent and therefore a rape has occured. So for example a woman consensually sleeps with a guy who she thinks really likes her and she expects to have a relationship with. The following day, he's no longer interested, he got what he wanted, end of. They want this to be classed as rape because the woman would not have consented if she knew then what she knows now.
That could also be interpreted to mean if she is not satisfied in bed. aren't your rape trials held behind closed doors?
Yep. Some say this is the force behind the Assange case. Both women thought they'd bagged their man, then found out about the other one, then cried rape.
26 Mar 2011, 10:37 am
How big is this group? Can you make examples of feminists that act like this?
Here in Sweden the feminist party manifesto called for men to pay higher taxes than women to ofset all the years that women have been oppressed by men.
Some activists want to see an extension to the rape laws and what constitutes consent. They want it to be that if the expectations of the woman when she gave consent are not met, then there was in fact no consent and therefore a rape has occured. So for example a woman consensually sleeps with a guy who she thinks really likes her and she expects to have a relationship with. The following day, he's no longer interested, he got what he wanted, end of. They want this to be classed as rape because the woman would not have consented if she knew then what she knows now.
I say this as an evil feminist myself - but Scandinavian feminists often go way too far. The way they do parental leave in those countries is quite good, though.
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26 Mar 2011, 10:42 am
How big is this group? Can you make examples of feminists that act like this?
Here in Sweden the feminist party manifesto called for men to pay higher taxes than women to ofset all the years that women have been oppressed by men.
Some activists want to see an extension to the rape laws and what constitutes consent. They want it to be that if the expectations of the woman when she gave consent are not met, then there was in fact no consent and therefore a rape has occured. So for example a woman consensually sleeps with a guy who she thinks really likes her and she expects to have a relationship with. The following day, he's no longer interested, he got what he wanted, end of. They want this to be classed as rape because the woman would not have consented if she knew then what she knows now.
That could also be interpreted to mean if she is not satisfied in bed. aren't your rape trials held behind closed doors?
Yep. Some say this is the force behind the Assange case. Both women thought they'd bagged their man, then found out about the other one, then cried rape.
Also it redefines sex as something there solely for the satisfaction of the woman, if the woman is not satisfied it is rape, but thats implicit so it could be an unintentional redefinition.
26 Mar 2011, 11:06 am
But Swedish women, backed by a strong consciousness of women’s rights and a history of a very public discussion of the scourge of sexual violence, may be more willing than most to look to the law for help.
The number of reported rapes in Sweden is by far the highest in the European Union, according to the European Sourcebook of Crime and Criminal Justice Statistics, which cites 53 offenses per 100,000 inhabitants. Britain has the next highest rate, at 24 per 100,000.
Stefan Lisinski, a veteran crime reporter for the daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter, said he spent between a third to half of his time writing about sexual crimes. Last month a senior police chief was convicted of rape in a high-profile appeals case.
This is most probably not a result of more sexual violence taking place in Sweden, legal experts said, but a result of more crimes being reported.
Some people say, in fact, that if female empowerment — economic, social, and also legal — has a different quality in Sweden than in other countries, it is because men are also at the heart of the gender-equality debate.
Eighty-five percent of Swedish men take parental leave and even conservative male politicians call themselves feminists. With men and women more equal at work and at home, and concerns about the state intruding actively into family and personal affairs long gone, some taboos that may have protected sexual offenders may also be disappearing.
Some people are now lobbying for an additional tightening of the sexual assault and rape laws in Sweden. They contend that the definition of rape should be expanded to include situations in which a woman does not explicitly say no to sex, but clearly signals her opposition in other ways.
“Sometimes we lawyers joke that soon you have to have a written permission before you can have sex,” said Bengt Hesselberg, a defense lawyer with extensive experience in sexual cases. If Sweden’s current criminal code is not much stricter on sexual offenses than those of other European countries, the Swedish laws may be more nuanced, by differentiating among three categories of rape and, unusually, invoking the concept of “unlawful coercion.”
There is a category identified as “severe rape,” which involves a high degree of violence and which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison for the perpetrator; another known as “regular rape,” which may involve some violence and calls for a maximum sentence of six years; and a third called “less severe rape,” which may not involve violence but still includes the imposition of sexual intercourse on a person against her will.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/08/world ... weden.html
26 Mar 2011, 11:40 am
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/1300
I find the article is really very biased and extremely Islamophobic, and I definitely disagree with the overall argument it makes, but it does bring up some ideas that are worth thinking about.
I'm really a feminist because they job I do involves working with many people from the 'third-world' and I work with many, many Muslims. Some of the women I work with are victims of domestic abuse, but a lot of them are frustrated wives who have to do all the housework, with their husband threatening to take another wife if she doesn't please him enough.
I went to a school that was majority Muslim and the some of the Pakistani boys (but not so much the Arabs and North African ones) there really did seem to see women, especially white women, as less than human. Thankfully, the Pakistani community is the North of England are trying to deal with this problem - the white people are too PC to deal with it themselves. I've seen plenty of forced marriages. You really understand what patriarchy if you've ever been friends with someone whilst they were going through a forced marriage. I've seen both male and female victims of this and I really believe patriarchy hurts men almost as much as it hurts women.
My feminism is really with an aim of improving women's standing in society world wide.
The way patriarchy effects me from my own background is that my family history (I don't want to go into details) has meant that the subjugation of women in previous generations has left a kid of phantom patriarchal baggage passed down from mother to daughter. Basically, I come from a very working class background and some of the women in my family have really not been treated well at all - even my own mother had her ambitions stunted because she wasn't a son. People often talk about northern- English working class women like they are very strong and 'matriarchs' - they often say the same thing about black women. They aren't matriarchs really, they just have to be tough to survive. The reason they have to be tough to survive is because some of the men from my culture could be rather selfish - not all of them, because some of them filled the role of traditional provider (like my dad) but a lot of them disappeared to the pub or the betting shop. The thing that gave these men the license to do that was patriarchy.
It's not really like that now, but I mentioned the cultural baggage. One example I can think of is that I often find myself doing little chores and treating them like they're my sole responsibility. When I think, 'why am I always doing this?', I realise it's because I've been brought up with the idea that women do these things because they're women. I don't mind the doing the housework, but the idea is there in my head that I have to.
Patriarchy comes in two forms, I think:
1. Controlling both men and women in traditional roles, where men have the dominant position by virtue of being men.
2. Treating women like beasts of burden.
I have to say the second one applies more to my cultural baggage than the first one does - but it's not a huge issue for me, personally. I have met people (not just women) of many different background for whom either the first or second for of patriarchy is a big and a real issue for them.
Okay, now I might get round to explaining why I think racism against non-whites is very real and bad another time.
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26 Mar 2011, 11:54 am
But that is a matter of tradition, which is already being fought against well enough, women are told they can leave the patriarchy and that they are empowered and can be independent if that is their will, they have the legal power to do so, at a certain point all you can do is hope they take advantage of the opportunities society has offered them.
You didn't actually make any arguments which have a direct relation to the issues of this thread, you just started off with your own monologue about what you perceive as feminisms role. And while this role does exist I doubt anyone would disagree with the role you have painted for feminism, this thread is about more contentious traits of feminism.
I wasn't actually curious about your stance on feminism you made it clear enough, I was just curious about your views on racism and how well they might be formed when all you apparently have to work with is a theory of mind.
Bethie
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26 Mar 2011, 12:11 pm
How big is this group? Can you make examples of feminists that act like this?
Group 2 tends to be NOW, and the more vocal feminists.
ROFL @ NOW being man-hating.
They're not even a radical feminist organization (which, by the way, denotes a specific philosophy regarding the origin of women's oppression, and a specific pragmatism to address it), but a LIBERAL one.
It's also interesting that feminism being defined (in ONE instance)
as "advocacy of political, economic, and cultural equality for women" (roughly)
could be construed as sexist-
"Equal" denotes a relationship between two groups-
rationally, if women are EQUAL with men, men are EQUAL with women.
During the black Civil Rights movement, there was a widespread sentiment among the opposition (in other words, racists)
that the aim was to somehow disenfranchise white people and make them subservient.
That, naturally, is fallacious- the implication that advocacy of the rights of one group is synonymous with advocacy of oppression of another.
Also it's quite a red herring to mention man-hating in the same breath as feminism-
in addition to it being literally contrary to the actual philosophy of feminism itself,
it's factually, as far as it's relevance,
a bit like mentioning those who blow up buildings owned by companies that test on animals whenever ethical veganism is discussed,
or those who murder abortion doctors when "pro-lifers" are discussed.
_________________
For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly, destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay.
Last edited by Bethie on 26 Mar 2011, 12:41 pm, edited 3 times in total.
26 Mar 2011, 12:13 pm
How big is this group? Can you make examples of feminists that act like this?
Group 2 tends to be NOW, and the more vocal feminists.
ROFL @ NOW being man-hating.
Let me clarify, they hate conservative men and conservative women. Liberal men can get away with whatever they want, see Bill Clinton.
26 Mar 2011, 12:14 pm
You didn't actually make any arguments which have a direct relation to the issues of this thread, you just started off with your own monologue about what you perceive as feminisms role. And while this role does exist I doubt anyone would disagree with the role you have painted for feminism, this thread is about more contentious traits of feminism.
The very idea that feminism might even be necessary in the modern world is quite contentious. And I generally see more of a reactionary idealisation of tradition in many areas. Hence the radicalising of religion and hence anti-feminism gaining more support.
I think it is relevant to point out what I think is the role of feminism as a counter-reaction against the strawman (or strawwoman) feminism that often gets erected for a bit of burning in threads such as this one.
It works in the sense that I know I've been brought up with attitudes that are suspicious of people of a different race. I imagined those same attitudes directed towards me. I've seen people be treated in a negative way because they are not white, but it is usually only explicitly from old white people (I used to work in a nursing home and saw it a lot there). I imagine what it would be like to be say, a black man, and have people scared of you, and also to know that a lot of old, white people think of you as less than human. That if you go walking in a rural area, you will be stared at, and that the police are more likely to stop you. I imagine if this was true of myself it would demoralise me quite a bit.
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Last edited by puddingmouse on 26 Mar 2011, 12:30 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Bethie
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Joined: 26 Jul 2010
Age:27
Posts: 2,817
Location: My World, Highview, Louisville, Kentucky, USA, Earth, The Milky Way, Local Group, Local Supercluster
26 Mar 2011, 12:22 pm
How big is this group? Can you make examples of feminists that act like this?
Group 2 tends to be NOW, and the more vocal feminists.
ROFL @ NOW being man-hating.
Let me clarify, they hate conservative men and conservative women. Liberal men can get away with whatever they want, see Bill Clinton.
I dunno about "hate"- sounds like your usual overly-emotional rhetoric-
but their goals and ideology stands in juxtaposition to conservative ideals,
NOW being a progressive organization.
That's called "politics", I believe.
_________________
For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly, destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay.
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